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Creativity is a great motivator

tomrothe.de

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Re: Creativity is a great motivator

#3

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

Great article. You really are a great teacher - not content just to teach facts and techniques - but wanting your students to really develop a passion for programming.

I liked the example where you said the student painted pixel by pixel. If it was a forced assignment it would have been intellectual torture, but because it was something the student came up with as an outlet to their creativity, something tedious became enjoyable.

Re: Creativity is a great motivator

#5

Post by unabst »

Creativity but also productivity. The problem with a lot of school work is that it produces nothing. Class notes, homework assignments, and marked exams all are trash because no one wants to look at those things again and the content has no unique value. But building things and pouring our hearts into things and having a vision for something we could possibly create... these are the activities that we really need to be practicing, and that have value in the real world. It's not surprising they're also highly motivating as well. Most of the work I kept from my school years is from art class.

Re: Creativity is a great motivator

#6

Post by khedoros »

Some of my earliest motivation to learn programming was to build games. That proved too challenging to learn very quickly, but I had great fun drawing things on the screen and making the PC speaker play music (simulating polyphonic sound by switching between notes very quickly).

Seeing the results pop up on the screen was certainly a highly-motivating factor (and satisfaction with text results from algorithms came later ;-) )

Re: Creativity is a great motivator

#7

Post by kctess5 »

unabst wrote: post #5

Creativity but also productivity. The problem with a lot of school work is that it produces nothing. Class notes, homework assignments, and marked exams all are trash because no one wants to look at those things again and the content has no unique value. But building things and pouring our hearts into things and having a vision for something we could possibly create... these are the activities that we really need to…

I couldn't agree more. This is the thing I wish USAs lower education system understood. So much childhood is wasted sitting in a boring classroom doing busywork for hours on end. That kind of environment doesn't exactly motivate people to pursue their interests early on in life, and can actively turn people away from academic careers by association.

Re: Creativity is a great motivator

#10

Post by MIKarlsen »

unabst wrote: post #5

Creativity but also productivity. The problem with a lot of school work is that it produces nothing. Class notes, homework assignments, and marked exams all are trash because no one wants to look at those things again and the content has no unique value. But building things and pouring our hearts into things and having a vision for something we could possibly create... these are the activities that we really need to…

That's too rational. You need to have all the notes and stuff as well. You need to learn and expand your knowledge before you can go into practicing something. Even though I agree that I'll never look at my old university-notes again, they did serve a very real and important purpose in the proces towards teaching me how to build something. Reflecting upon what you're going to build, holding meetings and taking notes are important processes in mastering something. Even though it might seem a bit dull or not worthwhile compared to building stuff.
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