Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
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Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
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Re: Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
#2It's incredibly easy to learn how to hack, and not how to abstract good design in a problem.
Anyone who opened a 1980s PC mag could be shown how to implement basic FOR or WHILE or if/then/else expression logic in BASIC and achieve huge outcomes: playable games, interesting solutions.
Learning how to craft code so its "better" is really hard. Abstraction is a distinct skill.
The mathematical underpinnings of code lie in things like logic, and group theory, higher order functions, recursion, you name it. These are not things to acquire by asking your kid next door to show you how his mod-scene ASM works.
I studied CS over 40 years ago. I think I'm still deficient, at the end of my career. CS is hard.
Understanding the implications of code on memory, performance, critical paths, safety, provability, type-safe all come with rules of thumb (engineering) which can often be acquired by the kid-next-door path, and fundamentals in their theory which really cannot.
FP is at the extreme end of hard-to-acquire, especially if your entry was imperative hacking.
Re: Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
#3This is particularly interesting to me as I've been building a CS education platform this year (https://qvault.io). My favorite bit was right at the end:
> In computer science, we often have a model of teaching that is heavily focused on content matter knowledge—if you know your CS, you'll likely be a good teacher. But all our evidence about quality teaching says that that's wrong. There's a lot of knowledge involved in teaching computer science well, and perhaps the most important is pedagogical content knowledge.
Basically, its not enough to understand your CS, you have to understand how to teach the CS.
Re: Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
#4[deleted]
Re: Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
#5From the title, I expected deepities. It failed to even meet that bar. It's a CS prof. Was the article generated?
Re: Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
#6This is particularly interesting to me as I've been building a CS education platform this year ( https://qvault.io ). My favorite bit was right at the end: > In computer science, we often have a model of teaching that is heavily focused on content matter knowledge—if you know your CS, you'll likely be a good teacher. But all our evidence about quality teaching says that that's wrong. There's a lot of knowledge involv…
Working in IT but having a commercial pilot license, it's bizarre how continuing education in IT is non-existent, yet mandatory in the aviation world - and IT people don't even know it.
To teach in aviation in the US, you need a Chief Flight Instructor (CFI) rating, where you demonstrate to an examiner how to teach the various maneuvers.
IT could learn a lot from regulated industries like aviation.
Re: Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
#7From the title, I expected deepities. It failed to even meet that bar. It's a CS prof. Was the article generated?
Did you really read the article? It's packed with references, so you can go as deep as you like...
Re: Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
#8This is particularly interesting to me as I've been building a CS education platform this year ( https://qvault.io ). My favorite bit was right at the end: > In computer science, we often have a model of teaching that is heavily focused on content matter knowledge—if you know your CS, you'll likely be a good teacher. But all our evidence about quality teaching says that that's wrong. There's a lot of knowledge involv…
Working in IT but having a commercial pilot license, it's bizarre how continuing education in IT is non-existent, yet mandatory in the aviation world - and IT people don't even know it. To teach in aviation in the US, you need a Chief Flight Instructor (CFI) rating, where you demonstrate to an examiner how to teach the various maneuvers. IT could learn a lot from regulated industries like aviation. https://en.wikiped…
The analogy doesn’t really stack up, flying a plane is nothing like designing software or even managing software systems. Imagine if aviation had a few million kinds of planes to worry about where pilots were expected to modify their planes in flight, in might begin to resemble IT.
Re: Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
#9When I was in college --names are elided to protect the guilty-- the school of education was a hot mess. There was a verbal meme around the campus that went something like this:
those who can do
those who cannot do teach
those who cannot teach teach teachers.Re: Teaching other teachers how to teach CS better
#10This is particularly interesting to me as I've been building a CS education platform this year ( https://qvault.io ). My favorite bit was right at the end: > In computer science, we often have a model of teaching that is heavily focused on content matter knowledge—if you know your CS, you'll likely be a good teacher. But all our evidence about quality teaching says that that's wrong. There's a lot of knowledge involv…
Working in IT but having a commercial pilot license, it's bizarre how continuing education in IT is non-existent, yet mandatory in the aviation world - and IT people don't even know it. To teach in aviation in the US, you need a Chief Flight Instructor (CFI) rating, where you demonstrate to an examiner how to teach the various maneuvers. IT could learn a lot from regulated industries like aviation. https://en.wikiped…
Anyone working in IT who doesn't continue to learn will likely be out of a job soon enough, but it's much less likely that anyone would be injured as a result.