Computer programming has been identified as a difficult course both to teach and learn. It is even more difficult to learners in developing countries because they are faced with more additional factors deterring learning, which are embedded within the academic, socio-economic and natural environments as well as cultural diversity that makes the teaching and learning of these courses that originate from the western-world (developed countries) more challenging in developing countries, like Tanzania and Africa in general. The difficulties are remarkably reflected in the poor performance and the high failure rates in computer programming courses. While there are a number of pedagogical innovations that were tried but the outcomes are still far from satisfactory, previous studies indicates that the difficulties are due to students lack of generic skills, inadequate pedagogical approaches that dwells more on programming language syntax than on real problem solving (algorithm), inadequately qualified academic staff as well as the students motivational orientation. This study therefore focuses on exploring the role and the potentials of algorithms (flowchart) in teaching computer programming to novices in a preparatory programming course, at Tumaini University, Iringa University College. The results indicates that the novices and beginning students of programming benefit more by using flowchart as the algorithm design method and generally in an environment where emphasis on syntax is reduced and problem solving emphasized.
