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Re: I need your support for the page which is created for beginners in programming

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On 7/30/2018 8:18 AM, Eric Douglas wrote:
> On Sunday, July 29, 2018 at 2:23:37 PM UTC-4, Eric Sosman wrote:
>> [...]
>>       I'd suggest that you seek for more efficient ways to transfer
>> knowledge to your students.  Repetition can be good in that it aids
>> memorization of important points, but too much repetition -- or too
>> long-winded a presentation -- will bore the student into an uneasy
>> slumber which may impede or even prevent the uptake of knowledge.
>> Polonius tells us that "brevity is the soul of wit," and I suspect
>> that your lectures might be both wittier and more effective if briefer.
>> Focus each lecture on the goal ("What is this lesson about?") and strive
>> to keep the focus sharp.
>>
> 
> There should maybe be 2 learning paths, one for quick learners and one for slow learners.  I did poorly in public school because I didn't do the work because I was bored to death, but have you ever tried to teach Java to someone with no coding experience?  I have and it's not easy.  Some people need a lot of repetition.

     There are surely as many modes of learning (or of failing to learn)
as there are students, but my own experiences as student and teacher
lead me to believe that mere repetition is infrequently the favored
approach.  Repetition is boring by its very nature, dis-incentivizing
the student from repeating, and thereby opposing its own benefits.

     That said, there certainly are topics for which repetition is the
best known method of learning.  We learn our times tables by repetition,
we learn correct spelling by repetition, we learn the circular parry in
sixte and the technique of the trill on high E-flat and the many ways
to swing a cricket bat and ... by repetition.  "Practice makes perfect,"
as it's said, and a goodly part of "practice" is repetition.

     Even so, I think we may draw a line (even if a rather fuzzy one)
between "skill" learning and "topic" learning.  "Muscle memory" is one
sort of thing, and is both attained and maintained in large part by
(supervised) repetition of the desired activity.  "Subject memory" is
in a different sphere, I would say: You do not study history by writing
"The Hundred Years' War began in 1337" over and over and over, nor
geometry by finding the areas of hundreds and hundreds of triangles.

     I do not feel that computer programming is best taught by
repetition -- not even the part about loops, which *are* repetition!

-- 
esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid
Nine hundred five days to go.

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I need your support for the page which is created for beginners in programming Pvr Pasupuleti <pvr.ram34@gmail.com> - 2018-07-29 10:38 -0700
  Re: I need your support for the page which is created for beginners in programming Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2018-07-29 14:23 -0400
    Re: I need your support for the page which is created for beginners in programming Daniele Futtorovic <da.futt.news@laposte-dot-net.invalid> - 2018-07-29 21:12 +0200
    Re: I need your support for the page which is created for beginners in programming Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2018-07-30 05:18 -0700
      Re: I need your support for the page which is created for beginners in programming Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2018-07-30 09:46 -0400
        Re: I need your support for the page which is created for beginners in programming Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> - 2018-09-20 03:04 -0400
        Re: I need your support for the page which is created for beginners in programming Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2018-09-24 05:41 -0700

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