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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Donyina, Adwoa, Heckel, Reiko
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20469
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Table of Contents:
  • Visual learners think in pictures rather than words and learn best when they utilize representations based on graphs, tables, charts, maps, colors and diagrams. We propose a new pedagogy for teaching pointers in the C programming language using graph transformation systems to visually simulate pointer manipulation. In an Introduction to C course, the topic of pointers is often the most difficult one for students to understand; therefore, we experiment with graph-based representations of dynamic pointer structures to reinforce the learning. Groove, a graph transformation tool, is used to illustrate the behaviour of pointers through modelling and simulation. A study is presented to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach. This paper will also provide a comparison to other teaching methods in this area.