Mailman 3 December 2004 - Edu-sig

Acadmic gender gap (was Thoughts)
by John Zelle 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

OK, I lost one message, and then this one was bounced as Spam. I'm trying to post this one last time with a clean subject heading. Hello, I had a long, detailed reply to this post that got "eaten" by the dog that is our email system. This is a shorter note, as Douglas has already posted some ideas that touched on mine regarding women in computer science. The dominance of girls/women in academics now is well-attested. At the undergraduate level we struggle to get high-quality male students, and our Dean's list is about 2/3 women. However, I personally doubt that this has very much to do with any pro-girl agenda in our schools. As far as I can tell (my first child is in first grade now), public education has not changed a whole lot since I went through. And the article points out that what changes have been made are a reflection of new economic realities, not any political agenda. What I think has changed significantly is what our children are doing outside of school. They are watching television, surfing the Internet, and playing video games. There is a growing list of credible scientific research showing that computers and video games for young children are actually detrimental to developing creativity, problem solving skills, concentration (on non-computer tasks) and social skills. There are also some preliminary studies showing a link between electronic media exposure and the epidemic of ADHD diagnoses with its concommitant drugging of our children to "improve their concentration." The time spent huddled with a video game is time not spent out experiencing the real world in all it's richness. It's time not spent in meaningful social interation with peers. Although I love computers, I am in no hurry to expose my youngsters to the virtual world. What has this got to do with an academic gender gap? Well, it's primarily boys that are playing video games and messing around on computers. I just saw an article in Newsweek or Time (can't remember which) that documented how traditional toy manufacturers are getting crushed by the gameboy, xbox, Playstation, and computer-game competition. Boys are starting down this road already in the 3-6 age group. Girls are increasingly affected, but still play with more traditional toys up until age 10 or so. It could just be that the reason boys are not succeeding at the same rate has nothing to do with education per se, but with the increasing number who are simply ill-equipped for school. My hunch is that a well-behaved, non-video-gaming boy does just as well in the supposed "new curriculum" as his female counterpart. Some study needs to be done on this. Given that fewer boys are succeeding, we darn well better figure out ways to attract talented girls/women to the IT field, or we will be in sorry shape. And heaven help us when the marketers finally find the killer electronic game for young girls; that will equalize the playing field in the worst possible way. Those are a few of my thoughts... --John

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explaining functions [Possibly OT]
by Brian van den Broek 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

Hi all, This might be a bit tangential to the topic; if so, my apologies. (I've been reading this list for a while, but have never posted before.) I'm a Python hobbyist, and am not involved in CS education, except peripherally. I am also a grad student in Philosophy who has, for a few years now, been teaching Introduction to Formal Logic to audiences largely composed of Philosophy and Linguistics undergrads with a small contingent of Computer Science undergraduates, too. I have found it difficult to get some of the humanities undergraduates to see the understand the general mathematical concept of a function. Occasionally, even some of the CS students (who, when I see them, have just begun) stumble with the concept, too. The best I have managed to come up with is to tell them that a function is like a 'black box' to which you feed some ordered input of the appropriate sort, and it gives you an output determined entirely by that input. I have found that, at least for the humanities students, getting them to understand some of the material is largely a matter of finding a useful metaphor (and, convincing them that the metaphor is an aid, not the thing in itself). That's been the only way to get the ones bothered by the mathematician's use of "if ... then ..." to accept it. (They don't like that "If 2 + 2 = 97 then I am King of the moon" and "If grass is green then sky is blue" are taken to be true.) So, I am wondering if others on the list have had difficulty getting students (particularly students not primarily studying Math or CS) to get the idea of a function? If so, I'd be very interested in what techniques were of use. Thanks, and I do apologize if this query is received as too peripherally related to the topic of the list. Best to all, Brian vdB

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explaining functions [Possibly OT]
by Robert Ferney 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

Sorry Nicholas, I hit reply instead of reply all, and didn't see that it wasn't getting back to the edu-sig list until I had hit send. On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 18:28:07 -0500, Nicholas Wheeler <dragoncow2(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Isn't a math function the same as a computer-science function? You > give the math function an x, and it returns a y. ie: f(x) = 2*(4x)^x > -or- def f(x): print 2*((4*x)**x). Most people should be able to grasp > that, if they've been through highschool algebra. I work, part-time at a local private school.. The school uses principle based education processes, and they have a placement test to determine where the entry students should be studying, which is repeated every 90 days. The school has found that over 80% of the transfer students from public or similar education have problems with basic integer math operations.. This is your basic 1+1=2 type of thing. Just because a student has physically attended an algebra class, (and even passed said class) does not mean that they have learned the concept of function while doing so.

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Re: [Edu-sig] explaining functions [Possibly OT]
by Laura Creighton 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

Sorry to quote all of this -- When I post a one line message to edu-sig, it gets rejected as spam. If this works, of course, this indicates an attack. I wonder how many other one-line questions I have sent to people have been quietly eaten? Does anybody have any recommendations for an editor for children? In the days I was speaking, I used an editor called 'brief' but I don't think they are in business any more. Laura In a message of Mon, 06 Dec 2004 01:24:02 +0100, Gregor Lingl writes: >Laura Creighton schrieb: > >This examples shows beautifully that there are different concepts of >"function", which >also shows up in Python: some are called to return a result - this *shoul >d* >be independent of global circumstances (variables). (Like mathematical >functions >mentioned in Nicholas' posting.) >The others are functions that *do* something, for instance draw a line >(like forward >from the turtle graphics module). What forward(50) produces is by no mean >s >independent of the state of the machine. (And it returns None!) So these >are called >merely because of their side-effects. > >And (regrettably?) there are many functions which do both: produce >side-effects >and return values (in the real world (especially of students)). > >>And the climax was when I made them fix _each others_ code to make it pr >oduce >>the correct results. I was called 'mean' for that. :-) >> >> >> >By all means, what does 'mean' mean in this context? >Gregor > >>Laura >> >>_______________________________________________ >>Edu-sig mailing list >>Edu-sig(a)python.org >>http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >> >> >> >>

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Re: [Edu-sig] Thoughts?
by ajsiegel＠optonline.net 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

Douglas wrties - > I'd like to see the data that the article uses, especially for the > sciences,and computer science, specifically. I teach computer > science at an all-women's > college. We haven't seen a jump in any enrollment statistics. > Although we did > have a general enrollment decline (like most colleges/universities > did) after > the tech-pop, and also after 9/11/2001. The article does not focus on science education. I would guess - or intuit, or see with my eyes - that behind the statistics, in fact, is the fact that one can achieve academic success, now more than previously, without any serious exposure to the sciences. > > I would be very hesitant to link these stats to changes in the way > we teach > computer science. For one thing, most of the research doesn't advocate > teaching a topic in a "girl-centered" way, but rather teaching in > a more > inclusive manner. That would include making assignments and examples > accessible to all. I would contend that asserting we know how to make this kind of curricula "inclusive", from a gender point of view, overstates greatly our understanding of the differences (if any) between the genders. We end up bringing something no deeper thatn fashion (because that's really as far as we can get) into the computer science classroom. Yuck. > > For another thing, I don't think most people in CS have changed > the way they > teach. I have heard too often that schools "don't have any gender > issues",because *they don't have any women in their CS classes*. They *don't* have a gender issue as long as both genders are welcome to enroll. > > I don't know what Art (and his ESP) have in mind when making his > generalcriticisms, but my colleagues and I see Python as being an > instrument to make > computing more accessible---to everyone, and that the status quo > of how we > teach CS needs some serious revision. Boys like Python funcrtions fine. And if you see something in Python functions that less excludes girls, wonderful. Art

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Re: [Edu-sig] explaining functions [Possibly OT]
by Laura Creighton 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

In a message of Sun, 05 Dec 2004 20:15:07 EST, Brian van den Broek writes: >My own inclination is to say something like "a function is a set of >pairs, where the first member of each pair is an n-tuple of inputs, and >the second member is the m-tuple that is output, and for each input >n-tuple, there is a exactly one output m-tuple to which it is mapped." > >And, right after that, they'd all drop the class ;-) <snip> > >Brian vdB My experience is that it is better to teach this by showing examples, and then getting to any defintions later, rather than starting with a definition. Depending on your class size, you may be able to get them to produce a definition that works. I'd say that your definition doesn't explain why 3 successive calls to random.randrange(4) produces 3 different results. Laura

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Re: [Edu-sig] explaining functions [Possibly OT]
by Laura Creighton 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

In a message of Mon, 06 Dec 2004 01:24:02 +0100, Gregor Lingl writes: > >>And the climax was when I made them fix _each others_ code to make it produce >>the correct results. I was called 'mean' for that. :-) >> >By all means, what does 'mean' mean in this context? >Gregor Well, somewhere along the line -- and these children were 9, 10 years old -- they had absorbed the notion that what programming was all about was for each of them personally to make code that generated the correct result. The notion that it is also about producing something that somebody else can a) understand and b) modify was entirely outside of their experience. The concept 'this answer is right, but this style is lousy, so you should not do things this way' is one that, as far as I could tell, they had never experienced before. And these are very bright children -- so their model of how the world works was 'if the teacher says you have to do it her way when your way produces the correct result, then the teacher is either too stupid to understand how your way works or just likes making you do things over in order to assert her authority'. So she's a fool or a bully. And matters were not helped that I inherited this group from a person who had taught them 'cute calculator triçks', which mean that they thought an interpreter was a fancy calculator. So -- figure out how to solve things and type away at the interpreter until you get the magic, all-important _correct answer_ was exactly what they were used to. So the problem 'you have to make _his_ program work while he has to make _your_ program work' was revolutionary. And some of the really brightest people, found not being able to throw away the whole thing, and start over really, really, frustrating. (And, given the code some of them started with, no wonder :-) ) And not all of them were able to do it. But all of them had a direct personal insight as to why 'bad coding style' was *bad* that did not involve 'pointless rules and other stupid things'. So in an admiring tone they marched off, saying 'oh, Miss, that was _really_ mean, making us do that. That was _so_ _hard_'. Made my day. Laura

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Re: [Edu-sig] explaining functions [Possibly OT]
by Laura Creighton 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

I haven't run into 'don't understand what a function is' but I have run into 'don't understand why you would want to use one'. My youngish students would rather just paste the formula that is in the function again, and again. So I gave them a problem where they calculated the cost of a list of somethings with a tax rate of 5%. The pasters were more or less as fast as the function users. Then I said 'ok, now the government has lowered taxes. They are now 4%'. Suddenly the pasters saw that the function users had a much easier time of it. And the climax was when I made them fix _each others_ code to make it produce the correct results. I was called 'mean' for that. :-) Laura

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Re: [Edu-sig] Thoughts?
by ajsiegel＠optonline.net 05 Dec '04

05 Dec '04

From: Marilyn Davis <marilyn(a)deliberate.com> Date: Saturday, December 4, 2004 1:45 am Subject: [Edu-sig] Thoughts? > > http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=742&e=1&u=/usatoday/200412… > My thoughts? I would like to use the information - if nothing else - to quiet talk of manipulating programming/math educational curricula to better appeal to women/girls. Those kinds of efforts and that kind of thinking was yesterday's academic flavor of month, and at least partly responsible - in my mind - for the statistics you cite. That being another thought - my objection to the article is only to the extent it gives credit to the "report" and the "small group of experts". Other reports and other small groups of experts had formally concluded much about the male-dominated nature of the curricula and the vital need for reform on this score. Why to someone like myself, without an agenda, was it clear that this agenda was overstated, and likely to lead to more "injustice" than it corrected. This *is* political. And the antidote is unfortunately too simple to be taken seriously. To trust more our senses (I think we have more than 5 of them). And trust less the small group of experts. Another thought is more controversial and more dire - that the "girl" friendly curricula to which we have evolved is a seriously inadequate curriculum on the merits, irrespective of the issue of the gender to which it better appeals. But it will take many years to reverse and correct where good intentions and the experts have brought us. Art > struggling academically > > Fri Dec 3, 6:17 AM ET > > Op/Ed - USATODAY.com > > Girls are taking the nation's colleges by storm. > They're streaming to campuses in greater numbers, > earning better grades and graduating more often. The > same phenomenal success shows in high schools, where > girls dominate honor rolls, hold more student > government spots and rake in most of the academic > awards. > > So says a just-released report from the U.S. > Department of Education (news - web sites). > > Impressive. But the real news is tucked into the > deeper, darker corners of the report. Boys are doing > miserably, and nobody knows quite why. On measures > ranging from writing ability to the likelihood of > needing special education, boys are flat-lining - or > worse. > > The phenomenon is most serious in inner cities, but > it's evident in even the wealthiest school districts. > And it's not confined to the United States. The same > trend is turning up throughout the industrialized > world. > > The impact could hardly be overstated. > College-educated people earn twice as much as high > school graduates. If boys can't get to the good-jobs > starting line, which these days is a bachelor's > degree, they won't get a chance to use their natural > competitive skills in the marketplace. > > And when fewer men earn college degrees there are > fewer partners whom educated women find desirable to > marry. That's a debilitating social phenomenon > African-American women have struggled with for years. > > The problem has already grown so severe that three out > of every four private colleges (an informal estimate > from admissions directors) quietly practice > affirmative action for boys, favoring them over girls > in admissions to get near balance. > > Yet for most educators - from kindergarten on up - the > problem is invisible. Any teacher looking for national > research that might define classroom solutions won't > find any. They don't exist. > > The small group of experts who research the problem > only now is beginning to trace its outlines. > > It isn't so much that schools have changed in ways > that hurt boys. It's that society has changed in ways > that help girls. > > Increasingly, success requires verbal skills, which > everyone agrees come more naturally to girls. > Industrial-age jobs that required minimal verbal > skills are disappearing, replaced by information-age > jobs that range from filing insurance claims to law. > Even in technical fields, verbal skills are at a > premium. An auto mechanic or TV repairman now needs to > master complex technical manuals. > > School reformers eventually spotted the need and > reacted strongly, setting standards and writing tests > that demand verbal skills. The SAT and ACT required > for college applicants, for instance, now have an > essay component. > > This puts boys at a huge handicap, and schools haven't > begun to adapt. > > One hint of the inadequacy can be found in research > done by Michael Gurian, author of Boys and Girls Learn > Differently. He surveyed the course offerings of > schools of education throughout the country. His > discovery: 99% of universities and teacher colleges do > not offer a course on the biological differences > between how girls and boys learn. So teachers enter > classrooms unprepared to turn boys into successful > readers. > > Other factors also come quickly into play, setting off > a downward spiral that looks something like this: At > home, dads read to their daughters and throw footballs > to their sons. In elementary school overwhelmingly > female teaching staffs naturally teach in ways that > connect better with girls. Fidgety boys are quickly > defined as suffering from reading disabilities. In > middle school, teachers - still unattuned to the boys' > disadvantages - take no action to correct swelling > reading gaps. > > That brings boys to the pivotal ninth grade, the first > year when they run up against the heavily verbal, > college-track curriculum that school reforms demand of > most schools. And the boys flounder. > > The trend holds through the remaining school years: > Girls shine; boys fade. > > > > Some responses suggested by researchers appear easy. > Assign boys books that they find more appealing, for > example. And bring them along gradually, so they don't > quit. > > But in the end, the problem runs much deeper. It > surely won't be fixed until educators first come to > see that it exists. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig(a)python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >

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Re: [Edu-sig] Re: A better way?
by Jeff Sandys 04 Dec '04

04 Dec '04

-- Beni Cherniavsky <cben(a)users.sf.net> wrote: Jeff Sandys wrote: > I showed this thread at the SeaPIG meeting and we > talked about handling attributes. I pointed out > that the dot is an operator and that you can have > a space between the dot, and the group didn't > believe me until they tried it. > >>>>s = "my string" >>>>s . split() > > ['my', 'string'] > > I think by showing the students that dot is an > operator helps them understand what is going on > and they might not be so concerned about making > the long variable and method dotted chains. > It's important that they realize that the dot is not a pure operator as the rest of Pythons operators: the thing on its right side is not an arbitrary expression but an identifier. So you can't do ``foo . (bar + baz)`` the way you can do ``foo * (bar + baz)``. Showing the equivallence to `getattr()` is a nice way to demonstarte the fact the right argument is not an expression evaluated in the current environment but actually just a string. -- Beni Cherniavsky <cben(a)users.sf.net>, who can only read email on weekends. There you go making dot (.) a special operator. ;-> It is no more special than plus (+), star (*), or percent (%). As you said objects need to have a __getattr__ method for dot to work just as they need __add__ method for plus to work, __mul__ method for star to work and __mod__ method for percent to work. Both numbers and strings have all three methods. The thing on the left or right is never an arbitrary expression, it is an object that might have the corresponding method for the given operator. >>> a = 5 >>> a . __mod__(2) 1 >>> b = "aaa %s ccc" >>> b . __mod__("bbb") 'aaa bbb ccc' I saw where this company, LiveLogix, has an extention of Python that added a "defop" function, that is kind of like a macro pattern language, that allows you to define infix operations. http://logix.livelogix.com/intro.html Thanks, Jeff Sandys ________________________________________________________________ Juno Gift Certificates Give the gift of Internet access this holiday season. http://www.juno.com/give

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