At the start of April, we presented a paper entitled: Innovative Pedagogical Practices in the Craft of Computing at LaTiCE 2016, the 4th International Conference on Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering in Mumbai. This builds upon our work from last year’s NTF Innovative Pedagogies project, reflecting on innovative (and emerging) pedagogies for teaching introductory programming at university-level, as well as models for better conceptualising the “craft” of programming.
The abstract of the paper is below; you can download the full paper online:
Innovative Pedagogical Practices in the Craft of Computing
James H. Davenport, Alan Hayes, Rachid Hourizi and Tom Crick
Teaching programming is much more like teaching a craft skill than it is a purely theoretical subject. Hence an “apprenticeship” model, where apprentices learn by watching the master do, and then do themselves, and are criticised in their doing, is, we claim, more appropriate than the “lecturer/ lecturee” model that universities implicitly adopt. Furthermore, there are generally many more apprentices than the master can personally supervise. Universities will therefore use various tutors, who should be regarded as the analogue of the guild-master’s journeymen. However, how does one encourage this mindset in students who, for their other courses, are indeed lecturees? What are the implications for the journeymen?
(also see: Publications)
Digital, Data & Policy 