Computational thinking as springboard for learning object-oriented programming in an interactive MOOC

The prerequisite knowledge regarding Computer Science (CS) varies strongly among freshmen at university and it seems advisable to compensate for these differences before the first lecture starts. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) might represent a possible solution. We therefore designed and developed a MOOC (called 'LOOP: Learning Object-Oriented Programming') which provides a gentle introduction to computational thinking and object-oriented concepts before the programming part. In addition to the common quizzes, we developed various we-based interactive exercises to enable the learners to experiment and interact directly with the presented concepts. Furthermore, we implemented programming exercises with constructive feedback for the learners using a web-based integrated development environment and additionally an automatic grading system. The target group of the course are prospective students of science or engineering that are due to attend CS lessons in their first terms. The course was conducted as a prototype with a limited number of participants. In a concluding survey, the participants submitted textual feedback on the course; some of them proposed specific improvements for the employed interactive exercises. Yet, the overall feedback was encouragingly positive. In this paper, we describe the design and the development of the course, as well as our initial results.