So, to make student interested in CS and programming is. don’t make it looks difficult and serious lesson

However there is also another ingredient. Internal motivation. Everybody has their own motivation for taking up a course in CS (computer science), SE (software engineering) or CSSE. I’m doing a CSSE course, kinda like a mutated version of a plain vanilla CS course

Anyway, my motivation comes from my interest in building stuff. I want to create something that people can interact with, something that humans can use. Sure, the process of getting to the final product is very interesting too, but I love just _creating_ shit.

Other people don’t care about the final product. They care purely about the challenge of programming. It’s not a means to and end. They are interested in the logic, the math, and the dark esoteric corners of programming languages.

I think people should understand what their motivation is. Motivation is diverse – you don’t have to be a math freak to love CS . But if you figure out they don’t have one, then it’s probably not a good idea to be studying CS, SE or CSSE

When I was in the 12th Grade computers class the teacher was reading a book on Pascal out loud to us. Pascal ! I got the feeling that was about as large a conceptual leap as he could manage from FORTRAN. He didn’t even bother to read ahead the day before and hence he frequently mis-understood concepts in the book and explained completely the wrong thing to us. He was actually a Maths teacher who had been thrust into computing because he had the least charisma and self-confidence of the Maths department.

If you wanted to learn, you’d have been better off doing it on your own.

We had another computers teacher who was also a Maths teacher but who actually loved computers. Unfortunately, he was better with the younger kids and didn’t teach 10th, 11th or 12th Grade.

When I got to University, my Dad gave me his PDP-11 handbook and all his old punch-cards. (Then they taught me Java… Oh well.)

I moved to a new city about 2 years ago, in february, and went to a school to play football of all things, signed up for a class whose name i didnt understand. And next thing I know I’m in the almost exact same situation. People trying to hard simply to go straight to game making. We had an assignment to make a mini story game (was supposed to be a few decisions with consequences and could all be in text), most people tried too hard and wound up with low low marks by trying to figure out the sprite module ( we used turing), while me and the two others in the class who actually came because we were interested made text based ones, and mine scored 98 and you could actually equip fight run, and a few other things(I’m not going to mention the pain it was to make this without knowing arrays yet…). Sure it was all text but it was fun to most, and *key point* it ran. Out of 26 students, only 8 of the programs ran, and 4 of them almost always crashed halfway through.

Enough bragging about me though, My teacher was better than this article states, knows vb and turing decently well enough to help you, and could understand what i was doing when i started copying from you guys. Now I learn on my own, and am heading bacxk to another class(now gr 12) in jan., Learning vb, I cannot wait to see what happens this time XD

Motivation was not an issue once I started, I’ve always liked computers, and figuring out what makes them run is one more thing I can learn.

I’ve finished my first year of Computer Programmer at St. Clair College, and I must say I was disappointed in the programming classes. They taught VB.NET, and it was agonizingly slow. I had already had much experience with programming, though no VB. I bought the textbook about 1 week before classes started and read a bit of it. These half dozen chapters were taught in the first 2 months. It was slow. No real theory concepts were introduced, and we were taught more of how to use VB rather than program. Not to mention, my second sememster teach Mrs. Dupuis had experience programming in the career-world, however had no knowledge of any standard practices and was hung up on VB6. It was common for me to point out something to her in class and her be “Oh, my, that’s new!”. And it was within the first 2 chapters of the text book. Another example is how we used OLD controls. We had to add the old controls to the toolbox (MainMenu comes to mind, rather than the MenuStrip that was already there).

Well, that was half rant. Anyways, my point being that a student will have to delve beyond the classroom in order to succeed. My grade 10-12 computer teacher taught me my first programming using Turing, and I’ve learned on my own since. Of course, I’ve wanted to program since before grade 8, so motivation was not an issue for me.

I think that you have identified some of the key issues in high school CS education. We have some ideas about how to fix this, and it involves robots. Take a look at out stuff at http://myro.roboteducation.org/ and give us some feedback.

Thanks again!

“Computer science classes however, this dropout rate seems much higher compared to other classes”

Drop out rate runs at least 50% or more regardless of the teacher. Why? Who knows? this is one of the biggest things all colleges and universities are having. I think it id directly related to the fact that CS is just flat out hard. Math, Physics, Logic and the ability to abstract problems – not many folks can do that successfully.

“The teacher must have some way of keeping students paying attention to them, they must be passionate about the subject which they teach, or they will have no hope of keeping students enthralled by the subject.”

People say “The teacher is boring” – get over it. you try being engaging and fun 24/7 – regardless of the problem set this stuff is not easy. I personally try to make my classes fun, I use current games and algorithms as well as problems that are current (not from 30 year old text books) and still students just don’t even try. Too many hours playing games vs. coding them. You are responsible for your education. No one else is. find something fun to code. Do some work on your own, heck heaven forbid you read the book/websites/whatever. Stop blaming the educator.

“Most students coming into a high school computer science course are expecting to be able to program mind blowing 3D games within a semester.” Get real, that’s like expecting to take Chem 1 and expecting to do full blown gene sequencing and recombinant dna work. get a grip. You don’t have the math, algorithms or skills to even approach that. Not even with some of the tool kits. And if you can’t do it fast and quit – well I guess anything that is hard will force you to quit too. I takes years to become competent in any field, and more to become an expert.

@Jeff Brown – “Those who can, do. Those who can’t teach” – No it’s not an unfair statement at all. It’s an old expression, obviously. All I’m saying is that for Computer Science, there is real money out there for those who are talented.

Well, no. I did the “do” for years, commanded a real good salary and busted my butt. As I get older I realized that 60+ hours a week (on a light week), 52 weeks a year isn’t worth it. I teach because I enjoy teaching and the time (summer) that I get to work on my craft with personal projects. I no longer have weekend beeper calls, full blown design meetings with people that couldn’t design a cup and teams that can’t open an automatic door. You want money go for it, you want a life, hmmm good luck.

“@Bobrobyn -
“Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix it?”
Well, I think the slowing of the economy will cause people with real skills to consider teaching as a viable option. I think you are right though. It is too secure of a job. ”

Secure a job? well maybe. Depends on where you are teaching and at what level. Almost all the teachers I know are dedicated to learning more about their specialty and field. The field is always changing, especially compared to most other static fields. So somehow you think the ability to fire someone will make them better? Good luck with that. Let me tell you, even with a slowing economy I could double my salary in an instant if I left teaching – I do this for the love of the field. Not because it’s stable ha!