Workshop 3: Amp Stack -- Teaching CS1 Modularity

9:00 AM -- 12:00 PM, Conference Center Meeting Room B+C

Angel Rivera, Utica University

Amp Stack is a lightweight, visual methodology that makes data flow and modular structure explicit by having students design programs as top-to-bottom stacks of "amps" (Input, Compute, and Output blocks) wired together by named ports before they write any code. Participants experience Amp Stack from the student point of view, translate diagrams into runnable Python, then examine how the approach scaffolds CS1 concepts like IPO structure, parameter passing, and modular decomposition. Attendees leave with ready-to-use classroom materials.