Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: tallent@netcom.com (Mike Tallent)
Subject: Re: Teaching programming to non technical students
Message-ID: <tallentCLrJwt.E6r@netcom.com>
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Date: Fri, 25 Feb 1994 04:46:04 GMT
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R.S.Aylett@iti.salford.ac.uk wrote:
: Apologies for asking this question as I'm sure it's been dealt with many times
: before.

: I'm teaching first year students on out BScIT degree two half modules on
: programming. This degree is more business oriented than technical, and
: many/most students  have business/humanities qualifications from school. (Those
: that have done computing before have often been badly taught or self-taught to
: hack away in BASIC).

: I'm currently teaching them in Pascal - mainly because that is well-supported
: by text books. My courses focus on top-down design and implementation, so the
: language isn't all that important - we only do a subset of Pascal and avoid
: pointers and dynamic data structures. The idea is not to teach them to be
: professional programmers, but to give them some basic problem-solving
: approaches and an empathy with the activity.

: My problem is that in spite of what seems to me a very slow pace, about a third
: of the group (of 120 students) are failing badly. I have an hour a week lecture
: with them, an hour a week practical (two sessions, half the group at each with
: a couple of RAs to help me) and an hour surgery, to which about a dozen turn up
: usually. The failing group have terrible difficulty with basic concepts: they
: can't understand how to use repetition in their algorithms for example, and
: procedures with parameters completely baffle them. (I've covered that one
: three-four times in surgeries, but I obviously haven't found a good approach
: yet!) I'd add that in common with other places in the UK, the level of the
: intake has dropped noticeably since the big expansion in numbers - but I feel
: there still has to be a way to help my struggling third.

: Enough about the problem: what I'd like to know is if any of you out there have
: similar difficulties and if so, how you overcome them. What
: approaches/materials/activities are helpful? Do you have any neat
: computer-based tutorial systems? (We have a PC network, so Unix-based software
: is no good for us). Do you find people gasp the basic concepts more easily
: using one language rather than another?

: Any information received with the greatest possible gratitude!

: Ruth Aylett.

I failed Pascal, not once, but 2 quarters in a row. I could only do 
well on the tests if I cheated.

Now I do it for a living, Program that is.

The turning point for me was when I discovered debuggers and learned how 
to visually trace programs and see there effects at the same time. It 
wasn't until then that I could understand simple (Do while loops) and 
nested statements.

Even today when I program, I build mental pictures in my mind of code and 
what is going on. 

Teach people to watch code execute with trace windows. I think it will 
make a difference.

Mike

-- 
                                             tallent@netcom.com
