Am I only one who read this as "the null processor" and thought it's a dumbed-down CPU for educational purposes?
The Null Professor (2014)
31–40 of 49 posts
Re: The Null Professor (2014)
#32The author introduces a catchy archetype: The Null Professor. She then proceeds to tell a story about elite universities, which apparently are a breeding sites for such educators. When the author finally turns to explaining the term, 'pedagogy' is invoked. Just pedagogy. Somewhat later in the post, the word can even be clicked upon. I honestly hoped that the link would explain the specifics in teaching methodology, b…
Remember, most professors do not get any training in how to teach. It is sad but true that learning about pedagogy is a big step for us. Maybe CS needs some of this pedagogy-discussion.
Re: The Null Professor (2014)
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't tell if you're just trolling or if this is actually your sincere interpretation. Did we read the same article, at all? The takeaway from the one I read is, "if all you do is present information in a way that's accessible to extremely bright self-directed students and let the rest fail, you're not a real teacher. Our entire job is to find ways to make programming accessible and compelling to people that it doe…
I just think it's a tragedy that the prof only goes this far. The observation in the article you paraphrased is more the realization of a student or bright child, not a fucking professor . It's sad that we let things degenerate this far in regard to CS education. Only in CS is this "let the rest fail" the conventional wisdom (conventional idiocy that is). And yes, racial segregation of classes is something that enric…
> And yes, racial segregation of classes is something that enriches the upper class in general, and the prof is advocating this
What in the world are you talking about? This?
"...there are substantial differences in the way that various segments of the population learn ... maybe we need to use pedagogies that work better for each group."
Do you really view this as a proposal to segregate classes by race or along any other lines? The obvious intent is to change how the material is taught to accommodate these differences, not to establish separate CS courses for each group.
Re: The Null Professor (2014)
#34The problem with CS education is that many students have had experience programming (and with computers generally) during their teen years, so professors can get away with not properly teaching CS fundamentals as many students already know them, or at least enough to easily grasp the rest.
But there are plenty of students who don't, and they're the ones left out. They have no idea how to program, and the useless programming course won't help them, because for the past 30 years most of the students taking it have already known how to program, so the people designing the course have no idea as to its actual quality. The professors see them struggling and assume they just "don't get it".
It's this which also causes the massive gender bias in CS students: male students, to whom early (and current) computers were marketed, had learned to program at home. Female students, to whom home computers were never marketed, mostly didn't learn to program at home. So they take the course, are considered by the professors to "not get it" unlike most of their male peers, and drop out: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-wom...
Re: The Null Professor (2014)
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Holy shit if this isn't a post for the "avoid gratuitous negativity" archives...
If by "post" you are referring to the pile of shit that is linked, then yes. My negativity here is NOTHING compared to the negativity and resentment by the professor in the article, who cloaks it in positive language. I'm only saying that people should be more aware of what drives others, and look past the surface. On the other hand, he is advocating for a Cult of Computer Science with specially designed courses for…
> My negativity here is NOTHING compared to the negativity and resentment by the professor in the article, who cloaks it in positive language.
Please note you're assuming the worst of people, and appear to me to be choosing to give no benefit of the doubt. Would you be willing to reconsider doing this? At least for a moment?
> On the other hand, he is advocating for a Cult of Computer Science with specially designed courses for different races of people.
I read the exact opposite into what she's saying: That we have specifically designed courses for white males (that happen to be open to all) and should consider mixing the design up to better serve a broader range.
I base this partly on the fact that she specifically attacks the idea of racial segregation that you seem to think she's suggesting in the intro:
>> Throughout history, and even today in certain parts of the world, attitudes like this have been the basis for keeping entire segments of the population uneducated (“teaching women to read and write?! seriously, they can’t do it, look how much longer it takes for them to learn” or “blacks in Universities?! seriously, they can’t do it, look how their grades are so much lower”). This is basically the attitude of a class of educators who live so much inside the box of convention and intellectual lazyness that they are uncapable of seeing the big picture.
For what it's worth, I would call this negativity. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if there's some resentment there: I'd certainly be resentful if someone scoffed at teaching me how to read and write! I would call it uncloaked negative language.
But, in all these things, it seems to be against segregation, not for it!
On the topic of learning styles: What I've read hasn't mentioned much about race or sex. I believe that we all - even as individuals, regardless of race or sex - use multiple styles, and that we all can benefit from multiple approaches. I certainly don't always get everything, and having an explanation re-framed in a new way - in a new style, one might say - gives me another opportunity to understand.
I think, at worst, she meant to appeal to our sense of fairness and equality by borrowing - perhaps awkwardly - by tying it to the civil rights movement. I'm skeptical at best about how relevant sex or race is. I'm not willing to crucify her over that though.
Re: The Null Professor (2014)
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
He?
Ok, so I didn't notice that she was a woman. Big fucking deal. Doesn't change a thing I said.
Just checking but did you see this?
Re: The Null Professor (2014)
#37I don't agree with the fact that programming can't be taught. However, I also can't overcome 12+ years of (mis-)education in one semester.
There was an article posted that showed that you could predict performance in introductory CS from a single test given at the beginning of the semester. There were 3 groups:
1) the group who understood about rules, applying them to a computing system and had the correct interpretation of them--they did well unsurprisingly.
2) the group who understood about rules, applied them consistently, but simply had the wrong rules internalized. They did well after being taught since all you had to do was correct the wrong rules.
3) the group who simply didn't have any logical understanding of how to apply underlying rules to a system--they simply failed miserably. To teach these people CS, you first have to teach these people logical cause/effect thought. This is so fundamental a building block that you can't possibly cover it in a CS course. So, to a first approximation, these people actually can't be taught because you have to fix something else first.
And, that problem, I suspect, is actually buried in the article:
"give me a fake problem, and I don’t think it’s worth my time; my brain shuts off. I suspect a lot of people (especially women) are like me."
When faced with this situation, some of us get told: "Tough. Suck it up. You don't always get to do interesting things, and you have to succeed even if it's boring." Others of us get sympathized with and are allowed to slack with excuses like "Math is hard; I wasn't any good at it either." A couple iterations of this and you wind up with a gap in final achievement even though there is no gap in initial ability.
If I were throwing around stereotypes like the author, I would say that "Men get told to suck it up or get out. Women get sympathy and are allowed to stay and make excuses." And thus you wind up with an achievement gap between men and women.
Re: The Null Professor (2014)
#38The problem with CS education is that many students have had experience programming (and with computers generally) during their teen years, so professors can get away with not properly teaching CS fundamentals as many students already know them, or at least enough to easily grasp the rest. But there are plenty of students who don't , and they're the ones left out. They have no idea how to program, and the useless pro…
The post specifically addresses this in paragraph two:
> First, after the first few years of being a professor, my conclusion was the same: there’s nothing I can do, some students get it others don’t. I’ve learned a few things since then, and I know I was completely wrong. I was being a “Null Professor” at the time. Now I know better.
...
> A Null Professor is someone who never has to think about pedagogy. The Null Professor is not necessarily a bad professor, although that may happen too; it’s just that he/she doesn’t think about pedagogy, teaching comes as whatever natural teaching skill he/she has.
Re: The Null Professor (2014)
#39The author introduces a catchy archetype: The Null Professor. She then proceeds to tell a story about elite universities, which apparently are a breeding sites for such educators. When the author finally turns to explaining the term, 'pedagogy' is invoked. Just pedagogy. Somewhat later in the post, the word can even be clicked upon. I honestly hoped that the link would explain the specifics in teaching methodology, b…
If you asked an experienced effective high school teacher "how do you do it?" What could they tell you? It took a lot of work to learn how to teach: experimentation, analysis, etc...you simply have to learn how to teach!
What you are fishing for is "how to teach", whereas Crista post is simply pointing out that "you have to learn how to teach". It is a bit circular, but in university most professors come in without any formal training on how to teach undergraduates; the idea that you have to learn how to teach is still quite radical.
Re: The Null Professor (2014)
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just think it's a tragedy that the prof only goes this far. The observation in the article you paraphrased is more the realization of a student or bright child, not a fucking professor . It's sad that we let things degenerate this far in regard to CS education. Only in CS is this "let the rest fail" the conventional wisdom (conventional idiocy that is). And yes, racial segregation of classes is something that enric…
> And yes, racial segregation of classes is something that enriches the upper class in general, and the prof is advocating this What in the world are you talking about? This? "...there are substantial differences in the way that various segments of the population learn ... maybe we need to use pedagogies that work better for each group." Do you really view this as a proposal to segregate classes by race or along any…
What could "use pedagogies that work better for each group" possibly mean other than racial and gender segregation?
Here I'll break this down into pseudocode.
for each group in racial_gender_groups:
teachWithMaterialFor(group);