02.03.06
Thoughts
As of late I’ve had many thoughts on several topics (most of which I would probably blog about), and yet I havent had the time to write anything about them. Now, when I should be sleeping, is as good of a time as any.
First is literature. All of this was spawned by discussion in Great Books aboud Oedipus the King. I’ve often felt that English class jumps farther into a piece than the author ever intended. As human’s we are able to pull meaning from things that are essentially unmeaningful (thus why some political cartoons have dozen’s of possible interpretations).
Do you ever think that Sophocles just wanted to write tradegy? Perhaps he chose a few keen interesting phrases, but I somehow doubt he actually tried to make Jocasta seem motherish. This is true for many things as well. I’ve had several comments on my poetry that literally made me think “Where the hell did they get that?” This is all fine and good. People should think what they want, but English class seem’s like overkill sometimes by drawing meaning from things that (quite possibly) were never intended to have beyond normal meaning anyway.
Next, to a completely different topic, is my comment here that I sent to Professor Wallingford (the CS Department head at UNI) about one of his more recent blog posts. It mentions how CS introductory courses are probably similar to Physics introductory courses. They leave the students feeling rather stupefied and unsatisifed with the class. They leave the student feeling -less- like a physicist or a computer scientist than when they entered.
As a CS undergrad I can definitely say his fears are true. Of my CS I class, only two people (myself included) decided to take CS II. Many of them complained about it being too confusing, “not for them”, or just flat out hating it. I believe this is spawned by a rather upfront aproach to teaching CS. We do not cover the applications of comptuer science, and all of the example programs we write demonstrate techniques, but they are rarely (if ever) intresting and fun to do.
Thus I propose an idea: involve more games and simulations. Everyone likes to take away a product. If you take an art class you would want your art back at the end so you can show it off. Comptuer science is no different. If you make a game demonstrating the techniques, and make it fun, extendable, expandable, and overall just interesting to work on then you will capture the students mind. Sure, game’s arent for everyone. However, a student making a game that takes four hours to make, test, and play around with (which he can later extend, expand, and show off to his friends) will learn more than sitting and making a program that sorts words.
Simply put, in order to learn, the student really need to take the initiative to do it themself. You can get help, and you should, but you must -want- to learn if you really wish to succeed. If you find something that is interesting to you and continue to work on it then you will learn much more (and much more quickly) than others.
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Actually thats all that comes to mind currently. Sorry folks, I need to sleep.