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How Should I Teach a Basic Programming Course?
riverman writes "I have been 'provisioned' at the school where I work to teach a new Computer Science/Programming course. I'm supposed to be teaching everything from the very-very basics (i.e. where that myspace thing is in your computer monitor, and how it knows who your friends are) to the easy-advanced (i.e. PHP classes and Python/Google App Engine). I'm an experienced programmer, but I'm not sure where to start — I could easily assume that my students know something basic they don't. Are there any resources on the internet that could help me find a solid curriculum? What are your suggestions?"
I'm sure many of us have gone through intro-level programming courses of some sort; what are some things your teacher or professor did that worked well, and what didn't work at all?
Computer basics, ie how to use the web, and computer programming do not belong in the same course. People in the audience for either will not be happy with the other.
Don't teach things in 'the abstract'. Give them a task to accomplish that needs particular 'features'.
Then the next 'task' adds more 'features', but doesn't drop the earlier ones learned.
And don't make the tasks abstract either. "do a bubble sort" would qualify as too abstract. While "collect 5 client names from the user and sort them" wouldn't.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The majority of people - even those with college degrees - have a difficult time with logic. Something as simple as an if-else construct can be very confusing to the average person at first.
And there's another twist. About 40% of learners can understand and manipulate abstract concepts, and learn them without any practical experience whatsoever. The other 60% require experiential learning - they have to do before they understand. Fortunately, computers can very easily demonstrate concepts such as if-else...
And how computers work is a mystery to most people. Before you start the course, you should come up with a simple mental model that you can use to explain how a computer works to someone with absolutely no understanding of electronics, logic, etc... For a basic programming course, you should first assess class understanding:
For most programming courses, you should not even assume your students understand how to use the compiler. Furthermore, you should probably come up with a series of simple examples which demonstrate your point without any extraneous code. Because most people learn by doing, one of the first exercises should be to build a simple "hello world" type of application to familiarize themselves with the build tools.
And have fun! Come up with interesting problems. Your students will most likely spend most of their corporate careers doing boring stuff, so they'll appreciate the chance to do fun things like games.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Kids taking an introductory computer course generally are not reading slashdot...
That is why we are nerds, we like stuff that bores other people to tears...
Once you are old enough to realize this, you will function better in the world at large.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
Focusing on pseudocode might be fine in college - but in HS it is very important to start with topics that are actually motivating the students. The danger is that you lose 80% of your students on the way if you do not give them "something to play with" every once in a while.
I remember a story about a teacher that did something similar. He brought in the making for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He then asked the class for instructions on how to make it. It went as follows.
1. "Put the peanut butter on the slice of bread."
He held the jar over the slice of bread and started to shake the jar.
2. ""No you take the knife and use it to spread the peanut jelly"
He started to grab the knife by the blade end.
3. "No grab the knife by the other end."
This time he holds the knife correctly.
4. "Spread the peanut butter on the slice of bread"
He starts to put the peanut butter on the edges of the bread.
This went on in minute detail until it dawned on the students that in everyday speech, we leave a lot out assuming that everyone knows what we are talking about. The students got an understanding of how we must communicate with computers. This in turn opened the discussion to other topics.