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"How to teach programming (and other things)?" by Felienne Hermans

Strange Loop Conference

88K subscribers • 114 videos on Hallway • Conference channel

YouTube
  • Recommended by 5 people: 4 on Hacker News and 1 on Lobsters.
  • Presented by Felienne Hermans, Associate Professor at Leiden University
  • An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

33K views7 years ago5 recommendations

Tools and practiceProgramming languagesDeveloper productivitySimplicity and complexity

Felienne Hermans discusses the history of programming education and argues that explicit instruction and rote practice are more effective than pure exploration.

Everyone should learn programming, right? Yes! But how... Should we allow children to explore and learn about syntax on their own, or should we drill programming like we rote memorize the table of multiplication or German grammatical cases? Felienne's talk outlines this history of programming education and didactics beliefs in programming that lead to the prevalence of exploratory forms of teaching, starting with Papert's LOGO. She will then explore programming education in relation to mathematics and language education and explore how rote learning could look like for programming. Felienne will discuss her own research into misconceptions and code phonology as means to teach programming more effectively. Bio: Felienne is associate professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science at Leiden University, where she heads the Programming Education Research Lab (PERL). Felienne's work focuses on the question how to best teach programming to kids and students, investigating misconceptions, didactic strategies and programming environments. Felienne is a co-editor of the ACM journal Transactions on Computing Education, and a host at the IEEE podcast SE Radio, one of the most popular software engineering podcasts on the web. She writes a monthly column for Dutch IT magazine AG Connect and she ran the Joy of Coding conference for 6 years. When she is not coding, blogging or teaching, she is probably knitting, running or playing a (board)game. Felienne blogs at felienne.com

Why it's here

5 people recommend this

What people say. Engineers recommend this talk for its research-backed insights into why self-directed exploration is often less effective than explicit instruction when teaching programming.

kashfion Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: As a programmer, how should I teach coding to my kid?”

Also, I attended Strange Loop conference last September and there was a keynote speaker who discussed effective ways of teaching programming to kids. The talk is on YouTube and I gotta say, it's very insightful. "How to teach programming (and other things)?" by Felienne Hermans Link: link to this video
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noelwelshon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Learning to code vs. learning to automate”

I'm struggling to parse "essentially motivationally self-taught" but if you mean to say something like "only self-taught programmers will successfully learn to program" that's a myth that isn't backed up by the evidence and serves to exclude people from programming. This talk addresses that misconception: link to this video The paper discusses "constructionism" (which, loosely put, is the idea you give someone a toy and let them figure it out): link There is more out there but that's all I have time to find right now.
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chrisdoneon Hacker News • Recommends

On “History of Logo”

There's a StrangeLoop talk about teaching programming by Felienne Hermans ( link to this video ) that claims that all fields have an "exploration vs instruction" debate on how to teach their field, but this debate is apparently absent from the field of programming for the most part, wherein the "mess around and figure it out" exploration style of LOGO and Papert ("every time you teach something, you deprive a student of the pleasure and benefit of discovery") is the predominant unquestioned wisdom. Felienne wants more pedagogy fights. It's a worthwhile talk. I love LOGO and I think our generation of programmers are very sympathetic Papert's philosophy due to most of us being self-taught to some degre…
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greggman3on Hacker News • Recommends

On “The Hacker Way: How I taught my nephew to program”

I was self directed as apparently are many software engineers so I've always assumed that the best way to teach would be to let kids direct themselves and they can ask questions if they get stuck. Well, this video claims I'm wrong. Self directed study doesn't fit most students according to the research presented in the video. link to this video you can jump to 11:00 if you want to jump to the part about learning.
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greggman3on Hacker News • Recommends

On “How to Learn Everything: The MasterClass Diaries”

According to this person there is plenty of research saying you should tell them how to do it link to this video I think she makes a good point. We don't hand people a guitar and say "figure it out on your own". Cooking shows don't generally show the final dish and say "if you want to make this yourself figure it out on your own". You might say computer programming is different but I suspect for most people here you were taught things like sorting algorithms, database queries, lexers and parsing algorithms, etc. You were not made to figure them on your own. Sure maybe you were self motivated and looked up the topics by yourself but likely you mostly learned by looking at existing code and over time fig…
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inactive-useron Lobsters • Recommends

How to teach programming (and other things)? - 2019
2View on Lobsters

greggman3on Hacker News • Mentions

On “What Makes a Good Teacher? (2001)”

> they guide you to take the very first step, nothing more. Then just the second step, nothing more This sounds like it doesn't match this research which someone posted yesterday link to this video
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greggman3on Hacker News • Mentions

On “That coworker who never stops refactoring”

Extensive research says your intuition that figuring out on your own is better than having someone explain it to you is wrong link to this video
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greggman3on Hacker News • Mentions

On “How to help a programming student get unstuck”

I think there is a difference between "figure it out yourself" and asking questions of the student. In any case, this talk claims that studies show giving the answer is the best way to teach (don't shoot the messenger) link to this video
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socalgal2on Hacker News • Mentions

On “Why I'm Skeptical About Efforts to Revolutionize Schooling”

There's also this: link to this video which claims data shows students being forced to "figure it out" is not the best way to learn. Most HNer disagree with this.
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