For Next Time 3: Computer Programming

It appears that over the years, the concept of computer programming has evolved and that my current students do not have a clear idea of what it entails. They confuse data entry with programming and have difficulty with MatLab, which uses a procedural language. They think of writing spreadsheets or constructing databases as programming. While these activities are important and do involve telling a computer what to do, they use applications languages. The most serious problem is that they do not execute a sequence of commands in an order that is evident to the users.

Next time, I need to be clearer on the role the student plays and avoid buzzwords, such as "programming." In addition, I need to check in preliminary exercises that students are sufficiently computer literate and, if necessary, provide additional guidance on such basics as what a directory is, data specifications vs. writing code, how to respond to certain errors, and finally, that they will, in fact, need access to MatLab. We are in our eighth week and I have a couple of students who finally decided to order the package. Now, they are waiting for it to arrive by snail mail. An earlier assignment, no matter how simple, would have sent the message sooner.

Happily, most of the class is on track. Because I don't ask them to do anything more complicated, with respect to MatLab, than they have already done, they have the skill now to rise above small examples and tons of tedious calculations. However, there are still stragglers and it is their situation I would like to avoid in the future.