http://www.geekstudies.org/2007/05/who-can-learn-to-program Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:46:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.geekstudies.org/2007/05/who-can-learn-to-program/comment-page-1#comment-55 Chris Fri, 18 May 2007 13:47:48 +0000 http://www.geekstudies.org/2007/05/who-can-learn-to-program#comment-55 I never took a programming class in college (which means you can probably discount whatever I say), but I did take a ComSci class called HTML for Poets. Interesting because I already knew HTML when I took the class. The problem was that they didn't provide any sort of background to real website design, etc. They generally abstracted out the basic tags of HTML and then provided a bunch of examples. Now, this is an okay idea, if someone is going to 1. take the time to pull stuff apart and 2. has the ability to. Now, I'm just talking about HTML which isn't as complicated as actual programming and there were definitely people who just didn't get it and they required more hand holding that the ComSci Prof seemed to offer. (Of course, this was a non majors course, so go figure. ) I never took a programming class in college (which means you can probably discount whatever I say), but I did take a ComSci class called HTML for Poets. Interesting because I already knew HTML when I took the class. The problem was that they didn’t provide any sort of background to real website design, etc. They generally abstracted out the basic tags of HTML and then provided a bunch of examples. Now, this is an okay idea, if someone is going to 1. take the time to pull stuff apart and 2. has the ability to. Now, I’m just talking about HTML which isn’t as complicated as actual programming and there were definitely people who just didn’t get it and they required more hand holding that the ComSci Prof seemed to offer. (Of course, this was a non majors course, so go figure. )

]]> http://www.geekstudies.org/2007/05/who-can-learn-to-program/comment-page-1#comment-53 tony@doombot.com Thu, 17 May 2007 06:34:15 +0000 http://www.geekstudies.org/2007/05/who-can-learn-to-program#comment-53 So many different idea threads here to comment on, I'll start with this thought: college level introductory computer scicence classes don't teach programming, though they do seek to evaluate programming skills. Perhaps I'm poisoned by studying compsci within the context of a research university, but it is my perception that the types of students who are most likely to succeed in introductory computer science classes have an initail grounding in programming prior to college. Certainly other students will pass, but I think they rely on an strong ability to teach themselves, peer networks etc. Perhaps this is unfair to say, but I think that assessment in general is so complciated and the nature of strategies undertaken to pass a class can be so complicated that trying to draw any braod conclusions based on class grades seems not particularly useful. I do think there is a major issue in that computer science curiculi are structured based on the premise that people who would not be succesful as computer programmers need to be weeded out. The issue here is that the skills one acquires in studying computer science are extremely valuable in a variety of contexts, be it logical thinking or actually using programming in domain specific contexts. The number of science graduate students and assorted freelance tech folks I know who rely heavilly on self taught programming skills is pretty staggering. It seems like almost every graduate student I know working with quantitative data does a relatively substantial amount of programming for analaysis and simulations. One of the major failures I see is that computer science at the college level revels in it's abstractness; thankfully the people intent on teaching it to younger students realize that applied programming with increased accessability is key. Scratch is definitley an awesome idea, though certainly not a new one. Logo was probably the most popular "failure" as far as these types of environments go, but there have been many others in between. I personally think Flash is a really exciting tool to work with students with it can be used as just an animation package with Adobe style drawing tools, and then students can build upon that to build interactive objects, games, etc. Unfortunately it isn't free and isn't nearly as easy to use as it should be. The idea of "geeky thinking" is kind of interesting but the author's idea that we could screen out people who can't think "in abstract rule sets" seems far less valuable than say, proposing a new way to teach such skills. I guess whenever I see something referred to as "unteachable" I just irks me as being a cop out, especially when said by someone who would claim to have mastered such skills. In one quick senetence they further elevate themselves for their mastery in an "unteachable" domain and excuse the failures of ineffective teaching. So many different idea threads here to comment on, I’ll start with this thought: college level introductory computer scicence classes don’t teach programming, though they do seek to evaluate programming skills. Perhaps I’m poisoned by studying compsci within the context of a research university, but it is my perception that the types of students who are most likely to succeed in introductory computer science classes have an initail grounding in programming prior to college. Certainly other students will pass, but I think they rely on an strong ability to teach themselves, peer networks etc. Perhaps this is unfair to say, but I think that assessment in general is so complciated and the nature of strategies undertaken to pass a class can be so complicated that trying to draw any braod conclusions based on class grades seems not particularly useful.
I do think there is a major issue in that computer science curiculi are structured based on the premise that people who would not be succesful as computer programmers need to be weeded out. The issue here is that the skills one acquires in studying computer science are extremely valuable in a variety of contexts, be it logical thinking or actually using programming in domain specific contexts. The number of science graduate students and assorted freelance tech folks I know who rely heavilly on self taught programming skills is pretty staggering. It seems like almost every graduate student I know working with quantitative data does a relatively substantial amount of programming for analaysis and simulations.
One of the major failures I see is that computer science at the college level revels in it’s abstractness; thankfully the people intent on teaching it to younger students realize that applied programming with increased accessability is key.
Scratch is definitley an awesome idea, though certainly not a new one. Logo was probably the most popular “failure” as far as these types of environments go, but there have been many others in between. I personally think Flash is a really exciting tool to work with students with it can be used as just an animation package with Adobe style drawing tools, and then students can build upon that to build interactive objects, games, etc. Unfortunately it isn’t free and isn’t nearly as easy to use as it should be.
The idea of “geeky thinking” is kind of interesting but the author’s idea that we could screen out people who can’t think “in abstract rule sets” seems far less valuable than say, proposing a new way to teach such skills. I guess whenever I see something referred to as “unteachable” I just irks me as being a cop out, especially when said by someone who would claim to have mastered such skills. In one quick senetence they further elevate themselves for their mastery in an “unteachable” domain and excuse the failures of ineffective teaching.

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