During our online meeting on February 2, several participants settled on topics for their third challenge. The ones I have are:
-
@duaneg and @kayalle will explore what we know about motivation and learning
-
@ericgj and @coxandrew will take a look at what we know about teaching human languages that can be applied to teaching programming languages
-
@MrSteve and @leopoldomt are going to try to find out what makes examples good for novices
-
@darleneflor (and possibly @ethanwhite, who had to leave early) will try to find existing collections of examples that we can adapt and use
-
@seacreature: will summarize the research reported in the book "The Penguin and the Leviathan"
Everyone's goal is to bring back something interesting that the rest of us can learn from by February 14, so that we can discuss it in our next online meeting (which will be February 16 or 17 --- I'll get a Doodle up to find a time).
If you weren't able to join us yesterday, and want a topic for task #3, please either propose one via a post on this site, or try to write something by February 14 that describes the core concepts or big ideas that you're trying to convey to your learners. I recently revised the list for Software Carpentry, but what I think you'll find more interesting is what Michelle Levesque has put together for Mozilla, which is now available in handy graphical form. What are you and your colleagues trying to get across beyond the syntax of a 'for' loop or how to make the text in a web page blink? Do you want to change the way your learners see the world, and if so, what change are you hoping for?