Subj : Re: Good examples of programming course lecture notes
To   : comp.programming,comp.lang.java.programmer
From : Patricia Shanahan
Date : Mon Sep 19 2005 12:52 pm

clemenr@wmin.ac.uk wrote:
....
> (ii) Make the students write notes. The slides are not complete. The
> students are given basically blank paper formated with cross-references
> to the slides. They wll have to write down what I say.

No, no, no! Some people learn best by writing notes, but by the time
those people are students in your course, they should know that, and
take notes without being forced.

On the other hand, taking notes in class just doesn't work for me. I
don't write fast, and whenever I'm writing I'm not listening and
thinking. A class that tries to force note taking leaves me with a
difficult choice between two unsatisfactory alternatives:

1. Go for notes. Don't actually learn anything in class. Try to get all
the information down, and read it over afterwards to try to understand
it. This makes the class, at best, equivalent to learning from a book.

2. Go for understanding. Try to listen and absorb the material in class,
without taking notes. Because of the deliberate gaps in the distributed
materials, anything I don't get in class or forget is lost data.

In practice, I've been able to work around this nasty behavior on the
part of lecturers by using a digital camera to capture everything that
goes on the blackboard.

I have objective evidence to support my position. I got a 3rd. class
honours degree in mathematics, for courses I took between the ages of 18
and 21, in the late 1960's, when digital cameras did not exist. I have a
4.0 GPA for computer science Ph.D. classes, including Theory of
Computation and Algorithm Design, taken in my 50's, but with a digital
camera. Mathematical ability is more likely to decrease between the late
teens and early 50's, not increase drastically.

Whatever you do in the way of notes should be designed to allow for a
range of learning styles and strategies, not just for the people who
learn by writing.

Patricia

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