Re: experiential exercises (was Re: Open Perl Exercises)

G'day Danny,

On Sun, Jun 30, 2002 at 08:49:41AM -0500, Danny Faught wrote:

> I love the experiential approach to doing exercises.  It translates
> pretty well to teaching leadership skills.  But I'm struggling with how
> to incorporate the approach into technical training.  Has anyone seen
> this done before for something as technical as perl training? 
> 
> I've thought about having people get up and take on the role of
> different perl operators, and pass data back and forth or something. 
> But I haven't quite worked it out.

As part of Perl training, I'm afraid not.  Experimenal training often
has a high time-requirement, and when I'm teaching Perl time is
usually at a premium.

I would occasionally take an experimental training approach when teaching
first-year computer science.  Explaining recursion was an example that
immediately came to mind.  A bunch of numbered cards and some willing
students was an excellent way to demonstrate recursion in action.
It was particularly useful because recursion was an oft-misunderstood
concept between students.

I've personally found experimental training much more useful in teaching
concepts (such as recursion, data structures, and so on) than syntax,
and language features.  I find most people can grasp the concept of
a hash rather quickly (especially when compared to something like an
address book), but struggle when it comes to the syntax (%hash vs
$hash{element} vs @hash{@slice}).

Just my 2 bits,

	Paul

-- 
Paul Fenwick <[email protected]> | http://perltraining.com.au/
Director of Training                   | Ph:  +61 3 9354 6001
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