CST 205 Week 2

Week 2

This week we learned about a lot of things, including if statements, conditional operators, and adding items to images using method written in JES. This week has felt a bit more confusing because the language in the assignments doesn't appear to be geared toward the online class. The descriptions say to pair up and call the teacher over for help, but it doesn't work too well like that online. I think it's caused a bit of confusion. Also, the version of JES I'm using is very outdated (using legacy versions of Java and Python). I get the feeling that there are students struggling with the environment itself or trying to use features that don't exist in those languages yet (append for strings in Python). Hopefully next week I'll have time to try out the latest version. Aside from the technical issues, we have learned a lot this week. I'm surprised that we're already doing nested for loops and if/else statements in the second week of an introductory programming class, but I'm glad we're moving quickly so we can get to the interesting stuff quicker. This week we took an image that had a green screen background and replaced it with another background. Replacing a green screen background in an image was fun, though a bit frustrating because you had to make sure your background was larger than the image with the green screen.

Assigned Reading

Angela Lee Duckworth: The Key to Success Grit (TED Talk)

Angela explains that the largest key to perseverance and success (in this case regarding education) is having grit, which she defines as being strong, having a good work ethic, and having long-term goals. Students without grit tend to drop out more or stop short of their goals. She briefly mentions the idea of having a growth mindset and how that has been the only factor that would help students gain grit. It caught my attention because Dev Bootcamp covered a lot of the ideas behind having a growth mindset. It would have been nice if she explained it more because I believe it would have been beneficial for some people to hear about.

Twilight of Lecture by Craig Lambert (Harvard Magazine)

I whole-heartedly agree with this article. Personally, I learn so much more when I'm able to "play" with and idea. Having someone to talk to and engage in a discussion with significantly increases the amount I'll take in and helps me to get my ideas settled. I'm currently enrolled in another course (Data Structures) that has a three hour lecture and the professor lectures the entire time. Unfortunately, I don't think any students are learning anything from it. I can see how beneficial it would be to flip the learning style of that course. However, I can also see how students would be upset with the change. Students are so used to the standard process of sitting silently, listening, and taking notes that they have a difficult time seeing or understanding how a different style (where you listen to the lecture before class and discuss with peers in class) would be beneficial.

Learning to Think Outside the Box by Laura Pappano (New York Times)

This article is all about the importance of being creative. Being creative can be beneficial in regards to computer science because we're always trying to come up with the best solution to a problem. When you can looks at several different ways (some much better than others) to solve a problem, you can usually find a more ideal one in the bunch. Creativity is very helpful when it comes to problem solving this way, too.