Conceptual Models of a Program?

retsofaj queries: "Almost all of the introductory programming books I've looked at focus on syntax, with possible digressions into a bit of semantics. What I haven't found are any great discussions that go beyond syntax and semantics and make it all the way to conceptual models. My goal is to develop a set of resources that can be used in an introductory course that teaches students programming starting with conceptual models, as opposed to starting with syntax."

"What I mean by conceptual models are how you think about what a program is (if a program can be anything!). Examples would be (all prefaced by "a program is made up of..."):

• flowcharts (structured programming)
• arrangements of opaque things sending messages to each other (OO)
• transformations of data structures (Wirth's view)
• state machines
• a knowledgebase (Prolog, etc.)
• algebraic operations on sets (Functional languages)

Of course this is just the list I've come up with off the top of me head. My questions for the community are therefore:

1. Who/Where/How are the different models of a program being taught?
2. What conceptual models do you use when programming (and where would I go to find out about them)?

I acknowledge that some of these are covered by UML, but UML seems biased towards the object model of a program, which seems to exclude things like knowledgebases and functional approaches."