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Honestly this seems like a classic case of trying to run before you walk. They don't even know what a package is or how to use a terminal and they're trying to parse/analyze csv files. You need a fundamental base of knowledge before you do complex things.

Sven Slootweg

(@joepie91@pixie.town)

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and

As an educator: I disagree. Project-based learning is *by far* the most effective way to learn something new; I actively encourage my students to think of a project they *want* to build, regardless of the complexity. As long as they are aware that it's a big goal, that's fine!

Sven Slootweg

(@joepie91@pixie.town)

Replying to

and

Every big goal can be split up into smaller goals; every complex project can be reduced to a very small and simplified version. You do need to explain this to students, and emphasize that even if they never reach the original idea, they will still have learned a lot along the way

Sven Slootweg

(@joepie91@pixie.town)

Replying to

and

The real problem here is that a lot of programming documentation - *especially* beginner documentation - doesn't really provide a way for people to do this. They jump right into the language, with simple examples, and so on; when instead they should start with "breaking up goals"

Sven Slootweg

(@joepie91@pixie.town)

Replying to

and

If you focus on those sorts of meta-skills from the start (and yes, some degree of 1:1 help is very useful here, but not required), then you "teach people how to learn", and everything they try to learn after that will be much much easier, with much better retention.

Sven Slootweg

(@joepie91@pixie.town)

Replying to

and

(Worth noting that self-directed project-based learning was historically very difficult, because the linear nature of books doesn't lend itself well to this approach; but today, we have the web, which makes this trivially easy. Educators should really actually use that...)

Sven Slootweg

(@joepie91@pixie.town)

Replying to

and

Bonus sidenote: I've found that most "learning disabilities" magically disappear once you stop expecting people to linearly absorb a large amount of information that they have no practical context to apply to yet.

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and

Strong agree. I also find my information retention is much lower when I get it isolated from meaningful context for me, and knowing I'm probably gonna forget makes me even less motivated

4:16 PM · May 7, 2022

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