Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Programming Paradigms and Beyond

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This is a really good but conceptually difficult essay with an important point to make: there's no one best way to teach computer programming. There's no natural ordering of concepts from foundational to advanced. What we may think are basic concepts are actually very complex. The choice of computer language can impact a student's mental model of what computing is (their 'notional machine'). "The overarching take-away for researchers is to think more deeply about linguistic assumptions and how they interact with pedagogy of prior and current courses. For teachers, we must remember that we choose not just the syntax and IDE in which we will teach; we also choose the pedagogy, problems, and notional machine through which students experience our chosen language." Image: UCL, The principle programming paradigms.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Dec 25, 2024 7:59 p.m.

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