SPAM-MED: Re: Time to upgrade my technique...

[Richmond Mathewson]

Richard Gaskin wrote:

"I would agree that what you teach should depend on
where the learner is on Piaget's scale of cognitive
function.

But for adult learners, I usually teach fields for
display and variables 
for computation.

Variables play a central role in the art of
programming.  One could 
argue that it would be a disservice not to explain how
to use them well."

This isn't a very nice thing to say, but (you know me
by now):

Experience has taught me that quite a few adults who
perceive themselves as would-be programmers don't seem
to have got
beyond the 'concrete operational stage'

 (Paiget:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget ),


at least as coping with variables goes. I usually
start with the "buckets" image, move onto fields
("visible buckets") and then try variables ("invisible
buckets").
The main problem seems to be that, in
RR/Metacard/xTalk as one does not explicitly define
variables people often say something like the
following:

"When I put a number in a field that is easy because I
have already made the field and I can see it on the
VDU, but I don't see how I can put a number in an
invisible thing that doesn't exist."

Explaining that by naming a variable one calls it into
existence (c.f. Hindu creation and Lord Brahma
breathing things into existence) doesn't seem to click
with many people. Personally I don't find it a problem
because I was 14 when I moved from Fortran 4 to BASIC;
i.e. while I was still in the 'formal operational
stage' and had not yet lapsed/rotted/reverted (choose
which ever verb takes your fancy) back to the sort of
proto-Neanderthal mentality I now exhibit. Admittedly
the LET statement (oddly enough) helped me visualise
variable 'containers' popping out of nowhere.

I will spend some time this summer with some Bulgarian
kids (who have been taught English by me) on a very
basic exercise to make a simple calculator in RR; as
their age range will be between 8 and 12 it will be
very interesting to see who "gets it" re variables. I
am not really doing this to teach then programming as
such, but as a way to speed up their cognitive
development (something that happens anyway with
children who learn a foreign language fairly
intensively). 

sincerely, Richmond Mathewson



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