Hard work and practice in programming (o 98% beznych ludi, a 2% negatively-coercive akademikoch)

comment by Scott Gray:

Programming and practice can and should be rewarding. If it isn't rewarding to students to make programs then they are not likely to become good at that skill (same goes with Mathematics, Physics, etc.)

At the O'Reilly School of Technology, we set up situations where we get students to do work and at first do small programs that demonstrate the concepts being talked about in the content. We don't discuss anything without them doing an example. It also turns out that if you set up the situation just right, you can get close to 100% of the people DOING programming in order to learn programming. When they build these programs and see it work and know they created it, then they gain a sense of ownership over the skill they are learning which prepares them to do a project without our guidance which is what Simon was telling you about.

It's also important to have instructors there to help students through the frustrations they are likely to encounter when learning. Our instructors are their coaches. They coach them through the process, motivate them to work it out themselves and solve that problem they're having, because isn't that what a programmer is someone who can deal with a situation and work on it until the program does what it's designed to do.

People who can go from novice to expert with books are actually quite rare. If you've ever taught at a University you know that maybe 2% of the students you teach can learn themselves from nothing but a book. It's not that this other 98% are dumb.. it's that they haven't learned how to learn a skill like programming or mathematics and have to be motivated to do kind of work they need to do to learn. Unfortunately, in most courses students do the minimum amount of actual practice that they can get away with because it's not been made available in a form that gives them *ownership* over the process.

What we learned at the University of Illinois Math & Mathematica project was that properly used the computer can be used to not only get students working and practicing but give them ownership over the material as well. OST is basically replicating this same pedagogy that works for those Mathematics courses. The recipe is to merge content and tools in a way that fosters student activity, and to provide coaches to give students positive feedback and to help them through the rough spots.

When you sell someone a book, if they don't read it or they don't pick up the skill they generally don't hold the book responsible, it's probably their own fault. However if they take your course, and they don't learn it's your fault. There are much higher expectations with courses, so you better get it right. So far over the last five years we're getting 80% of our students through these courses. The industry standard for online courses is 30%. We're doing something right.