High School Students Interest in Computer Programing
Posted on May 27, 2007 Comments (5)
Interesting post on Keeping students interested in Computer Science by an 11th grader:
Most students coming into a high school computer science course are expecting to be able to program mind blowing 3D games within a semester. When most find out that they won’t be able to come close to doing so within their single course of computer science class, most bid adieu to it and move on. Students learn that playing video games is a very small subset of computer science, and find this fact discouraging. This is where many students also lose a lot of interest in computer science. They don’t care about sorting through arrays or lists of data, or coming up with algorithms to solve problems. For this reason, a balance must be found between teaching computer science concepts, and applying the learned concepts in an engaging manner.
Very true. Engaging students, as with all teaching, is critical to making learning not just tolerable but fun.
Related: Electrical Engineering Student by college student – Inspire Students to Study Math and Science by another high school student – A Career in Computer Programming – Programming with Pictures – Want to be a Computer Game Programmer?
5 Responses to “High School Students Interest in Computer Programing”
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June 4th, 2007 @ 12:10 am
Maybe I’m just a big nerd, but I found computers and programming inherently interesting when I first learned about them. I remember learning the basic concepts in BASIC on an Atari 800. My class did very little with graphics or sound. It was mostly the usual stuff with algorithms, binary, etc.
I think Computer Science is well served by losing those who only want to program games. Those people wouldn’t last long anyway and they’re probably not cut out for it in the first place.
I’m not saying CS should be taught in an intentionally boring way, but rather that nobody should skew CS education toward games and graphics just to pander to those who don’t want to learn the real concepts.
June 4th, 2007 @ 10:44 am
I also found programming interesting, my first experiences being on an Apple II and a Commodote 128; both involved programming in BASIC, and a little assembly language.
Computer science as a term is used in different ways at different universities. In some it means software development, in some it means how to program (including algorithms and data structures &c), in some it means either applied or pure mathematics. The differences are like having a subject called “astronomical science” where some schools teach identifying constellations, some teach how to navigate a space shuttle, and still others teach the physics of stellar fusion.
Game programming is a legitimate field of study, as there is a lot of money to be made in this area, and it is growing fast and looks to keep going. But it is a very different thing than learning how to work within a large software development team writing embedded avionic software, and much different than studying computer science with Knuth et al, learning the mathematical intricacies of the Lambda calculus and formal proofs.
We would be well served, not by losing the ones who want to program games, but by better distinguishing between those disparate arts and sciences that are currently lumped under the catchall term of “computer science”.
September 10th, 2007 @ 9:59 pm
“I found that UC Berkeley had an excellent curriculum but not only was my schooling lagging behind work, it became very hard to even go to school because work had me learning the concepts and their applicability and nuances that teachers didn’t even seem to know.”
July 19th, 2010 @ 6:31 am
Game programming is a legitimate field of study, as there is a lot of money to be made in this area, and it is growing fast and looks to keep going. But it is a very different thing than learning how to work within a large software development team writing embedded avionic software, and much different than studying computer science with Knuth et al, learning the mathematical intricacies of the Lambda calculus and formal proofs.
December 10th, 2016 @ 11:05 am
Maybe I’m just a big nerd, but I found computers and programming inherently interesting when I first learned about them. I remember learning the basic concepts in BASIC on an Atari 800. My class did very little with graphics or sound. It was mostly the usual stuff with algorithms, binary, etc.
I think Computer Science is well served by losing those who only want to program games. Those people wouldn’t last long anyway and they’re probably not cut out for it in the first place.
I’m not saying CS should be taught in an intentionally boring way, but rather that nobody should skew CS education toward games and graphics just to pander to those who don’t want to learn the real concepts.