[plt-scheme] Re: HTDP - evidently not for everyone.

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 11:25 AM, wooks <wookiz at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Insofar as there is a claim that everyone can be taught to program - a
> single counterexample  is sufficient to refute that.

Sure. I think the claim might be better specified as "everyone can be
taught to program, provided sufficient resources are spent". The
resources spent teaching programming vs teaching, say, reading are
much less.

> If anybody HTDPer (expert or not) is willing to share their experience
> or offer suggestions to overcome the specific problems I have
> mentioned and help these students to pass, I'm all ears.

I don't have much experience teaching undergrad programming. That
said, my suggestion is to drill the heck out of them. If you show them
how to add up the elements of a list, can they then
multiply/divide/subtract the elements of a list? Can they then
string-append the elements of a list of strings? These are tiny
variations on the same problem; hopefully they can make these tiny
leaps. I would also demand then follow the recipe. Get them used to
the idea that this is like following a recipe -- no thought required.

HTH,
N.