Re: teaching programming to the unmotivated
Our Media Computation approach was explicitly design to address this issue - we use it to teach our required course for Liberal Arts, Architecture, and Business students. Our papers on the approach can be found at http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-teach/12 We have written an ICER paper about how we convinced students to buy into this: http://home.cc.gatech.edu/allison/uploads/3/guzdial2006.pdf Cheers, Mark - Sent from mobile device -- please excuse typos On Apr 22, 2013, at 3:15 AM, "Gergely Buday" mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi, I teach programming to students who do not really know why they came into the course called business informatics, who are not really versed in mathematics and, possibly because of these, are not motivated to do hard work grasping the concepts and to hack a lot. I feel that they are not fond of problem solving, even in the everyday sense: some of them do not care if they meet a problem, just give up. I guess some of you were faced to this problem, so ask: how can I motivate these students? What is a must to read on this topic? - Gergely -- The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).
Re: teaching programming to the unmotivated
Hello, Keith Whittington at Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY, USA) has done some good work using creative active learning techniques to motivate students, teach programming, and encourage discussion and class participation. Several years ago I had an opportunity to interview some of his students, and they were very enthusiastic about his approach to teaching introductory programming. -- Susan Rothwell Adjunct Instructor, Finger Lakes Community College Ph.D. Candidate, Syracuse University In a message dated 4/22/2013 3:15:16 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Hi, I teach programming to students who do not really know why they came into the course called business informatics, who are not really versed in mathematics and, possibly because of these, are not motivated to do hard work grasping the concepts and to hack a lot. I feel that they are not fond of problem solving, even in the everyday sense: some of them do not care if they meet a problem, just give up. I guess some of you were faced to this problem, so ask: how can I motivate these students? What is a must to read on this topic? - Gergely -- The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).
Re: teaching programming to the unmotivated
Hi Gergely, I don't know if this helps but I use a problem solving approach from "apps for good" method to introduce students from HE and secondary education to programming that have not do any computer science before. The apps for good approach aims for mobile applications but the approach works for any area of problem solving e.g. web apps, physical computing etc. The critical idea is getting the students to work in small groups, come up with their own problems that they work on together. They then use Balsamiq (wireframe tool) for their design and then move towards any programming language you have in mind. A natural and simple progression is MIT apps inventor, which quickly enables them to prototype their solutions to run on mobile phones but there is a simulator etc. As a programming language it has its limitations but it depends on the aim of the course/module. I have used various workshop methods but the central thing is team work and letting them come up with a problem they would like to solve. I'll send the resources in a separate link. Another great way to get them motivated is peer-assessment of the projects they have designed solutions. Best wishes, Patricia On 22 Apr 2013, at 08:14, Gergely Buday wrote: > Hi, > > I teach programming to students who do not really know why they came > into the course called business informatics, who are not really versed > in mathematics and, possibly because of these, are not motivated to do > hard work grasping the concepts and to hack a lot. I feel that they > are not fond of problem solving, even in the everyday sense: some of > them do not care if they meet a problem, just give up. > > I guess some of you were faced to this problem, so ask: how can I > motivate these students? > > What is a must to read on this topic? > > - Gergely > > -- > The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt > charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302). >
RE: teaching programming to the unmotivated
anything about self-theories (Dweck). Laurie Murphy and I wrote a paper about this for ItiCSe a few years ago Dangers of a fixed mindset: implications of self-theories research for computer science education and then I was involved in an intervention that was not successful. I think that people at Glasgow have had some success with this though It's the fundamental problem isn't it? Lynda --- *** Dr. L.A. Thomas *** Cyfrifiadureg * Computer Science Prifysgol AberystwythUniversity [email protected] SY23 3DB (01970)622452 --- From: Gergely Buday [[email protected]] Sent: 22 April 2013 08:14 To: Ppig-Discuss-List Subject: teaching programming to the unmotivated Hi, I teach programming to students who do not really know why they came into the course called business informatics, who are not really versed in mathematics and, possibly because of these, are not motivated to do hard work grasping the concepts and to hack a lot. I feel that they are not fond of problem solving, even in the everyday sense: some of them do not care if they meet a problem, just give up. I guess some of you were faced to this problem, so ask: how can I motivate these students? What is a must to read on this topic? - Gergely -- The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).
