Meeting of the Software Carpentry Instructors Study Group
Round 5.1
May 23/24, 2013
Agenda
- Welcome
- Goal is to give a quick overview of:
- educational psychology
- instructional design
- how they relate to teaching programming
- Structure:
- Biweekly meetings like this one
- Posting and commenting on other people’s work
- Homework due next Wednesday:
- Pick a small topic (something that you can explain in 5-10 minutes)
- Draw a concept map (look at previous rounds for examples)
- Should have about 6 bubbles and 10 connections (much more means your topic is too big)
- Make it readable, but don’t put too much effort into making it pretty
- Pen on paper plus a camera or scanner is good enough
- Give feedback on at least 2 other concept maps
Notes
Educational psychology
- lots of science has been done
Instructional design
- Even if we know how brains work, there are several methods for teaching
- Akin to the relationship between science and engineering
How they relate to teaching programming
- Many computer scientists don’t know that there are people who actually study how to teach programming and computer science
- Few apply what’s known
Deep vs. shallow learning
- Shallow learning: memorize and regurgitate information
- Deep learning: understand principles, recognize when to apply them
- Example:
- You can learn to solve word problems in calculus without understanding calculus
- Pattern match the problem to an algorithm for computing an answer
- But if something goes wrong, you’re stuck
- Transference is a sign of deep learning: being able to transfer knowledge from one problem to a related one
- Students who don’t yet understand the concepts often ask questions that don’t make any sense.
- Everyone has a set of conceptual categories they fit information into
- When encountering new information you cannot help but put it into old categories, even if they are wrong
- Transition from “not getting it” to “getting it” isn’t about quantity of information; it’s about developing the right conceptual model
Relationship to online learning
- Misunderstanding happens in a million different ways because there are many possible wrong conceptual models
- Good teachers determine what individuals misunderstand, and correct it
- This is why recorded lectures (and “sage on the stage” lectures in general) aren’t particularly helpful to novices
- And why Software Carpentry now uses in-person bootcamps instead of videos
- It’s also why we can’t just point scientists at Stack Overflow
- They don’t yet have the model or vocabulary to phrase a question sensibly, or recognize a useful answer.
Emotion and learning
- Emotional attachment is very important to learning: if one part of the brain says “I don’t care”, other parts are unlikely to absorb information
- Think about a typical boot camp:
- First thing that happens to many people is installation problems
- This hurts motivation, and undermines their confidence in us and in themselves
Using concept maps in teaching
- Use it to figure out structure of talk
- Give learners the whole concept map at the start, they will doodle and expand
- Draw concept map step by step as you teach
- Get the learners to create a concept map so that you can check the mental model they’ve developed