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

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On 2018-07-30 9:46 AM, Eric Sosman wrote:
> 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!
> 
As a student and especially as a former trainer, I'm a big believer in 
hands-on exercises. If I was hoping to teach Java, I wouldn't have my 
lecture go on at great length: I'd cover some basic concepts and syntax, 
then teach as much as possible through hands-on exercises. In the case 
of loops, I think I would likely incorporate using the debugger so that 
the student could step through the code and see what it was doing on 
each iteration and what changed during each iteration.

I think 90 minutes of lecturing on loops is far too much. I'd be more 
inclined to lecture for 5 or 10 minutes and then have hands-on work that 
was described in writing. Ideally, I would be present to look over the 
students' shoulders to help as they worked on the assignment but I could 
also imagine it being assigned as homework and being available for 
consultations for some time after class in case students had questions 
or maybe review the next morning and answer any questions that had come 
up during the time the students worked on their homework.

-- 
Rhino

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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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