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IMHO, this is bad advice. It is like saying if you want to teach how to change oil in the car, teach the entire automotive engineering curriculum. Introducing

by hsshah 14y ago

IMHO, this is bad advice. It is like saying if you want to teach how to change oil in the car, teach the entire automotive engineering curriculum. Introducing extreme complexity so early in the process turns off people; they give up easily and (falsely, in many cases) start believing that programming is not for them. The first introduction should have enough fundamental programming concepts to enable the students to make something useful and tangible, by themselves. As the interests and the objectives grow, they can delve deeper into the domain. I think with Khan Academy, Udacity and others, we are entering a new paradigm of "Just in time learning". Schools should focus on teaching smart learning techniques, critical thinking etc instead of cramming more and more topics in their curriculums.

Permit 14y ago
I completely agree with this. Nothing is more frustrating as a beginner than getting confused and not even knowing what questions to ask. When you introduce concepts such as addressing/pointers(which are typically in hexadecimal) and memory management you add many more moving parts to the mix. In my opinion, abstracting a lot of this stuff away helps lower the number of opportunities on which a beginner can get caught up.
fusiongyro 14y ago
Is it true? It's easy to spout platitudes about what learners should and should not have to learn and why, but have they been tested? A lot of people who went to my school would have preferred a curriculum based on Python and writing games, but the ones that graduated seem pretty glad they instead endured a curriculum based on C and culminating in compiler writing. I'm happy to live in a post-Alan Kay world, but I think maybe it's time to dust off that sculpture of Dijkstra we keep in storage and move it out into the foyer. Programming is hard; glossing over what makes it hard in the name of doing stuff sooner may or may not help, but as long as we debate it without testing it empirically we're sure to get nowhere.
- hsshah 14y ago
  That is indeed a good question. One of the key challenge in reforming education field is the feedback cycle is big. Very time consuming to track experiments. So I have add that what I stated was my hypothesis reinforced with a small dataset of my experience teaching 'Computing & Internet' to middle school kids. I have to clarify that my comment was targeted towards current Udacity (other MOOC) participants who wants to learn programming as a value added skill or hobby. If you want to graduate with CS major and/or want to pick CS as a profession; I do believe you need to have a good understanding on the entire stack. There are no shortcuts to being a good professional and achieving mastery in any field requires committed hard work.

by hsshah 14y ago

Permit 14y ago

I completely agree with this. Nothing is more frustrating as a beginner than getting confused and not even knowing what questions to ask. When you introduce concepts such as addressing/pointers(which are typically in hexadecimal) and memory management you add many more moving parts to the mix. In my opinion, abstracting a lot of this stuff away helps lower the number of opportunities on which a beginner can get caught up.

fusiongyro 14y ago

Is it true? It's easy to spout platitudes about what learners should and should not have to learn and why, but have they been tested? A lot of people who went to my school would have preferred a curriculum based on Python and writing games, but the ones that graduated seem pretty glad they instead endured a curriculum based on C and culminating in compiler writing. I'm happy to live in a post-Alan Kay world, but I think maybe it's time to dust off that sculpture of Dijkstra we keep in storage and move it out into the foyer. Programming is hard; glossing over what makes it hard in the name of doing stuff sooner may or may not help, but as long as we debate it without testing it empirically we're sure to get nowhere.

hsshah 14y ago
That is indeed a good question. One of the key challenge in reforming education field is the feedback cycle is big. Very time consuming to track experiments. So I have add that what I stated was my hypothesis reinforced with a small dataset of my experience teaching 'Computing & Internet' to middle school kids. I have to clarify that my comment was targeted towards current Udacity (other MOOC) participants who wants to learn programming as a value added skill or hobby. If you want to graduate with CS major and/or want to pick CS as a profession; I do believe you need to have a good understanding on the entire stack. There are no shortcuts to being a good professional and achieving mastery in any field requires committed hard work.