hey mastodon, throw all your programming pedagogy links at me. I teach a lot of beginner programmers and I want to get better at it!
specifically the trouble I have is getting beginners from the "I understand the syntax and can modify examples" stage to the "I can model problems as programs and apply my knowledge of the language to build these programs" stage. the first stage is pretty easy and most tutorials for beginners are oriented toward that kind of literacy... the second is harder to achieve and harder to teach, and it seems like most people only reach that stage with self-directed practice
@aparrish Maybe what you might teach for this step is more about methods to cut a "problem" in small chunks and how to draw flow charts and system design?
Like, less on code, but more around the actual thinking that bring one from "I want to do this" to "I'll do it that way".
Focusing the thinking more on "how to explain my problem to the computer" and less on "write code"
I'm not sure there's a way to teach that. If there is I never found it nor saw it used.
@aparrish I've been fighting with a lot of "engineers" over the years about the way programming is taught to beginners.
I even wrote a bad Medium article on the subject.
Programming is taught as maths when it needs to be taught like a foreign language.
Learn to speak and formulate though in the "computer language", the specifics of syntax, vocabulary and grammar can be learned as you go.
Like with a language, your accent and grammar will be off at first but that's part of the learning.
@aparrish @StreetWanderer you're speaking of the distinction between computer programming and software architecture
The traditional way to teach that involves design patterns, which last I checked, have a bad reputation among people who have to work with green CS grads.