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He was my algorithms professor in ~1999, and he garnered identical praise from our cohort, too. His approach to demystifying recursion is perfect (Chap 1.2): "
by kaap 8y ago
He was my algorithms professor in ~1999, and he garnered identical praise from our cohort, too.
His approach to demystifying recursion is perfect (Chap 1.2):
"The Recursion Fairy will solve all the simpler subproblems for you, using Methods That Are None Of Your Business So Butt Out"
Thanks for your teaching and for this project, Jeff!
- DonaldPShimoda 8y agoI've tried a few approaches to explaining recursion ("just assume that it works", "trust yourself", "turn off your brain" (the latter of which is from Will Byrd)), but I like "Recursion Fairy" an awful lot. Might have to try that next time.
- emme 8y agoWe designed a small tool to bring the fairy metaphor even to lower secondary school students. I actually believe it is a very promising approach. "Nothing to fear but fear itself: introducing recursion in lower secondary schools" https://aladdin.di.unimi.it/materiali/pubb/2017_latice.pdf https://aladdin.di.unimi.it/materiali/pubb/2017_latice.pdf
- ff_ 8y agoSuper interesting! Do you happen to have an Italian translation/version of the paper?
- emme 8y agoNo, I'm sorry... It was thought in Italian... but written only (more or less) in English :-) But the supporting tool is actually in Italian: https://aladdin.di.unimi.it/sw/fatine/ https://aladdin.di.unimi.it/sw/fatine/
- emme 8y agoJust remembered: in fact the work was a master thesis, and the final report is in Italian. http://aladdinsrv.di.unimi.it/archive/pdf/tesi-previtali.pdf http://aladdinsrv.di.unimi.it/archive/pdf/tesi-previtali.pdf Enjoy!
- ff_ 8y agoAmazing, thanks a lot!
- DonaldPShimoda 8y agoThat looks super interesting! I'll take a deeper look when I get the chance. Thanks for sharing!
- emme 8y agoYou're welcome!