The Design Space of Turtle Graphics Tasks

Learning environments for programming education need a comprehensive task set that guides students from basic programming concepts to complex challenges. For creating such a task set, it is beneficial to utilize the concept of a design space – a systematic mapping of design dimensions and choices along these dimensions. We propose an iterative process for developing the design space of learning tasks, which leverages student data analysis to refine both the tasks and the design space framework itself. We demonstrate the utility of the process through its application to the design of turtle graphics tasks, showing how it can be used to develop a wide range of turtle graphics tasks for various learning goals. We also illustrate the broader relevance of the proposal by discussing applications in other introductory programming settings.