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I& #39;m thinking about something teacher-y today.
As teachers, how do we approach the first day of class?
The approach I& #39;ve found myself trying to emulate, lately, is an immersion oneāinspired by a few teachers I& #39;ve had who approached Lesson 1 with the absolute audacity.
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As teachers, how do we approach the first day of class?
The approach I& #39;ve found myself trying to emulate, lately, is an immersion oneāinspired by a few teachers I& #39;ve had who approached Lesson 1 with the absolute audacity.
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In college I took my first Arabic class. The teacher opened class by saying some stuff to us, presumably in Arabic.
"Ismi Muhammad, w ma ismok?" he asked of someone in class.
Now clearly, that person had no f& #39;n idea what was going on. So the teacher pointed to himself.
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"Ismi Muhammad, w ma ismok?" he asked of someone in class.
Now clearly, that person had no f& #39;n idea what was going on. So the teacher pointed to himself.
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"Ismi Muhammad." Then he wrote "muhammad" on the board.
"wa", gestures towards student. "Ma ismok?"
Eventually the student took a guess: "Uh, Bryan?"
"BRYAN!" Teacher drew a map on the board and, above the square that corresponded to Bryan& #39;s seat, wrote "Bryan."
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"wa", gestures towards student. "Ma ismok?"
Eventually the student took a guess: "Uh, Bryan?"
"BRYAN!" Teacher drew a map on the board and, above the square that corresponded to Bryan& #39;s seat, wrote "Bryan."
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"W anti, ma ismoki?" the teacher gestured to the next person.
"Uh, Amanda."
Teacher writes "Amanda" on the board above Amanda& #39;s square. And so on, until the whole class has introduced themselves.
Teacher then points to the board. "Look at that! You& #39;re speaking Arabic!"
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"Uh, Amanda."
Teacher writes "Amanda" on the board above Amanda& #39;s square. And so on, until the whole class has introduced themselves.
Teacher then points to the board. "Look at that! You& #39;re speaking Arabic!"
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Now, were we fluent in Arabic? Clearly not. But I appreciate the effort that this teacher made, on minute 1 of day 1, to get us to think about ourselves as *practitioners.* For all the flaws that this specific implementation might have, I think the approach itself is useful.
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It happens to be ESPECIALLY useful when teaching a language because, turns out, it& #39;s easier to learn a language through immersion, with translation as a backup, compared to the other way around.
Why?
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Why?
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Because translation is a separate, difficult skill. Making translation a prerequisite to learning a language slows things down.
This teacher knew that, and took time out of class to start with immersion.
My intro to CS teacher did a similar thing.
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This teacher knew that, and took time out of class to start with immersion.
My intro to CS teacher did a similar thing.
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On Day 1 of class, he rolled out a table with peanut butter, jelly, bread, and a knife on it. Then he asked us to instruct him how to make a peanut butter sandwich.
He did this exercise to like 60 nineteen year olds before he even told us his name.
/8 https://youtu.be/Ct-lOOUqmyY ">https://youtu.be/Ct-lOOUqm...
He did this exercise to like 60 nineteen year olds before he even told us his name.
/8 https://youtu.be/Ct-lOOUqmyY ">https://youtu.be/Ct-lOOUqm...
Why? Because he wanted to introduce us to computational thinking without requiring a programming languageāa separate, difficult skillāto demonstrate the concept.
This teaching technique of recognizing and stripping away prerequisite skills is, IMHO, invaluable.
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This teaching technique of recognizing and stripping away prerequisite skills is, IMHO, invaluable.
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@dabeaz does this too. In his classes, we write verifications for our code. Do we drag unittest or pytest into this? Nah. We use the builtin `assert`.
His classes inspired my decision, in my Python Programming class, to have students build a test framework, step by step.
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His classes inspired my decision, in my Python Programming class, to have students build a test framework, step by step.
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This way students learn a lot about API design, but they ALSO learn that the libraries they use in a job are not magic tools.
Students have built one of those themselves. They& #39;re *practitioners.*
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Students have built one of those themselves. They& #39;re *practitioners.*
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I found myself in a similar negotiation while preparing this @UChicagoMPCS / @UChicagoCAPP sample lecture.
"How do I get students to see themselves as software risk analysts WITHOUT prerequisite skills?
https://chelseatroy.com/2021/04/03/largest-simultaneous-software-risk-analysis-ever-done/
/12">https://chelseatroy.com/2021/04/0...
"How do I get students to see themselves as software risk analysts WITHOUT prerequisite skills?
https://chelseatroy.com/2021/04/03/largest-simultaneous-software-risk-analysis-ever-done/
/12">https://chelseatroy.com/2021/04/0...
This looks easy when done well and is, in fact, extremely difficult.
It& #39;s even harder when you are talented at, or a longtime practitioner of, the subject you teach, because you forget what the prerequisites even ARE.
(luckily I don& #39;t have that specific problem
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="š¤Ŗ" title="Dummes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Dummes Gesicht">)
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It& #39;s even harder when you are talented at, or a longtime practitioner of, the subject you teach, because you forget what the prerequisites even ARE.
(luckily I don& #39;t have that specific problem
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Conveniently, practice with this translates out of the teach-o-sphere to other disciplines (as do many teaching skills, IMO).
I talked more about stripping prerequisites in this piece. Hacker News hated it, which is how you know it& #39;s good:
14/14 https://chelseatroy.com/2020/12/18/how-to-be-a-10x-developer/">https://chelseatroy.com/2020/12/1...
I talked more about stripping prerequisites in this piece. Hacker News hated it, which is how you know it& #39;s good:
14/14 https://chelseatroy.com/2020/12/18/how-to-be-a-10x-developer/">https://chelseatroy.com/2020/12/1...
