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The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

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Re: The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

#81

Post by crdoconnor »

ma2rten wrote: post #56
schoosi wrote: post #22

I attended a university with a strong co-op program, and I personally believe it is the best possible solution. Classes were focused on theory and my three 6-month co-ops were spent working on meaningful software projects at real companies. As a result, I was able to build up a solid background in Computer Science theory, didn't have to deal with the shortcomings of group class projects, and learned how to ship produ…

I don't know. I attended a regular computer science program and I am glad I did. The goal of university is not to prepare you as best as possible for working life, but to teach academic thinking. Class projects usually have a specific purpose, like teaching computer vision, operating systems or building compilers. You'll spend the rest of your life working. There is no need to rush into it, in my opinion. Then again,…

>The goal of university is not to prepare you as best as possible for working life, but to teach academic thinking.

Because academics don't work on projects? C'mon.

Except for a few things (like math) I wanted a lot to be taught in a project based fashion at university. There was a lot of CS stuff that we learned where the professors were super unclear about why it was important or when the correct time to apply the knowledge was. That not only made the teaching less useful it seriously sapped my motivation.

Years later I was surprised a lot by the applicability (or not) of some of the knowledge taught to us and I think probably the lecturers could probably have guessed that I would run in to these situations - they just didn't put much (if any) emphasis on bringing it up.

Now I'm teaching (as an amateur and not in a university, but still), I'm teaching in a project based fashion because it's how I wanted to be taught.

I do this partly because I'm trying to present every topic as a problem first in a context that seems realistic. I feel like getting students to recognize and 'feel' the problem themselves before teaching them the solution helps with their motivation and the applicability of that knowledge - wherever they decide to use it.

Re: The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

#82

Post by pvg »

mjburgess wrote: post #39
djrobstep wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because education as a system isn't designed for actually learning, it's designed for perpetuating a meaningless and arbitrary game of credentialism to justify the socio-economic hierarchy. And to babysit children so that their parents can spend more time participating in capitalism.

I guess you're down-voted for both having a non-obvious opinion and phrasing it in a hostile way. You are correct however, but it's more understanable than you make out. Rather, the education system is designed to impart the skill of information recall -- which was essential to actually acquiring the target skills (ie., you needed to remember lots about chemistry before doing any). Remembering sentences about a skill…

eg., after 5-7 years of french in the UK, no 18 year old can speak french. And so on for every subject. The same is true all the way up until PhD.

Those seem like a series of stridently unrelated and evidence-free statements.

Re: The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

#83

Post by cmplxconjugate »

wcarss wrote: post #74
ma2rten wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. I attended a regular computer science program and I am glad I did. The goal of university is not to prepare you as best as possible for working life, but to teach academic thinking. Class projects usually have a specific purpose, like teaching computer vision, operating systems or building compilers. You'll spend the rest of your life working. There is no need to rush into it, in my opinion. Then again,…

For you, university was a means to the end of learning academic thinking. For me, it was a means to the end of attaining a decent job. There are certainly arguments to be made that university is by definition, in original intent, and in theory solely a vehicle for teaching academic thought, but I think the pragmatic counter to them is a poll of "why are you here?"[1] , and should be considered valid. The end result i…

Well then, might it be wise to realise that “why are you here” is a question that is based off perception?

A generation of financially secure parents have pushed the mindset of Degree==Job. An understandable choice, based on the idea of attaining the best start possible in life.

Whatever reasons, whatever perceptions, the role of the University is unchanging and should remain steadfast; A University is there to create new academics.

Re: The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

#84

Post by tomxor »

> After finishing his first two Android apps

I think this guy's definition of project based learning is "large finished project".

My idea of project based learning (which as a self learner I use quite a lot), is very _very_ small examples, try to make those examples work in the most unpolished way from a user perspective (focus on the core functionality) and explore the different ways in which they can work as a way to explore the topic or idea that you are interested in. _not_ "try to make some end product based on this idea", that's a whole different venture.

In his example of making a chat app to learn about networking:

> Over the next three weeks, Bob spends a lot of time building the GUI for the app, which he already knows how to do, and only a couple hours implementing the client protocol.

If he wanted to learn about MVCs and GUIs this is indeed a good project. If he really wanted to learn about networking from the perspective of chat, he should have either avoided the GUI and come up with the simplest possible CLI based interface... or avoid the interface all together and just experiment with the core networking code and send hardcoded strings or pipe in some text without a nice CLI. I mean this smartphone chat app is really a strawman IMO.

Disclaimer: I've read nothing about project based learning, I only recognise it as a concept that has emerged in my own personal learning strategies as I am sure it has in many others.

Re: The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

#85

Post by nickjj »

Project based learning works really well for me and it seems to work well for the 20,000+ people who have taken one of my courses (based on feedback I've gotten over the years).

For example, in 10 hours of time I went from 0 knowledge about Elixir / Phoenix (or functional programming) to having my own Phoenix app up and running with multi-login passwordless token based auth, webpack integration, etc, etc.. I now feel like I have a really good handle on how an Elixir app can be set up with Phoenix and how all of the front end aspects of a web app fall together with it (routes, templates, views, endpoints, plugs, etc.).

I spent the least amount of time possible just looking at Elixir's beginner guide to get a feel for the syntax and then I started my own app and just looked up stuff as I needed it. Nearly all of that time was spent doing "feature based development" on the app.

"I need to add a /faq page, ok, how do I generate a controller and hook up a new route, let me check the docs."

"My app layout is getting a little gnarly, how can I use template includes to split out my navigation, let me check the docs."

This style of learning is how I teach my https://buildasaasappwithflask.com course too. We cover over 50 general web development topics, but topics are went over in the context of building a real world app, implementing features as we go. Then there's self guided homework assignments to implement even more features into the app.

How do you prefer learning?

Re: The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

#86

Post by tjoff »

cthalupa wrote: post #62
tjoff wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is that you've learned to learn. You got some breath of knowledge, not everything is relevant but it helps putting things in perspective. This is crucial. But the most important thing is that you've learned how to quickly adapt and pick up new things. This is what is valuable and in combination with a broad understanding is very much worth the education. It is okay if the understanding is shallow or even o…

Learning to learn is an important skill. But so is the ability to do a job. Some companies have the resources available to take a fresh grad that knows theory, concepts, and how to learn, and then get them up to speed on how to actually do the job they've been hired for. Some WANT people that only know how to learn and the concepts, so they can teach them how to do it the "X Company Way". But a whole lot don't. A who…

Ability to do a job and education are orthogonal skills. No, you don't necessarily learn how to do a job during your education but that is a skill quickly picked up (or never learned) after. As is the case for anyone not getting any education.

> Some WANT people that only know how to learn and the concept, so they can teach them how to do it the "X Company Way"

Those companies would do well in not hiring people with ambitions that have not had any education, correct. But part of getting an education is avoiding having such mindless jobs.

Re: The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

#87

Post by tjoff »

mjburgess wrote: post #59
tjoff wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is that you've learned to learn. You got some breath of knowledge, not everything is relevant but it helps putting things in perspective. This is crucial. But the most important thing is that you've learned how to quickly adapt and pick up new things. This is what is valuable and in combination with a broad understanding is very much worth the education. It is okay if the understanding is shallow or even o…

No, a BSc in physics should and can impart actual skills in physics. It would require the whole process to be lead by a tutor in small groups. And each day you would work through experiments, mathematics related to them, writing reports about them. You would read books together, and work through their practice exercises together. You would be set to individual practice as often as a piano student is. And tutored as o…

Not sure what education consists only of lectures?

Also, you've misread me completely. When I talked about learning framework X I explicitly said that it was a waste and that education will give you something much better.

Re: The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

#88

Post by RandomCSGeek »

I think the author has confused engineering and science.

For example, for learning Web Development, I'd prefer a project based model where I learn concepts and apply them to my project side by side. This way, although the end result would be mess and likely incomplete, I get to learn a lot from the mistakes and issues that come in the way.

On the other hand, for learning about compilers, a tradional semester-based course, with 2-3 lectures/week, and maybe an coding assignment/week that can be completed in an hour or two would work best. In this case, while I don't have any real project at the end, I do learn the core concepts.

Re: The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

#89

Post by cpkpad »

joshdance wrote: post #45
slm_HN wrote: post #16

This reads like a very thinly veiled ad for the author's $500 Software Design web class. Project based learning won't work, traditional learning won't work, only my class will work. In fact the source he quotes (himself) claims he can give you a year's worth of experience in an hour. But why doesn't project based learning fail? Well, in his example Bob, who wants to learn network programming, pairs with Alice, who so…

agree with this. Theoretical example, seems to tilt to advanced the authors view point. Would love some data on project based learning.

8-year study of progressive education from a hundred years ago is probably the oldest result showing project-based learning works well. Miki Chi's ICAP is the current one. You have the same result repeated with a new methodology every couple decades in education research.

Neither shows project learning is the only thing which works well; just that it works better than the model the author proposes or than traditional classrooms.

The key fallacy the author makes is that free-form project working doesn't work. Let's say I want you to learn machine learning. I need a carefully designed and sequenced series of projects which exercise all the skills along the way. That's not an uncommon fallacy; many progressive schools made the same mistake and basically failed.

The random coding project model, in isolation, as the author described, falls flat on its face just as the author describes. It works pretty well for simple/broad things (e.g. learn an API), but for anything with depth, expert sequencing of knowledge and design of projects/assessments becomes important.

Re: The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails

#90

Post by eksemplar »

nextos wrote: post #63
eksemplar wrote: post #17

In Denmark we have a two universities that almost exclusively do project based learning. Basically students are put in groups and attached a mentor who is responsible for teaching them CS. To this is coupled traditional courses in basic math/algorithms/scientific theory. These lines produce candidates that are wasted supperior to our traditional universities. Well, if you need them to actually work with CS in the rea…

So do you think Aalborg students are better than DTU's?

CS and SE are different lines, I think most DTU students would fall under project based learning.

I think Aalborg CD students are far superior to students from Aarhus or KU, but only as production ready candidates that can work in a team, not necessarily for R&D.

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