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I’m spending a lot more time teaching other people to code than I am actually coding at the moment.
Whilst I like teaching, this is not at all in line with how I want to be spending my time.
I TA a mandatory computer course in the management school, and I have a friend taking another mandatory programming course for Engineers. The course I TA teaches VB, and the Engineering course teaches C.
These students aren’t stupid, the students learning VB only have to ask you whether you use VB (of course not, does any self-respecting programmer?) and they know they aren’t learning anything that can’t be done using the built in functions in Excel. The students learning C notice that their TA’s (and the prof) keep accidentally giving them Java code. According to O’Reilly, Java has been overtaking C++ as a teaching language for over a decade. Why are these courses so behind?
I think this is a missed opportunity. Students taking Computer Science have signed up for a degree of torment-by-compiler. These students have not. Instead of a course that they hate why not take the opportunity to create a course that excites them about the potential of programming? Instead of alienating them about the whole concept you motivate them with the reasons and real world examples for why programming is a useful skill to have?
For instance: mashup creation, simple scripting, what an API is (and how to make calls to it), web apps.
Yes, it requires more creativity in course creation. Yes, it may require the people teaching these courses and the TAs to learn more skills. Maybe before it didn’t make a big difference to send a bunch of students into different fields with a hatred for programming. In the new reality though, an understanding of programming and why it is useful would potentially give them a big head start.
What do you think?
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Comments
11.23.09
You've got it backwards. These students should be learning software engineering priciples and methods, like analysis and design first. Teaching them a programming language first is counterproductive.
11.23.09
I don't quite understand what you mean, I'm talking about non-CS students. And I don't think I'm advocating teaching them a programming language at all!
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