Fundamentals of Programming
72 hours face to face + blended
One teaching period or equivalent
Hawthorn
Overview
This unit of study aims to introduce students to structured procedural programming and design.
Requisites
Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Pathways Teaching 3
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
20-October-2025
30-January-2026
30-January-2026
Last self-enrolment date
02-November-2025
Census date
14-November-2025
Last withdraw without fail date
12-December-2025
Results released date
10-February-2026
Pathways Teaching 1
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
23-February-2026
29-May-2026
29-May-2026
Last self-enrolment date
08-March-2026
Census date
24-March-2026
Last withdraw without fail date
14-April-2026
Results released date
09-June-2026
Pathways Teaching 2
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
22-June-2026
25-September-2026
25-September-2026
Last self-enrolment date
05-July-2026
Census date
21-July-2026
Last withdraw without fail date
11-August-2026
Results released date
06-October-2026
Pathways Teaching 3
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
19-October-2026
29-January-2027
29-January-2027
Last self-enrolment date
01-November-2026
Census date
17-November-2026
Last withdraw without fail date
15-December-2026
Results released date
09-February-2027
Learning outcomes
Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:
- Apply code reading and debugging techniques to analyse, interpret, and describe the purpose of program code, and locate within this code errors in syntax, logic, style and/or good practice (K6, S1)
- Describe the principles of structured programming, and relate these to the syntactical elements of the programming language used and the way programs are developed (A2, S1)
- Construct small programs, using the programming languages covered, that include the use of arrays, functions and procedures, parameter passing with call by value and call by reference, custom data types, and pointers (K1, K2, K3, S2)
- Use modular and functional decomposition to break problems down functionally, represent the resulting structures diagrammatically, and implement these structures in code as functions and procedures (S3, A2, A4)
Teaching methods
Hawthorn
| Type | Hours per week | Number of weeks | Total (number of hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-campus Lecture | 2.00 | 12 weeks | 24 |
| On-campus Class | 4.00 | 12 weeks | 48 |
| Unspecified Activities Independent Learning | 6.50 | 12 weeks | 78 |
| TOTAL | 150 |
Assessment
| Type | Task | Weighting | ULO's |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assignment | Individual | 20 - 25% | 1,2,3,4 |
| Assignment 1 | Individual | 20 - 25% | 1,2,3 |
| Assignment 2 | Individual | 20 - 30% | 1,2,3,4 |
| Test | Individual | 20 - 40% | 1,2,3,4 |
Content
- Designing, writing, compiling, documenting, and testing programs
- Programming language syntax
- Structured programming principles
- Functional decomposition
Study resources
Reading materials
A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.