Java meets teletubbies: an interaction between program codes and physical props

Teaching students a computer language is not just about teaching them the syntax of a language. It is the underlying concepts behind the language features that are important. In our School, Java is offered as an introductory subject and is becoming the official of students for all our I.T. students. Due to the diversity of students in the first year, it is a challenge to bring all these students to the same level of understanding in some of the issues are theories. It is especially hard when some of the issues are not popular in the physical world. Having said that, our understanding of the environment comes from our interaction with the physical objects around us. We are accustomed to use these concrete items to help comprehend and develop more advanced knowledge. Hence, it is hypothesed that the use of physical props in teaching programming language is beneficial to students in constructing mental models of the abstract programming concepts. The mental model allows them to simulate and to experiment relevant issues without the actual coding. An experiment was designed to interplay the program codes in both the real world and the virtual environment. This approach proved to be very effective to facilitate students in building mental models during the learning process.