iSnap: Towards Intelligent Tutoring in Novice Programming Environments

Programming environments intentionally designed to support novices have become increasingly popular, and growing research supports their efficacy. While these environments offer features to engage students and reduce the burden of syntax errors, they currently offer little support to students who get stuck and need expert assistance. Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) are computer systems designed to play this role, helping and guiding students to achieve better learning outcomes. We present iSnap, an extension to the Snap programming environment which adds some key features of ITSs, including detailed logging and automatically generated hints. We share results from a pilot study of iSnap, indicating that students are generally willing to use hints and that hints can create positive outcomes. We also highlight some key challenges encountered in the pilot study and discuss their implications for future work.