It is a technique long and widely used in teaching. Many times I saw my teachers, realizing that the question fell on deaf ears, answered their questions for students as a pedagogical device. The technique as advantages among which are 1) giving the student multiple opportunities to succeed or fail, but, when failing occurs, to give correct information along with an explanation; 2) breaking through the student’s frustration at not being able to succeed after multiple tries. The point is that the onus is on the instructor to teach through the barrier.
Yes and no. The learning just doesn’t work if the instructor is carrying the bulk of the effort. A common problem with the current curriculum is students copy pasting blindly with zero understanding and reaching the projects unprepared.
I honestly think rather than just handing answers to copy with explanations that are historically ignored it is better to (as we currently do) offer a link to the forum and pre populate a post for the user where they can talk to real people and get guided through the misunderstanding.
Honestly, if we don’t help a student develop some skills to do some research and communication, we are dooming them to never be ready for the job.
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Different approaches; different opinions . . . perhaps even different objectives.
You approach it from the viewpoint of the teacher with a view toward passing ‘exams’ in order to issue a certificate.
I approach it as a student not interested in certification but in learning the material without the frustration of delays and gaps in feedback. From my perspective, your approach obstructs the immediacy of learning. Perhaps it’s due to age and the era in which we learned to learn, but I think not. I think human learning is little changed in the course of history. Teaching, on the other hand, has changed dramatically.
There was a time when rote was the principle method of teaching. It has its advantages and disadvantages just like programmed instruction does. Both can be done well or poorly by the one teaching. I’ve experienced both. I placed out of all college English instruction (in the '50s) because I had a teacher who taught grammar by rote and used ‘all or nothing’ exams wherein one had to answer such questions as, “What is the third word in the 2nd punctuation rule?” You either got the right answer or you failed the entire exam in which you might have answered every other question correctly.
It would difficult, if not impossible, to use the rote method with computer instruction, but it had its time and place and worked well. I would agree with the concept of linking to a forum to ask questions if it were not for the inherent delays. For learning to take place, answers have to be in very close time proximity to the questions. Your construct cannot achieve this.
Please understand that I’m only offering constructive criticism based on many decades of learning and teaching and examining how the two interact most effectively. Teachers are taught different - often unproven and unworkable - methods by ‘education’ departments in colleges and universities today. In the opinions of scholars like Victor Davis Hanson and Jordan Peterson, those educators or educators have performed miserably as tests scores and comparisons of American education attained with those of other countries show. Student education achievement has declined despite longer classroom hours, more instructional days, more instructional aids, use of computers in classrooms, and more money spent per student. How does one explain that phenomenon? Human nature and ability is little changed; ergo the problem must lie with teaching methods and, putatively, those who teach those methods.
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Fundamentally I think you are misunderstanding my perspective. I have many years of experience as a professional educator. I don’t really care about exams and have not talked about exams. I care if the students gain the skills and knowledge. Students here struggling to make a HTML webpage on their first project is a measure of if students picked up the basic skills.
Handing students code to copy has failed to generate understanding. It’s that simple. I’m advocating against providing answers to students for them to regurgitate back. Online education has to be very careful to avoid the ‘tutorial hell’ pitfall where students are not actually pushed to think about and work with the material.
The response time on the forum and the discord is pretty good. Usually the students who struggle the most in those discussions though are the ones who found answers to copy and didn’t build understanding.
Doing the same thing that has been proven not to work - handing students code to copy paste - won’t suddenly start working this time.
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to make steps easier there are some parts in which we do this. The first step in which then things are not exactly given on that same topic is an obstacle, and people don’t know how to implement. We are working on changing that and removing the copy and paste thing
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If you have a question about a specific challenge as it relates to your written code for that challenge and need some help, click the Get Help > Ask for Help button located on the challenge.
The Ask for Help button will create a new topic with all code you have written and include a link to the challenge also. You will still be able to ask any questions in the post before submitting it to the forum.
Thank you.