10.23.08
Helping
Moving my help sessions to Tuesday’s has made a big impact! I was happy to be approached for programming help almost immediately of my sitting down .
I went over my own time limit helping three students, so I’m curious how many will start showing up for more advanced help. It was wonderful to talk with some students about programming in a very non-academic setting. A setting where everyone could be perfectly honest and not feel bashful if they didn’t understand something simple. It is this candid setting I have wanted to promote for some time now. Students will learn better when the material becomes more relevant to them and they are able to be brutally honest about how they view it.
Interestingly enough, all three students were non-CS majors. I’m not entirely sure what that means overall. They are taking a class they don’t need -AND- they are seeking help outside of class hours. That alone is unusual. We also discussed all the concepts on paper and each student hand wrote their own notes, which was surprising to me as well. Overall I left feeling not only accomplished, but impressed. I hope these students return and more follow their example. I think it would help alleviate much of the frustration and anxiety many of them feel about the class.
That said, I was also pretty happy that we went through and wrote a program off the top of our heads. I didn’t write anything out ahead of time, so I was discovering how to solve the homework problem as they were. I think it was helpful for them to see how someone who has more experience thinks through the process and makes changes to the design as the program progressed. They expressed that they understand the concepts of what to do for the homework, but that initial leap into writing it out is whats so challenging. And I agree, it is hard to take idea’s out of your head and phrase them in a way a computer understands, which is why CS majors get the big bucks.
When all was done and I typed the program I came up with into my computer it also worked as intended (minus a few syntax errors), which is always a plus. I would hate to give them an example that I thought would work only to lead them astray. I think that next week, if the students aren’t pressed for time, I’ll try a more Socratic approach and see if they can come up with the ideas for each step.