A low-tech, hands-on approach to teaching sorting algorithms to working students

This work focuses upon identifying the educational effects of "activity oriented" instructional techniques. We seek to determine which instructional methods produce enhanced learning and comprehension. Specifically we discuss the problem of learning sorting algorithms, a major topic in every Computer Science curriculum. We present a "low-tech hands-on" teaching method for sorting algorithms. We stress that there is no need to introduce the World-Wide Web or other high technology tools into this scenario. Primary targets for our teaching approach are part-time students that have little time for homework assignments, because they are supporting families and/or have full time jobs. In this paper we also report the results of a statistical evaluation of our approach. The application of our "hands-on" technique to teaching sorting algorithms produces a dramatic improvement of students' test scores.