Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Paul D. Fernhout wrote: > Now, to go on the offensive here, Doug Engelbert and others clearly showed > even in the late 1960s and early 1970s that a set up with a chord > keyboard in one hand and a mouse in the other is much father than a full > keyboard and a mouse when using a typical computer application. >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_keyset I quite doubt this. The "clearly showed" may be true for editing (mark-up and movement tasks), but as I recall the Augment group was quite frustrated that a fast typist could beat even a well-practiced chord-pad and mouser. The Referenced article claims w/o citation that "Engelbart proved that trained typists, after just a few hours of training, could perform more efficiently using a chord keyboard than a conventional QWERTY keyboard." From what I recall, this was not true for text entry, but was for commands and short phrases. It was the movement back and forth between the keyboard and mouse that killed the skilled typist, not the letter entry speed. The article is suspect, because it claims the chord-pad had 31=2**5-1 distinct chords, but really, it was 30=2**5-2; 0-0-0-0-0 (all up) cannot be entered, and 1-1-1-1-1 was reserved for "cancel that chord, I typo'ed (much as DEL was an over punch to erase a mistaken byte). If you used the mouse buttons with the chord-pad (which I think you did), you had access to 126=2**7-2 or 254=2**8-2 chords if you kept one mouse button out of the chord, enough for all of ASCII (Note the NUL and DEL would still be out, but old paper-tape rules dictated special uses for those characters as well). -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Paul D. Fernhout wrote: >John- > >An excellent post; and I'll have to agree with most of it, including your >conclusions at the end, especially in relation to choosing educational >strategies based on empirical research. > Consensus on this point is an excellent starting point. But even given it, I am not in position to lay down my arms. This is exactly where the issue of my obsession with the influence of commercial interests in these discussions kicks in. The research that gets done tends to be, in reality, the research that gets funded. And the answers returned are largely determined by the questions asked. I had posted an excerpt and link to a public message by Microsoft which was frank and direct about its efforts to direct its (quite considerable) influence at US national educational policy, which cites as its empirical basis research that I consider to be quite specious and that Microsoft had, in part, funded. When those dynamics are at work, and when they are work publicly, and when no general outrage can be generated in connection with those dynamics occurring in plain view - one becomes deeply concerned. As I am. Art ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
John- An excellent post; and I'll have to agree with most of it, including your conclusions at the end, especially in relation to choosing educational strategies based on empirical research. Some minor comments below. John Zelle wrote: > On Thursday 28 December 2006 12:51 pm, Ian Bicking wrote: > >>Paul D. Fernhout wrote: >>>Ian Bicking wrote: >>I offer keyboarding as a counterexample. > > > I'll be keeping this reply very short, as I never learned to touch type. My > keyboarding style is, at best, idiosyncratic. I'd score that one for Paul, > based on my experience. I never "learned to type." I just do it. > Actually, and unfortunately, I am a self taught keyboarder. I started on the original Commodore Pet chiclet calculator style keys. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET I've tried a few typing tutors since (twenty years or so into typing) but never stuck with them. I can type at 60+ words per minute, but, I still mostly need to look at the keyboard, and my accuracy is not 100% (so, more revision is needed, especially if I am excited and type faster). Fortunately, spelling checkers help with some of my loss of accuracy (though sometimes introduce semantic mistakes if I don't read over things carefully, so another cost of being self-taught here). So, I'll have to agree with both you guys -- you can be self-taught and really good at something, but you may still have lost something. A typical example from music is classical pianist training versus jazz pianists who picked it up on their own (and have quirky styles and can never play as complex pieces). On the other hand, today's typing tutor programs have become so interesting that there is little question in my mind that if I had been offered access to one from the start on full sized keyboards, I would have learned as a young kid (the value would have been obvious to me, and the experience interesting). I think my best bet at this point if I wanted to learn to touch type (having a previously learned system to overcome) would be to use a different keyboarding modality. I tried a chord keyboard, but the one I picked (the twiddler) was unergonomic. So, I should either get another one or perhaps get a Dvorak lettered keyboard. http://www.maltron.com/maltron-press.html On the other hand, and perhaps I am wrong i thinking this, it seems quite a few people do not have my ability to take somewhat-legible written notes without looking at the paper (except occasionally). And that just emerged. Still, there is another issue here that for *writing* like emails, touch typing can be a big win. But for *programming* (especially in some languages with lots of symbol characters or numbers) touch typing is not so much of a big win. Programmers spend most of their time reading code (why Python is such an innovation), and when they write code it often has symbols in it or unusual words (so conventional keyboarding training focusing on letters is limited). Also, the task of browsing and editing code is much more mouse intensive than just writing emails, and using the mouse is disruptive to touch typing. So, when writing code, lowered keyboarding performance isn't quite the problem as with writing text. Still, even their, I'll agree, compared to someone who is a touch typist, like my wife, it still would be better to touch type, to improve the flow from ideas to screen. Now, to go on the offensive here, Doug Engelbert and others clearly showed even in the late 1960s and early 1970s that a set up with a chord keyboard in one hand and a mouse in the other is much father than a full keyboard and a mouse when using a typical computer application. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_keyset Then why doesn't everyone use this settup? My only conclusion is that there seems to be a general problem with people investing in IT skills and technology. :-) And that was a big part of Doug Engelbart's point: that people have to be willing (or able or aware) to invest in technologies that make them more productive. Note that court stenographers do use chord keyboards: http://www.slate.com/id/2119534/ and othter compression practices, resultign in accordign to the following link approximately 225 words per minute at very high accuracy (many users of this machine can even reach 300 words per minute): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype Why don't we all make this investment to multiply our text input speed by a factor of five? Especially the people here advocating touch typing. :-) I know for stenographers it is a very high investment (two to three years, thought I am not sure how much time per day is spent on typing). http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos152.htm So perhaps another issue comes up here of diminishing returns. But in any case, I don't think learning keyboarding skills (which is perhaps the one most important thing a kid can learn in the internet age, until voice recognition accuracy improves)
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
On Thursday 28 December 2006 12:51 pm, Ian Bicking wrote: > Paul D. Fernhout wrote: > > Ian Bicking wrote: ... > > If kids wants to get at the stories (or other knowledge) locked in books, > > that motivates them to spend the fifty hours or so of hard work to get to > > the point where they have the key and can then bootstrap themselves to a > > high level of reading skills through practice. Similarly, the key to > > learning to write well is to have something to say (even just a request > > for a toy to buy or an "I love you" note) and then to do it -- even if > > the first results are idiosyncratic and misspelled and ungrammatical. > > I offer keyboarding as a counterexample. It's not all that uncommon > that I find someone who uses computers a great deal who cannot touch > type, because they learned to type as they needed to. Obviously no one > (or at least very few people) learn keyboarding out of a genuine love > for the craft of typing. But if you only learn typing in the natural > way you end up with a self-limited skill; at some point it just about > everyone *should* sit down and learn to touch type. Clearly without > excellent typing skills you could not properly participate in these long > winded discussions ;) (But I suppose one could argue poor typing makes > you a better writer ;) I'll be keeping this reply very short, as I never learned to touch type. My keyboarding style is, at best, idiosyncratic. I'd score that one for Paul, based on my experience. I never "learned to type." I just do it. > > Nothing is more likely to make children not want to read or write than > > following standard pedagogical advice and breaking reading into a series > > of incremental hoops (learn letters, learn words, learn simple sentences, > > and so on) which is just going to bore most kids out of their skulls. Can > > you imagine if we tried to teach kids to listen to spoken language and to > > talk that way? Thankfully, kids learn to listen and talk on their own by > > just absorbing language in their environment and trying to use it to > > accomplish goals meaningful to themselves. Here, things get a little silly. Is there really evidence that children who are motivated to read (say because their parents read to them) are somehow then de-motivated by having that skill taught to them in a sane way? And yes, I'm afraid there is research showing that it's sane. Children who already know their letters pick up reading faster than those who don't. Starting with simple sentences leads to faster learning than starting with Shakespeare, and the best way to quickly enhance reading is to tackle "graded" texts that are at about 75% comprehension. Any easier than that, and you are not learning anything new. Harder than that, you don't have enough scaffolding to figure out new constructs from the context (since the context makes no sense). Not only is that common sense, I believe it's supported by _actual_reading_research_. I might also add that around my house those incremental "hoops" are themselves bringers of much delight. Successfully learning the alphabet is a source of joy to children. However, I really want to weigh in on the second point of this paragraph, as it brings up a faulty analogy I often see in educational debates (even those surrounding programming ;-). I have considerable background in the areas of learning and language acquisition (specifically machine learning for natural language). The consensus of modern linquists is that learning to speak is almost nothing like learning to read (or driving or programing or...you name it). Learning to speak is in your genes. We are adapted through evolution to be a speaking species. Our ability to learn language is so innate and acute that it's arguably best thought of as a "speech organ" or "language instinct" (see Steven Pinker's excellent book of that title). No normal child fails to learn speech in _any_ culture, even those that Ian points out below do not necessarily encourage it. Learning to speak is an inevitable developmental phenomena that requires only exposure to speech at an appropriate age. Just like children don't need to be taught to recognize their mother's face, they do not have to be "taught" to speak. Skills such as reading, writing, mathematics, and programming are not innate. In fact, even with great effort, many people do not learn to read well. There are precious few self-taught readers. The analogy to speech just doesn't cut it. It's even less appropriate for considerations of writing and mathematics. Even learning a second language after a certain age (around puberty) simply does not (and cannot) happen the way we learn our first language as children. Second language learning draws on different cognitive mechanisms. So all those language courses that promise you can learn effortlessly the way a child learns language are just blowing smoke. > Kids are also cute and enjoyable, and adults sing
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Paul D. Fernhout wrote: > Ian Bicking wrote: >> Intrinsic desire is a little hard. It certain happens, but often just >> in a few cases; probably many of us had an intrinsic desire to do the >> thing programming allows, but there's many useful things I learned that >> I had no intrinsic desire to learn. Like writing -- I really hated >> writing as a child, and at that time there was nothing I wanted to do >> with writing. But I don't think it would have been good if I simply >> hadn't worked on the fundamentals of writing until such time that I >> wanted to actually use writing for something. And I still don't just >> write for myself; it's a tool I use for other purposes. > > I'll agree with your larger point in practice in our society, on roles for > both intrinsic motivation of liking some thing versus the extrinsic desire > to learn something just to get some task done. There is another path > humanity used to be on, but we are not back on it much yet, though I feel > we will be more and more (and free and open source software leads the > way), see: >"The Abolition of Work" > http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html >"The Original Affluent Society" > http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901135,00.html > > Still, I might suggest you hated writing as a kid because you were forced > to do it by compulsory schooling before you were ready or willing? > Even if that was not the case for you, it certainly is the case for lots > and lots of people. I hated it intrinsically. I still do at times -- something about committing words and ideas to writing can be quite uncomfortable. Committing ideas to speech can be uncomfortable too, but in a different way; I was also a quiet kid. It's something I had to get over, and sometimes the only way to get over something is to do it, and to be pushed to do it. I think just about everyone needs pushing from time to time, as children or as adults. *What* the person needs to be pushed to do differs. Everyone drives because they are pushed to drive, not because everyone wants to do it. They are pushed by a need to get around, but also social pressure. And well they should be -- because of (understandable) anxiety about driving some people really wouldn't learn even though the skill would be useful to them, without the extra social pressure. > It is funny how we now accept kids learn most easily to walk and talk and > use the potty at different ages, but we still insist they learn to read or > write or do math at specific ages. Here is a school where no one is forced > to read or write or do math or learn to program at any specific age: >"Sudbury Valley School" >http://www.sudval.org/ >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Valley_School > and just about every single kid learns to do all of those well by the time > they graduate (which is far, far higher than most other public or private > schools). [Well, I don't actually know about programming rates among > graduates, so that is just a wild assumption on my part; the other ones > are easily documented. :-)] It's easy for privileged kids with conscientious parents to do fine in these unstructured environments. When I have a kid I'll probably choose an unstructured environment too, because I won't be worrying about their acquisition of basic skills. Well, over the span of time I won't be worrying about it, because I'll be thinking about it from day to day in a tight feedback cycle. If every child had someone thoughtfully watching their progress and connecting that with a larger set of experiences and ideas from the world around them, then our education system wouldn't be that important. (*Without* connecting to a larger world of ideas, I don't think this would be successful -- a thoughtful and dedicated but ignorant caretaker will not accomplish the same thing.) And maybe it's not right to fix our social problems with institutions. But that's not the choice given to us. No one in any position of power is asking how we can tear down institutions. So maybe we can keep these better models in mind, but we still have to look for a way from where we *are* to where we want to be. Where we "are" is relative of course -- where we are here in the US is different from where people are in Brazil, which is probably itself very different from where people are in Libya. And we also must not reject the tools at hand -- the tools given us by the institutions in which we are embedded. I firmly reject the self-imposed impotence of the Luddites, the back-to-Earthers, the purists who won't accept that we can best effect trajectories. > If kids wants to get at the stories (or other knowledge) locked in books, > that motivates them to spend the fifty hours or so of hard work to get to > the point where they have the key and can then bootstrap themselves to a > high level of reading skills through practice. Similar
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Arthur wrote: > It used to be called science. The scientific spirit requiring us to lay the specimen on the table, brutality dissect it, exposing it as metal and as silicon and instruction sets with an intelligence that is a horribly crippled parody of our own. Not in fact to enter into an imaginary symbiotic, soulful relationship with the heap. Art ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Arthur wrote: >That is, at the stage when the fact that an offered experience is a >being mediated through a digital Mystery begins to become something we >can expect to have accepted without a very wrong message attached. > > And even at that stage it is (almost?) exclusively the demystification of the digital Mystery that is of educational import. It used to be called science. Art ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Paul D. Fernhout wrote: >I'll agree with your larger point in practice in our society, on roles for >both intrinsic motivation of liking some thing versus the extrinsic desire >to learn something just to get some task done. There is another path >humanity used to be on, but we are not back on it much yet, though I feel >we will be more and more (and free and open source software leads the >way), see: > "The Abolition of Work" > http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html > "The Original Affluent Society" > http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901135,00.html > >Still, I might suggest you hated writing as a kid because you were forced >to do it by compulsory schooling before you were ready or willing? >Even if that was not the case for you, it certainly is the case for lots >and lots of people. > > We seem to be allowing ourselves radical, and against the grain thinking in all this. So.. Understand then that there are those of us, who - with all good intentions - question the fundamental enterprise being discussed - the simple idea that technology has a pivotal, productive role to play in the endeavor of educating children (for some generally understood definition of "children"). Despite the Sworn Testimony of any number of Certified Geniuses, we are going to hold out for Evidence. Which is different from saying that for those children who are going to grow up in a technology laden society, it is better that they know how to push the right buttons than that they not. But very little intervention is required there, and certainly it should not be confused with education in a more meaningful sense. I, for one, happen to think that an enormous number of possibilities begin to open up later in the developmental game. That is, at the stage when the fact that an offered experience is a being mediated through a digital Mystery begins to become something we can expect to have accepted without a very wrong message attached. Art ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Ian Bicking wrote: > Intrinsic desire is a little hard. It certain happens, but often just > in a few cases; probably many of us had an intrinsic desire to do the > thing programming allows, but there's many useful things I learned that > I had no intrinsic desire to learn. Like writing -- I really hated > writing as a child, and at that time there was nothing I wanted to do > with writing. But I don't think it would have been good if I simply > hadn't worked on the fundamentals of writing until such time that I > wanted to actually use writing for something. And I still don't just > write for myself; it's a tool I use for other purposes. I'll agree with your larger point in practice in our society, on roles for both intrinsic motivation of liking some thing versus the extrinsic desire to learn something just to get some task done. There is another path humanity used to be on, but we are not back on it much yet, though I feel we will be more and more (and free and open source software leads the way), see: "The Abolition of Work" http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html "The Original Affluent Society" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901135,00.html Still, I might suggest you hated writing as a kid because you were forced to do it by compulsory schooling before you were ready or willing? Even if that was not the case for you, it certainly is the case for lots and lots of people. It is funny how we now accept kids learn most easily to walk and talk and use the potty at different ages, but we still insist they learn to read or write or do math at specific ages. Here is a school where no one is forced to read or write or do math or learn to program at any specific age: "Sudbury Valley School" http://www.sudval.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Valley_School and just about every single kid learns to do all of those well by the time they graduate (which is far, far higher than most other public or private schools). [Well, I don't actually know about programming rates among graduates, so that is just a wild assumption on my part; the other ones are easily documented. :-)] From the second link: "Sudbury Valley School has published two studies of their alumni over the past thirty-five years. They have learned, among other things, that about 80% of the students continue to study at other schools after graduating from Sudbury Valley. Most alumni have been accepted at the university of their first choice. Students also generally report happiness with their lives, and many have a stated commitment to public service". And I would suggest Sudbury students are more likely to like those activities (reading, writing, arithmetic, programming) than kids going through compulsory schooling. It is the basis of compassionate reading and writing education such as John Holt fostered, http://www.holtgws.com/index.html that the most compassionate way to get kids to want to read is to get them to believe (accurately) that there are stories locked up in the words, and if they can learn to read, they will gain ownership of those stories for themselves. And the best way to get them to write is to help them see they have something to say. See Holt's book: _Learning All the Time: How small children begin to read, write, count, and investigate the world, without being taught_ http://www.holtgws.com/learningalltheti.html http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Time-John-Caldwell-Holt/dp/0201550911 Fromt he last link: "Holt's thoughts carry the power of common sense. One of his pet peeves: the silly, nonsensical rules of phonics drilled into schoolchildren today. One of those adages, found on the walls of many an elementary school classroom, goes, "When two vowels go out walking, the first one does the talking." Holt points out that two pairs of vowels in the sentence violate the rule. This is not only confusing to some children, but simply "dumb," he complains. He dismisses picture books and primers, with their small, simple vocabularies. In their place, Holt urges parents to expose children to the Yellow Pages, warranties, letters, ticket stubs, and newspapers--the print trappings that adults rely upon for everyday life." If kids wants to get at the stories (or other knowledge) locked in books, that motivates them to spend the fifty hours or so of hard work to get to the point where they have the key and can then bootstrap themselves to a high level of reading skills through practice. Similarly, the key to learning to write well is to have something to say (even just a request for a toy to buy or an "I love you" note) and then to do it -- even if the first results are idiosyncratic and misspelled and ungrammatical. Nothing is more likely to make children not want to read or write than following standard pedagogical advice and breaking reading into a series of incremental hoops (learn letters, learn words, lea
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
>> Arthur wrote:
>>> One theme that seems to run through discussions here is related to this
>>> issue. Is it the educators' mission to find just the right motivational
>>> buttons and push them just right ??? Or rather focus on responding
>>> appropriately to those who come to the learning process with some
>>> critical mass level of motivation???
>>>
>>> It seems to be one of the fault lines, in some of the discussions here.
>> You're right; this is very insightful.
Yes, definitely a useful statement of some of the conflicting goals here
(even if it often seems like this conflict is being projected onto
discussions that otherwise aren't taking any stance on the matter).
Anyway, I've been thinking a bit about the motivation part, maybe a
little like your item 5:
> 5. And as I reflect more on it, here is a fifth options. You could also
> change the task of jumping the bar into something the kid wants to do from
> *intrinsic* motivation. This merges somewhat into point #1, except it
> builds the feedback into the process directly. So, for example, you could
> put up all sorts of numerical feedback about each jump and plot a kids
> increasing jump height against on a big graph so they can see their
> progress jump to jump (with no praise per jump needed, except maybe for
> effort or progress). (Hard to know how to do this in a programming IDE?
> Perhaps length of programs? Or how often you go between syntax errors?)
> Or, for a high tech approach to jump training, perhaps you put up a smoky
> fog with a laser border shining on it to show a target area to jump though
> and then laser illuminate the area the kid actually jumps through (perhaps
> without the bar being there at first), or some such thing. (For
> programming, this might be some fancy system to give you metrics about
> programs you write: like on complexity or simplicity or elegance -- which
> are hard to think of, especially as aesthetic evaluation of programs is
> perhaps hard to formalize.) So, you are changing the nature of the task
> into one where there is continuous feedback of some kind the kids
> intrinsically wants to excel at even if they don't like the original task
> in its own right.
Intrinsic desire is a little hard. It certain happens, but often just
in a few cases; probably many of us had an intrinsic desire to do the
thing programming allows, but there's many useful things I learned that
I had no intrinsic desire to learn. Like writing -- I really hated
writing as a child, and at that time there was nothing I wanted to do
with writing. But I don't think it would have been good if I simply
hadn't worked on the fundamentals of writing until such time that I
wanted to actually use writing for something. And I still don't just
write for myself; it's a tool I use for other purposes.
Most motivation is based on something external, and I think that's fine.
For instance, children often want to learn something to keep up with
their friends, or because someone they respect (like an older sibling or
parent) has a skill and they want to imitate that. To become
exceptionally skilled at something a child will probably have to
eventually find intrinsic satisfaction in the skill, but there's lots of
skills that are valuable without reaching any exceptional level.
Anyway, I've been thinking about a structure for encouraging external
motivation, while trying to avoid coercion. It's definitely informed by
some of the discussions here, as well as other internet phenomena. I
wrote up a proposal of sorts here:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peer_teaching_website
I think it could be useful to provide structure to the otherwise
unstructured activities planned on the laptop. But there's nothing OLPC
specific about it, or really anything specific to any particular domain;
it's not really about teaching programming or anything specific.
At this point I don't really know what I (or OLPC) do with the idea though.
> (*) And if you are not careful, too much extrinsic motivation might create
> a "praise junkie". See:
>http://www.alfiekohn.org/parenting/gj.htm
>http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Praise
>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12648314/
> John Holt talks about how, ironically, children in progressive classrooms
> in affluent school districts (where praise is much given for various
> reasons) may actually live in fear of not getting praised in class, as
> much as a previous generation lived in fear of being whipped or spanked in
> class. Remember, the removal of continual praise is itself a form of
> punishment (deprivation). The short lesson for avoiding that is to praise
> in relation to effort or incremental progress ("You tried really hard!" or
> "You're getting smarter every day!"). From the last link: "Recent
> psychological study findings are quite straightforward and to the point —
> kids need praise to guide the deve
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Arthur wrote: >The analysis/understanding of dense working code is to me the starting >point. Understanding something of the language anatomy is a byproduct >of that effort, not the focus of it. > >I feel strongly that this top->down approach to learning in relationship >to programming, rather than an atomic bottom->up approach approach, is >not generally given its do. > > To state the somewhat obvious - I have been at this general game now for some time, so that I am not suggesting that something like the VPython code is a reasonable place to start for someone who has not been. I am suggesting that readability has been a focus of the Python language from its inception, and that fact makes this general approach more realistic at an early stage of the game than it would otherwise be. And that teaching methodologies that do not take advantage of this fact - by staying too atomic - are perhaps not taking as much advantage of what Python has to offer at the introductory level then it might. In learning C++ I am spending 98% of my time reading, 2% writing. Much the same was true of learning Python at an early stage, at a stage where reading C++ at all was well out of my reach. I am now simply a more sophisticated reader. But reading remains at the core of my learning experience. Art ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Scott David Daniels wrote: >Arthur wrote: > > >>Have dug in quite a bit to VPython's code, which has become an intensive >>C++ course for me. And have accomplished a good deal in keeping the >>project moving forward, healthy and on-track. I happen to be proud of that. >> >> > >I recommend you read Stroustrup's book, "The Design and Evolution of C++." >It will give you a nice skeleton around which to wrap your understanding >of C++, and help you understand how C++ came to be the way it is. > > > I would love to, and should, and probably won't - at least until some time considerably later in the game. The effort to do so does not, in my mind, speak directly enough to my motivations. The relationship of my learning style, and the fact that I was originally drawn toward the study of literature again strikes me. But the "work" I am studying is the VPython code, not the C++ language itself. The fact that the code is dense and difficult, and that I can only understand it in fits and starts and that it requires numerous iterative passes at it in order to begin to "get it", is a motivational plus, rather than a motivational negative. It becomes a game worth playing. It feels efficient. Guess I have a decent tolerance for being at sea, as long as I know that only time, focus, and effort is between me and some land. The analysis/understanding of dense working code is to me the starting point. Understanding something of the language anatomy is a byproduct of that effort, not the focus of it. I feel strongly that this top->down approach to learning in relationship to programming, rather than an atomic bottom->up approach approach, is not generally given its do. Which is part of why I bring the subject and my experience up - here. Art ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Arthur wrote: > Have dug in quite a bit to VPython's code, which has become an intensive > C++ course for me. And have accomplished a good deal in keeping the > project moving forward, healthy and on-track. I happen to be proud of that. I recommend you read Stroustrup's book, "The Design and Evolution of C++." It will give you a nice skeleton around which to wrap your understanding of C++, and help you understand how C++ came to be the way it is. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Paul D. Fernhout wrote: > Arthur wrote: >>One theme that seems to run through discussions here is related to this >>issue. Is it the educators' mission to find just the right motivational >>buttons and push them just right ??? Or rather focus on responding >>appropriately to those who come to the learning process with some >>critical mass level of motivation??? >> >>It seems to be one of the fault lines, in some of the discussions here. > > You're right; this is very insightful. Bad form to reply to myself, I know, but on reflection, I realize there is at least one other obvious alternative. One can also try to change the system to "lower the bar". So, here are some options, if you think of learning to program in Python like learning to jump over a high bar. 1. Motivate kids to want to try really hard and jump over that bar (perhaps using operant conditioning like training dolphins, perhaps just making the value of jumping over the bar so compellingly obvious like the value of driving in US society, or perhaps by wrapping the subject matter in something a kid will find more interesting like a game or contest or story or artwork). This is conventional schooling and even conventional homeschooling at its best -- and is based on *extrinsic* motivation. (*) 2. Leave a bar around, and wait however long it takes until a kid really wants to jump over a bar, and then make any help available to him or her they want right then (just in time learning). This is the "unschooling" approach, and it is also the approach of "free schools". 3. Compel or coerce the child to jump over the bar by whatever unpleasant means is acceptable -- threat of the police or parents, threat of withdrawal of privileges, using peer pressure and related threat of humiliation, or alluding to some long term failure to find a job and succeed in life out of school. This is conventional schooling (or even conventional homeschooling) at its worst. 4. Lower the bar. This is the technology developer point of view (the one I usually have). 5. And as I reflect more on it, here is a fifth options. You could also change the task of jumping the bar into something the kid wants to do from *intrinsic* motivation. This merges somewhat into point #1, except it builds the feedback into the process directly. So, for example, you could put up all sorts of numerical feedback about each jump and plot a kids increasing jump height against on a big graph so they can see their progress jump to jump (with no praise per jump needed, except maybe for effort or progress). (Hard to know how to do this in a programming IDE? Perhaps length of programs? Or how often you go between syntax errors?) Or, for a high tech approach to jump training, perhaps you put up a smoky fog with a laser border shining on it to show a target area to jump though and then laser illuminate the area the kid actually jumps through (perhaps without the bar being there at first), or some such thing. (For programming, this might be some fancy system to give you metrics about programs you write: like on complexity or simplicity or elegance -- which are hard to think of, especially as aesthetic evaluation of programs is perhaps hard to formalize.) So, you are changing the nature of the task into one where there is continuous feedback of some kind the kids intrinsically wants to excel at even if they don't like the original task in its own right. Great teachers in any setting tend to naturally think about their material in this fifth way, I would expect -- assuming they don't otherwise just convey enough excitement to get kids hooked on the subject matter in its own right out of intrinsic interest in, say, the feel of jumping well. In the case of our gardening education work, we could have written a "gardening curriculum" that kids had to study and answer multiple choice questions about, giving out gold stars (extrinsic motivation) for success. Or we could, as we did, make a virtual microworld where they could succeed or fail on their own, where motivation is *intrinsic* from seeing plants grow and harvesting the results, and which might then motivate them to read about gardening from other sources (books, peers, mentors, trial and error, the help system, etc.) in order to make their virtual plants grow better. Now, I think our garden simulator fails at being intrinsically motivating as much as we wanted it to be for various reasons (it's both too confusing from having too many features while also missing some other key features) but I think the *intrinsic* motivating approach was otherwise sound. As primarily a software developer, I think of options #4 and #5 as the ones I explore. :-) I think the fourth option of "lowering the bar" (as well as sometimes the fifth option of "changing the bar") is where I always get into disagreements with Kirby here. He maintains the bar is low enough and intrinsically interesting enough (that is,
Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Arthur wrote: > One theme that seems to run through discussions here is related to this > issue. Is it the educators' mission to find just the right motivational > buttons and push them just right ??? Or rather focus on responding > appropriately to those who come to the learning process with some > critical mass level of motivation??? > > It seems to be one of the fault lines, in some of the discussions here. You're right; this is very insightful. Also in the category of motivation you might add "operant conditioning" and related methods of shaping behavior through positive reinforcement and other techniques. Consider this book by an ex-Dolphin trainer: "Don't Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training" http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Shoot-Dog-Teaching-Training/dp/0553380397 From there: "A groundbreaking behavioral scientist and dynamic animal trainer, Karen Pryor is a powerful proponent of the principles and practical uses of positive reinforcement in teaching new behaviors. Here are the secrets of changing behavior in pets, kids--even yourself--without yelling, threats, force, punishment, guilt trips...or shooting the dog: The principles of the revolutionary "clicker training" method, which owes its phenomenal success to its immediacy of response--so there is no question what action you are rewarding". Clearly these methods can be used to shape how children or adults act in a B.F. Skinner "Walden Two" sort of way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Two Although I might add a third possibility -- hierarchical *force*. You compel the child to learn, or at least go through the motions. We all know this doesn't work well, delivers small results for lots of resources, results in pathologies among students, and so on. But, it does result in some apparent results, which can be motivating to the authority figure themselves in an operant conditioning sort of way. And it is the basis of the theory of modern compulsory schooling -- force kids to deliver themselves to schools between certain hours and go through the motions whether they are interested or not. Peer pressure might be another variant on this; to feel compelled to participate because peers appear to be doing it. But isn't there general agreement these days that using *force* is not a good way to teach? For comparison, learning to drive a car can be a very stressful nerve wracking experienced for some -- and entails far more personal danger than most programming tasks, yet almost everyone learns to drive. As Gatto says here: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/1d.htm "Now come back to the present while I demonstrate that the identical trust placed in ordinary people two hundred years ago still survives where it suits managers of our economy to allow it. Consider the art of driving, which I learned at the age of eleven. Without everybody behind the wheel, our sort of economy would be impossible, so everybody is there, IQ notwithstanding. With less than thirty hours of combined training and experience, a hundred million people are allowed access to vehicular weapons more lethal than pistols or rifles. ... Five gallons of gasoline have the destructive power of a stick of dynamite. The average tank holds fifteen gallons, yet no background check is necessary for dispenser or dispensee. ... Why do we give the power of life and death this way to everyone? It should strike you at once that our unstated official assumptions about human nature are dead wrong. Nearly all people are competent and responsible; universal motoring proves that. The efficiency of motor vehicles as terrorist instruments would have written a tragic record long ago if people were inclined to terrorism. But almost all auto mishaps are accidents, and while there are seemingly a lot of those, the actual fraction of mishaps, when held up against the stupendous number of possibilities for mishap, is quite small. ... Notice how quickly people learn to drive well. Early failure is efficiently corrected, usually self-corrected, because the terrific motivation of staying alive and in one piece steers driving improvement. If the grand theories of Comenius and Herbart about learning by incremental revelation, or those lifelong nanny rules of Owen, Maclure, Pestalozzi, and Beatrice Webb, or those calls for precision in human ranking of Thorndike and Hall, or those nuanced interventions of Yale, Stanford, and Columbia Teachers College were actually as essential as their proponents claimed, this libertarian miracle of motoring would be unfathomable." So with all this potential danger to drivers and society, people make the investment to learn to drive because they want freedom (or just need to transport themselves for a job, to get food, etc.) and society lets them because cars are part of the bedrock of US society. On the other hand, modern cars have been engineered to some extent to be easy to use (compared t
[Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming
Have dug in quite a bit to VPython's code, which has become an intensive C++ course for me. And have accomplished a good deal in keeping the project moving forward, healthy and on-track. I happen to be proud of that. 90% of the battle for this kind of intensive learning process always seems to be motivation. And I don't quite know how learning something like C++ might be approached in other than an intensive manner. What I find is that even on the issue of motivation, the dynamics are nonlinear. Just the right mix of curiosity, practical benefit, desire to contribute, desire for status and recognition, and, of course, spite ;) is what I happen to need to get focused at this level. One theme that seems to run through discussions here is related to this issue. Is it the educators' mission to find just the right motivational buttons and push them just right ??? Or rather focus on responding appropriately to those who come to the learning process with some critical mass level of motivation??? It seems to be one of the fault lines, in some of the discussions here. If one rejects possibility of the first approach - despite possibilities of computer/human symbiosis, the issue becomes easier. So for me, its easier. Art ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
