[Edu-sig] a non-rhetorical question
John Zelle
john.zelle at wartburg.edu
Fri Jul 6 16:29:31 CEST 2007
Hi All,
I am very interested in responses to Andy's question because it was just this
sort of frustration with students' inability to write simple programs that
led me to using Python (as opposed to C++ or Java) in CS1. After my switch to
Python and "back to basics" CS1 back in 1999, my results dramatically
improved. However, I've noticed lately that an increasing share of my
(college-level) students are beginning to struggle. It's not like the C++
days, but enough to be concerned.
So I ask myself again "What has changed about the course?" If anything, what
has changed is that I am adding more "bells and whistles" to try to make the
course enticing. Doing projects like HTML screen scrapers, image processing,
and animations. However, even though the students like these projects, I'm
feeling that they may actually detract from learning fundamental concepts
like how to design sentinel loops and simple decisions. Let's face it, every
API you introduce is extra detail for the students to master, no matter
how "fun" it is. Plain old text processing programs can be fun too if:
1) The instructor provides the proper setup/explanation/motivation.
2) Students have opportunity to master them. Students enjoy what they feel
they understand and can do.
On Thursday 05 July 2007 11:24 pm, Michael Tobis wrote:
> Sorry, but I don't think you've successfully motivated your students
> if that is all they can do in a month. Let me hazard a suggestion.
> Rather than being too mabitious you are not being ambitious enough.
>
> Scripting languages have batteries included. Doing the stuff you would
> have done with BASIC in 1980 is not necessary and not sufficient. I
> imagine few tenth graders can connect printing sentences backwards and
> such with anything they care about.
>
> see http://hacketyhack.net
I've looked at hacetyhack.net. As others have pointed out, it looks like lots
of fun for certain well-motivated students. Those with a strong inner-geek
can go to a site like this and actually learn something. But there is a ton
of mystery lurking behind this API, and it's not clear to me that this is the
quickest way for the average student to really learn the universals of
programming.
> I'd rather kids learned Python than Ruby or PHP or ActionScript, but
> I'd *much* rather they learned one of those than nothing at all.
I'd much rather that they learned the power and limitations of computing in
general. Learning the details of any particular specialized API does not seem
all that valuable (or important or useful) to me.
Of course, your mileage may vary. I'm dealing with older and presumeably more
mature students.
--John
--
John M. Zelle, Ph.D. Wartburg College
Professor of Computer Science Waverly, IA
john.zelle at wartburg.edu (319) 352-8360
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