Examples play an important role in the teaching and learning of programming. Students and teachers alike rely on examples as one of the most helpful resources for learning to program.

One of the greatest challenges in example development is making them consistent with the many principles, guidelines and rules we want to instill in our students. Failing to do so, will make it difficult for the learners to recognize patterns and telling an example's superficial and arbitrary surface properties from those that are structurally or conceptually important.

So-called worked examples play an important role as efficient learning scenarios. Worked examples are instructional devices that provide a problem solution for a learner to study. Although there is no precise definition, worked examples share certain common characteristics. As instructional devices, they include a problem statement and a procedure for solving the problem; together, these are meant to show how other similar problems might be solved. In a sense, they provide a role model of problem solving for the learner to study and emulate. Examples typically present solutions in a step-by-step fashion. In many cases, worked examples include auxiliary representations of a given problem, such as diagrams.

The worked examples approach is particularly relevant to programs of instruction that seek to promote skills acquisition, a goal of many instructional programs in domains such as music, chess, and programming. From this viewpoint, learning from worked examples is of major importance in initial stages of cognitive skills acquisition.

In the workshop, participants will be encouraged to submit examples that they have used in their teaching. During the course of the pre-workshop and workshop activities, the workshop community will work together to ensure that there is a clear description of the problem, the context in relation to a topic or course, relevant supplemental materials (e.g. diagrams, code snippets), and that there is a defined progression of how to present the example and eventual solution. This process might involve discussion of pure classroom examples (those that are demonstrated fully in the classroom), or pure assignments (those that are given solely for the students to complete), or ideally, an example that is started and explained in the classroom and then given to the students to finish as an assignment.

This workshop is therefore soliciting submissions in, but not limited to, the following areas:

• (worked) examples of teaching the process of programming
• (worked) examples of teaching OO modeling and programming
• (worked) examples of teaching problem solving and programming

The goal of the workshop is to share and refine worked examples for programming education and develop an understanding of the following (and possibly other) issues:

• why worked examples may be effective
• what constitutes an exemplary worked example
• how worked examples can be designed and used
• how worked examples can be shared
• what areas of programming education are particularly suited for worked examples