On Nov 17, 2013, at 1:27 PM, Norman Ramsey wrote: > But my students have not once written 'require', nor > have they ever seen *me* write 'require'. Over the course of the > term, there few functions that they see two or more times (search in a > binary tree might be one), and no functions that they see defined over > and over to the point of tedium.
1. We use 'require' after a few weeks (once we have outgrown high school material). 2. Formulate assignments where they need to include the same code over and over again. 3. I expect questions from the brightest only but I have been pleasantly surprised here. >> My personal preference is to (1) not have code from one assignment >> be critical for the next one ... [this] is important for weaker >> students. > > I see merits both ways, and I tend to do some of each. In real life, It's a first-semester course. Yes, we can simulate some real life experiences and yes, I like to do so too. No, we can't teach everything in one course, even though the *SL framework enables us to teach the entire core of the curriculum. > code from last week can be critical for next week. And I want to > militate against an experience that is too common among university > students: code is built, used, then thrown away and never examined > again. We have them react to code that they write four/five times this semester. We give them feedback, they need to switch partners, they need to explain code to each other and decide which code base to move forward with. -- Matthias ____________________ Racket Users list: http://lists.racket-lang.org/users