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It's a neat idea, but I really want to hear an experience report on the results. I don't want to throw cold water on this, because I want it to work and I thin

by blahedo 15y ago

It's a neat idea, but I really want to hear an experience report on the results. I don't want to throw cold water on this, because I want it to work and I think it might, but I have a fair amount of experience here[0] and can think of a number of reasons why it might go poorly as well. All we see in the OP is, "here's an idea that's cool (and it is) and I'm optimistic that it will work." [0]I have taught courses where intro-level students write Scheme interpreters (in Scheme, in Java) and courses where students implement interpreters for higher-level languages, and courses (well, one so far) where they implement an actual compiler (for a subset of C).

dovyski 15y ago
I will share the results on a future post. I understand your point, but I think the assignment will enhance their skills related to objects, classes, methods and instantiation. That's my goal, not teaching about compilers or language structure. About that they will learn empirically.
- blahedo 15y ago
  Yup! And I didn't mean to sound so negative (sorry). I do hope it works (and want to hear about it when it does!). I've definitely gotten really excited about assignments before when I thought they were neat and that the students ought to be able to figure everything out---but which turned out to be just a bit too hard and thus demoralising rather than empowering. (If that happens, it's still not worth dropping---tweak it until it works. Once you get it working, there's probably a SIGCSE or ITiCSE paper in it for you!)
  - dovyski 15y ago
    No problem :) I really got your point now. I thought about the "demoralising X empowering" and my solution for that was to work with pairs of students. Working as a team, they can discuss and motivate each other. When I blog about the results, I will highlight the number of pairs that completed, partially completed and did not complete the assignment.

by blahedo 15y ago

dovyski 15y ago

I will share the results on a future post. I understand your point, but I think the assignment will enhance their skills related to objects, classes, methods and instantiation. That's my goal, not teaching about compilers or language structure. About that they will learn empirically.

blahedo 15y ago
Yup! And I didn't mean to sound so negative (sorry). I do hope it works (and want to hear about it when it does!). I've definitely gotten really excited about assignments before when I thought they were neat and that the students ought to be able to figure everything out---but which turned out to be just a bit too hard and thus demoralising rather than empowering. (If that happens, it's still not worth dropping---tweak it until it works. Once you get it working, there's probably a SIGCSE or ITiCSE paper in it for you!)
- dovyski 15y ago
  No problem :) I really got your point now. I thought about the "demoralising X empowering" and my solution for that was to work with pairs of students. Working as a team, they can discuss and motivate each other. When I blog about the results, I will highlight the number of pairs that completed, partially completed and did not complete the assignment.