Richard Gaskin wrote: "I would agree that what you teach should depend on where the learner is on Piaget's scale of cognitive function.
But for adult learners, I usually teach fields for display and variables for computation. Variables play a central role in the art of programming. One could argue that it would be a disservice not to explain how to use them well." This isn't a very nice thing to say, but (you know me by now): Experience has taught me that quite a few adults who perceive themselves as would-be programmers don't seem to have got beyond the 'concrete operational stage' (Paiget: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget ), at least as coping with variables goes. I usually start with the "buckets" image, move onto fields ("visible buckets") and then try variables ("invisible buckets"). The main problem seems to be that, in RR/Metacard/xTalk as one does not explicitly define variables people often say something like the following: "When I put a number in a field that is easy because I have already made the field and I can see it on the VDU, but I don't see how I can put a number in an invisible thing that doesn't exist." Explaining that by naming a variable one calls it into existence (c.f. Hindu creation and Lord Brahma breathing things into existence) doesn't seem to click with many people. Personally I don't find it a problem because I was 14 when I moved from Fortran 4 to BASIC; i.e. while I was still in the 'formal operational stage' and had not yet lapsed/rotted/reverted (choose which ever verb takes your fancy) back to the sort of proto-Neanderthal mentality I now exhibit. Admittedly the LET statement (oddly enough) helped me visualise variable 'containers' popping out of nowhere. I will spend some time this summer with some Bulgarian kids (who have been taught English by me) on a very basic exercise to make a simple calculator in RR; as their age range will be between 8 and 12 it will be very interesting to see who "gets it" re variables. I am not really doing this to teach then programming as such, but as a way to speed up their cognitive development (something that happens anyway with children who learn a foreign language fairly intensively). sincerely, Richmond Mathewson ____________________________________________________________ A Thorn in the flesh is better than a failed Systems Development Life Cycle. ____________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
