On Programming and Spreadsheet Calculations

“Experiment”, “discovery” and “self-teaching” are basic components of active learning. Despite the fact that learners are investigating notions and relationships known long before, their own discovery of something new and unknown for them results in their fascination with an irreplaceable educationa...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gabriela Lovászová, Jozef Hvorecký
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: McMaster University
Series:Spreadsheets in Education
Online Access:http://sie.scholasticahq.com/article/4510-on-programming-and-spreadsheet-calculations.pdf
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author Gabriela Lovászová
Jozef Hvorecký
author_facet Gabriela Lovászová
Jozef Hvorecký
author_sort Gabriela Lovászová
collection DOAJ
description “Experiment”, “discovery” and “self-teaching” are basic components of active learning. Despite the fact that learners are investigating notions and relationships known long before, their own discovery of something new and unknown for them results in their fascination with an irreplaceable educational value. Spreadsheets are one of many environments that can successfully be used for building stages for similar experimentation. Activities described in this paper show how spreadsheet-based calculations can lead students to a deeper comprehension of algorithms, their execution and notation in a programming language. Their goal is to identify a relationship between a notation of an algorithm and the series of figures produced by its execution. During their investigations, students exploit the adaptability of spreadsheets–each change of an input value evokes the complete recalculation of the entire sheet. The instant recalculations allow the students to observe many “runs” of the studied algorithm, to formulate hypotheses and to verify them much faster than any other methods of traditional programming.
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spelling doaj.art-f826c36d07454a85bbfff8a8b4699be52023-01-02T00:19:56ZengMcMaster UniversitySpreadsheets in Education1448-6156On Programming and Spreadsheet CalculationsGabriela LovászováJozef Hvorecký“Experiment”, “discovery” and “self-teaching” are basic components of active learning. Despite the fact that learners are investigating notions and relationships known long before, their own discovery of something new and unknown for them results in their fascination with an irreplaceable educational value. Spreadsheets are one of many environments that can successfully be used for building stages for similar experimentation. Activities described in this paper show how spreadsheet-based calculations can lead students to a deeper comprehension of algorithms, their execution and notation in a programming language. Their goal is to identify a relationship between a notation of an algorithm and the series of figures produced by its execution. During their investigations, students exploit the adaptability of spreadsheets–each change of an input value evokes the complete recalculation of the entire sheet. The instant recalculations allow the students to observe many “runs” of the studied algorithm, to formulate hypotheses and to verify them much faster than any other methods of traditional programming.http://sie.scholasticahq.com/article/4510-on-programming-and-spreadsheet-calculations.pdf
spellingShingle Gabriela Lovászová
Jozef Hvorecký
On Programming and Spreadsheet Calculations
Spreadsheets in Education
title On Programming and Spreadsheet Calculations
title_full On Programming and Spreadsheet Calculations
title_fullStr On Programming and Spreadsheet Calculations
title_full_unstemmed On Programming and Spreadsheet Calculations
title_short On Programming and Spreadsheet Calculations
title_sort on programming and spreadsheet calculations
url http://sie.scholasticahq.com/article/4510-on-programming-and-spreadsheet-calculations.pdf
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