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Teaching foreign policy majors to code

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Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#51

Post by analog31 »

throwawayjava wrote: post #49
pc86 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not conceding that it's reasonable for a professor to answer something with "they should just know," but I think the issue here is that they seemed incapable of explaining it. It's one thing to say to a class "you should know how to $x, so I'm not going to teach it to you right now" but another entirely to be either unwilling or unable to explain exactly what they mean to a colleague.

Keep in mind that teaching is its own skill. Especially in universities, that skill can get awfully specific awfully fast. In particular, for a TT professor at an R1, odds are extremely good that they've NEVER taught anything below calculus and may have never even been the instructor of record even for calculus courses! They were hired to do research and teach graduate/upper-level undergraduate courses. Teachers that…

Indeed, the professors are either surprised or offended that the university even offers college algebra, which they obviously never had to take, and which they consider to be a few levels below remedial.

Admittedly, I was a math major in college, and was unaware of the existence of college algebra until I was hired to teach it.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#52

Post by analog31 »

throwawayjava wrote: post #50
im3w1l wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means "write down a good argument for your solution being correct". And good means roughly that every step of the argument follows trivially from the last. And what counts as trivial depends on which course your are taking. Oh and the argument doesn't have to be (exclusively) verbal. It can consist of diagrams and symbol manipulation.

This isn't a very helpful answer for students at that level. It's necessary to say these words at some point, but without lots of examples students will have no idea what "good argument", "follows trivially from the last", or "counts as trivial" mean. The only method I've seen work for a large set of students is to show lots of examples of what "good" and "not good" versions of "show your work" look like. Preferably…

I think an even broader generalization can be made, that I only learned by accident as a student: A huge part of classroom education is learning to communicate knowledge by imitating the teacher.

Nobody ever explicitly tells you this, but a few lucky students guess it at some point, preferably long before they get to college.

Teaching is an art. To some extent, "show your work" is an art as well. The techniques of art are never perfectly well defined, and are always somewhat arbitrary, but people do manage to learn it. Learning an art by imitating the masters is as old as the hills.

Perhaps my biggest frustration while teaching the algebra course, was not that I was confused about "show your work" means, but that there was such a gaping hole in the preparation of my students.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#53

Post by commandlinefan »

mikekchar wrote: post #32
f4stjack wrote: post #19

I must say I am conflicted to write on this subject. On the one hand I am a person who has a humanities background turned to coding (bachelor's on philosophy; master's on sociology) but on the other hand I am burned out now and unwilling to do anything code related thanks to previous employers so my outlook isn't a nice one. The problem I experienced was most of the companies want a bachelor of science or an engineer…

I've been programming for the vast majority of my life, professionally for something like 30 years. I've done other jobs as well. My general advice to people thinking of becoming a programmer: Go ahead if you like programming. If not, then there are almost certainly better jobs than this. Don't get me wrong. On paper it's attractive. Quite high salary. Casual dress. Often flexible hours. No heavy lifting. High demand…

Nice to hear I'm not the only one who feels this way. I finished a bachelor's degree in CS back in '94, have been programming professionally ever since. I went back and got a Master's degree ten years later, while I was working. At this point, I have a LOT of education, and a LOT of experience. More, I imagine, than most anybody out there. Yet I'm continously hammered for not being fast enough, not catching all the problems before they happen, sometimes not knowing the answers to questions on the spot... if I didn't have a degree in CS, I might think, "well, maybe they teach you this stuff in college". If I didn't have much experience, I think, "well, maybe you learn this stuff with experience". But I have all that and still find myself unable to solve every problem instantaneously with no margin for error. Either I'm REALLY stupid, or this is harder than they think it is.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#54

Post by mingee »

evil-olive wrote: post #8
mingee wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it unethical to do something if all parties are happy? Does it only become unethical when a party has been tricked and become unhappy, or is tricking somebody even for their own good unethical? In that case, what would be your definition of ethics? I don't have a strong stance whether his decision was ethical or not, just interested in seeing your opinion as you seem to be implying that it might not be :P

Is it unethical for a professor to lie to their students? Yes. Is is still unethical if the professor argues that the lies were for the students' own good? Yes. Is it still unethical if, a few months into the course, the professor tells the truth? Yes. Is it still unethical if, a few months later, the professor tells the truth and one or more students says "you know, I understand now why you lied to us"? Yes. This re…

This doesn't answer the prompt at all, which is: how do you define 'ethics'?

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#55

Post by blauditore »

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #40
QasimK wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the team hiring tells the recruiter what the job requirements are, rather than the recruiter just making them up?

I've seen recruiters do some really weird stuff, not to mention HR feeling the need to insert themselves into every process, despite their vast unknown-unknowns.

Yeah, some HR departments seem to have a strong feel for a need of justifying their existence.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#56

Post by dvlsg »

throwawayjava wrote: post #41
mikekchar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for the vast majority of my life, professionally for something like 30 years. I've done other jobs as well. My general advice to people thinking of becoming a programmer: Go ahead if you like programming. If not, then there are almost certainly better jobs than this. Don't get me wrong. On paper it's attractive. Quite high salary. Casual dress. Often flexible hours. No heavy lifting. High demand…

> On the other hand, I've known a few people who are able to clock in and clock out, do a competent job, and not get too stressed about stuff. I'm still trying to figure out how they do it. This is an amazing skill I only learned during a PhD, and only after burning out half way though. Obviously, step 0 is clear boundaries and reasonable work hours. Clock out at 5 or 6 (or 7 or whatever -- point is, put in your 40 h…

Working out before going home works great for me, too. And it has the added bonus of helping you skip some of the traffic on that commute home by pushing the start time of that commute back a bit. Depending on where you live and when you work, I suppose.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#57

Post by msaharia »

the_watcher wrote: post #47
msaharia wrote: post #9

I think the Professor is vastly overestimating how much his students benefited from this exercise. What they need are data analysis and modeling skills. R + Rstudio would be the perfect tooling for them. Laudable goal nontheless.

That would not have been useful at all in the course - which involved programming an actual device, powered by an Arduino.

Exactly what I meant. Why would foreign policy majors need to know how to program an Arduino. I can't think of a single reason to.
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