[HN Gopher] How to Teach CS Students to Solve Problems
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       How to Teach CS Students to Solve Problems
        
       Author : amith_rav
       Score  : 11 points
       Date   : 2022-12-24 17:11 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (csclassroom.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (csclassroom.substack.com)
        
       | gardenfelder wrote:
       | He says:
       | 
       | > Just as students were taught to systematically memorize and
       | copy in their other classes, they need to be given a systematic
       | formula by which to approach problem-solving.
       | 
       | When I read that, I wondered what Maria Montessori would think.
       | The line opens with the notion of systematic memorization - copy
       | and paste; my sense is that the lecture (memorize) and test
       | approach to factory education is coming to be regarded as a
       | dinosaur; the meteor has landed; we are seeing a renaissance in
       | thinking about the education process.
       | 
       | I once got in trouble with the teacher's union steward at my
       | kids' school when I said "there is no such thing as teaching,
       | only learning and learning facilitation". The memorize and copy
       | approach came to be known as the "just in case" epistemology.
       | Nancy Glock Grueneich said that the proper epistemology is "just
       | for me".
       | 
       | From that, while I'm not criticizing the linked piece- in fact,
       | I'm thrilled that CS is being taught in high school - my take is
       | that there might be a way to facilitate personal discovery of the
       | "systematic formula" being given.
        
       | voxl wrote:
       | The biggest issue I have encountered with educating CS college
       | students is that some groups will be hostile to recursion.
       | 
       | This is unfortunate, because recursive solutions neatly transform
       | into dynamic programming solutions. An entire category of so-
       | called "leetcode mediums", tons of interview questions, can
       | almost always be boiled down to a recursive solution and
       | inverting the execution order.
       | 
       | The problems compounds when you also try to teach induction,
       | because it requires many of the same muscles as recursion and it
       | is by far the easiest method to make sure your algorithm is
       | actually correct.
        
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       (page generated 2022-12-24 23:02 UTC)