How do you teach programming? Part II

Well, this week I've been thinking about how to teach programming some more. One of the major barriers for people to learning programming is wanting to learn. There are a lot of people that I’ve come across who just don’t care. Maybe that’s the problem that I saw when teaching math students. The ones that picked it up the quickest were the ones that wanted to learn it.

I’m reminded of a girl from my Intro to Structured Programming class. She was a Computer Graphics Design major but was forced to take the first programming class as a part of her degree. It’s a wise thing for the professors to do. A bit of knowledge about programming can go a long way especially when designing websites with flash. She just didn’t understand how that class would help her so she was grumpy. I’m sure her attitude didn’t help her one bit.

“I can tell you how to teach GAME programming...With a semester on the mathematics of shading and raster graphics, heh heh heh.”

Jbjohns

This quote is what reminded me of how determination and actually wanting to learn will change everything. In a game programming class with the only prerequisite as Intro to Structured Programming and College Algebra we were taught the theory behind Open GL. We learnt how the Open GL engine renders graphics Linear Algebra and all. Our first assignment was to do a simple assignment with recursion. The only problem was half the class didn’t have a clue what that was. There were three people who did well in that class. Myself, Jbjohns, and a girl all managed to work our way through it. Jbjohns and I were both math minors/majors with plenty of background in programming for the class. The last person fought her way through that class and I’m assuming spent countless hours not giving up on the assignments and lecture notes. It did not come easily for her but with her determination she did very well.

I’m sure the way I learnt in that class was different from the way she did. But to this day I admire her for her determination. If everyone had that kind of determination to learn programming I don’t know if I’d be asking the question of how to teach it.