![]() Each cell can either be text or code, and code cells can be run as independent programs. Once I got used to it, I couldn’t believe how effective it could be as a tool for teaching.Īn active editing session in IPython Notebook. I heard about IPython Notebook every day at P圜on this past year, so I decided to take a look at it. I also needed a backup plan for students who might outpace my teaching. This time through, I wanted to go back to creating my own lessons, with more efficiency than I had before. My students seemed to respond better to very specific exercises based on what they just learned, with a more gradual transition into exercises and challenges that ask them to apply their own ideas to what they have just learned. This is not a criticism of Zed’s work, it is an admission that I did not use his curriculum in a way that captured my students’ interest in programming. I have one student who really enjoyed it, but for most students we didn’t get a whole lot further than my first class, and they had a lot less fun along the way. I know LPTHW asks students to write their own programs, but for people brand new to programming, there was just too much left to them to figure out, even with a teacher in the room. ![]() It didn’t work out though, because students just did not catch on to the approach of LPTHW. I tried to use Zed Shaw’s Learn Python the Hard Way, because I had heard such consistently good things about it in all the tech communities I participate in. The second time around, I tried to base the class on an established curriculum. As someone without a formal CS background, there was also plenty I had to clarify for myself along the way. It was just too hard to create curriculum at a pace that kept up with my more capable students. ![]() The class was a nice start for me as a programming teacher, but we didn’t get very far. They felt like real programmers from the first day of the session. Students loved the class, because they spent most of their time trying to apply what they were learning to problems they could solve. The first time I taught an introductory programming class, I created lessons each day and came up with exercises and challenges for students to try. As I have taken my own programming more seriously, I have been looking for ways to bring it into my teaching. I have always programmed for fun, however, and recently I have started to take my programming more seriously. I started programming as a kid, and then went on to a degree in Physics. Like many people who teach Intro to Programming classes, I don’t have a formal CS degree. I wrote a Python program to generate the OpenSCAD code for printing the model. How I tend to use Python: A model of a koch snowflake, and the real thing printed in stainless steel.
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