Timeline for Teaching "CS integer" vs. "math integer"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
3 events
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| Sep 12, 2020 at 12:23 | comment | added | Scott Rowe | Maybe the real problem is that computer science instructors do not know as much about electronics as I did by the time I was 13, from perusing outdated books about vacuum tubes in the library. It had only 3 books that mentioned transistors, 40 years ago. But I understood how transistors could build a flip-flop, and flip-flops could build a latch, and how latches could implement registers, an ALU and main memory. I didn't have to have encyclopedic knowledge of those things, just an idea. So, instructors: stop diverting to math and teach from the implementation, which is what is real. | |
| Sep 12, 2020 at 12:18 | comment | added | Scott Rowe | This. A computer is a machine. We don't need metaphors or math concepts, we need to know how the machine actually works. It is not rocket science, a 13 year old could (did, in my case) get it. Venn diagrams and stories would have put me off from computer science entirely. Just explain the facts. With the facts, as you say, we can understand many other things about computers immediately, that metaphors and concepts from math would have been no help whatsoever. People really over-think things. | |
| Jul 16, 2017 at 21:13 | history | answered | Soupy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |