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I do an introductory Python lab course at my university. It's targeted at engineers who still create graphs from Excel and then normally level up to MATLAB, if
by fock 6y ago
I do an introductory Python lab course at my university. It's targeted at engineers who still create graphs from Excel and then normally level up to MATLAB, if things get complicated (think insets, ...). I guess about 30% of the people previously did at least some of the YT/Udemy "courses" on datascience. It's really horrifying for me (not being an engineer myself, but imo having a relatively engineering-like mindset) to see these people horrified at simple tasks like writing a variadic function. "What do I need this for?". Well, it's using the programming environment. And then let them code up a simple version of Levenberg-Marquardt. The level of "why do I need to do this" is astonishing again...
- nitrogen 6y agowhy do I need to do this IMO this is the number one problem of our modern culture around education. Popular culture makes it popular to treat education as pointless, and this even affects students who are pursuing difficult degrees. "Why do I need to study humanities? Why should I learn to code if I think I am born to be someone else's boss?" On the other hand, many teachers in K12 and early university have no ability to connect the "what" with the "why." "The curriculum is the curriculum. The test is the test." If we can solve these problems, our societies will be much better off.
- wickedsickeune 6y agoIf the educator cannot explain why the knowledge is useful, then he is unfit to teach it.