How to achieve better performance in teaching computer programming: Cases of iterative and recursive programming

When students begin to learn how to program computers, the greatest difficulty does not consist in learning a programming language, even considering the various programming paradigms to which it may belong, but rather in the way of conceiving a solution algorithm for a given problem. In this paper methods for learning how to build better programs with iterative and recursive techniques are proposed. Instead of using the traditional and sequential method, following theoretical exposition and creation of algorithms, practical demonstration in a specific framework to write a program in a programming language, program execution and tests, a new approach is introduced where a set of tools, such as Python programming language, Runestone Interactive documents and Online Python tutor, is used to allow the production of enriched documents with text, images, videos, code implementation and execution windows, with the option of step by step running, showing the used data structures and their values evolution, all together in an - Interactive Electronic Document (IED). Students have the opportunity to learn and experience programming concepts in a single document, interactively, increasing learning achievement and level of satisfaction.