Instructional Pseudocode Guide to Teach Problem-Solving

Teaching students problem-solving skills is the biggest challenge for many computing programs. Students often do not consider what questions they need to ask while designing a solution. This paper introduces how technical writing techniques and problem-solving strategies can be combined to help students find those questions and develop programming code through writing instructions and documenting their design process. Preliminary results indicate that this approach helps developing problem-solving skills and improves the student success rate in the first programming course.