|
Something bothers me about Bret's writings: He is very big picture (which isn't bad by any means), but then he often talks in absolutes without substantiating many of his claims. I suppose speaking in absolutes may be for rhetorical reasons, something wishy washy is probably less persuasive. He certainly has some good ideas and a talent for presenting them though. >Programming is a way of thinking If teaching programming is meant to teach a way of thinking, how do we ensure that it transfers to other areas? David Perkins discusses this in his book "Outsmarting IQ" (pg 224, http://books.google.com/books?id=kNbSvy4dQEUC&q=papert#v...). Latin was once thought to be a language that taught people how to think, but the studies didn't show any transfer between learning Latin and other skills. Obviously, programming isn't Latin, and I'm actually in support of the idea of teaching programming as a way to teach thinking skills, but any effort to do is going to have to address the problem of transfer. One way to potentially do this is motivation, I think Vygotsky advocated showing children why they could write (and how they might already be attempting to do so), which would then give them motivation to learn writing. They'd already understand a reason for using it... > Alan Perlis wrote, "To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program." This view is a mistake, and it is this widespread and virulent mistake that keeps programming a difficult and obscure art. A person is not a machine, and should not be forced to think like one. There are cases where this is true, but putting it another way, "A teacher is not a student, and shouldn't be forced to think like one". Any time where a mind is trying to communicate some concept, there has to be some level of dialogue or shared context. One could argue that learning programming could help people understand that others may interpret what they say in a different way (and why that may occur). I think that is a pretty important concept. Finally, the US military has funded a lot of research on intelligent tutoring systems. One of the things a lot of the successful programs have is a means of getting the user to think more like an expert. The tutor programs often do this in two ways: by prompting the trainee for a response and then getting them to compare to something an expert would do, and by providing feedback/hints (at the right level) as needed. Vygotsky discussed the latter in "Mind in Society", sometimes all a person needs is a little assistance at the right time, and then they'll understand why and how to do something. As far as computer based training systems, "Development of Professional Expertise" has some interesting papers, though it may not be the best source. |