The place of the dynamic programming concept in the progression of contestants' thinking

Abstract

The special problem-solving strategies have been receiving a lot of attention lately, whether it is teaching computational thinking for all or computer science for competitors. A didactically interesting question is how problem solving can be developed in children's minds, what steps and tasks lead through from understanding the idea to its professional usage. In this paper we present and explain how and in what forms the given problem-solving strategies, especially the dynamic programming concept, appear in children's informatics studies: from CS unplugged activities through Bebras tasks and national CS competitions to efficient coding at the IOI.