Re: Helping Students

Re: Helping Students

[baker]

I have no idea why you people get so upset about helping students with
their school work, after all, aren't you here to help pass on your Ada
skills and knowledge? I mean, that's what you'd be doing as I am learning
Ada at the moment.
As to the comment by Jonh English (respect) yes, I know where your office
is, but you are quite busy and not always in. Also, I know that you must
be an accomplished Ada programmer in order to teach the subject, but if
your book is anything to go by, you have little understanding on how to
pass on your obviously extensive knowledge to the complete beginner,
especially one who may not be quite as bright as others in HND1.
Please understand that I'm not trying to slam your book, rather I'm trying
to justify why I didn't come to you for help and asked here instead.
However, it has occurred to me now that I should have come to see you
first and then asked here. 
Apologies, 

Jonathan Baker, Brighton University, UK.
(J.M.Baker@bton.ac.uk)

Re: Helping Students

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <5bqrkh$i9c@saturn.brighton.ac.uk>, jmb36@bton.ac.uk (baker) writes:
> I have no idea why you people get so upset about helping students with
> their school work, after all, aren't you here to help pass on your Ada
> skills and knowledge? I mean, that's what you'd be doing as I am learning
> Ada at the moment.

Nobody here can speak for all of us, but I will answer for myself.

    1.	When I went to school, we were supposed to do our work alone

	Now I am the first to admit that industrial practice often
	involves collaboration, but it is not collaboration on things
	that can be gotten from books.

    2.	Educators in this group suggest against the practice

	I am as quick as the next person to disagree with these
	folk when the topic is something where I have experience,
	such as operating system considerations.  As regards
	educational techniques, however, I must defer to them in
	most cases (aside from occasional comments about the way
	their results come out in industry).

    3.	There is not sufficient bandwidth

	I regularly killfile long topics cross posted to other
	groups which typically devolve into "my language is better
	than yours".  Although there are sometimes valid points
	made in such discussions, they are few and far between.
	There are just not enough hours in the day (my day, anyway)
	to follow every student in the world who has trouble with
	their homework.  Considering that many participants in
	this group aspire to encouraging more widespread use (and
	therefore teaching) of Ada, the problem would only get worse.
	Obviously some _other_ electronic forum for handling
	homework problems would address this particular reason,
	but comp.lang.ada is not the place.

So those are my reasons.  Your statement was "I have no idea why you
people get so upset", so now you have at least one set of reasons,
even if you disagree.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: Helping Students

[Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-93]

Larry Kilgallen <kilgallen@EISNER.DECUS.ORG> Writes:
>In article <5bqrkh$i9c@saturn.brighton.ac.uk>, jmb36@bton.ac.uk (baker) writes:
>> I have no idea why you people get so upset about helping students with
>> their school work, after all, aren't you here to help pass on your Ada
>> skills and knowledge? I mean, that's what you'd be doing as I am learning
>> Ada at the moment.
>
>Nobody here can speak for all of us, but I will answer for myself.
>
<lots of good reasons cut out for brevity>

    Let me add one reason which you seem to have missed citing:

    The purpose of "homework" is quite a bit like the purpose of doing
    push-ups or jogging. If the gym teacher assigned the class 3 miles
    of jogging for "homework" and someone posted to a newsgroup: "Can
    anyone out there jog for 3 miles for me?" (or 1.5 miles, presuming
    the student was only looking for the hard part of the assignment)
    wouldn't this look patently absurd? How does the student benefit
    if someone else does the work?

    Now pointing a student off in the right direction ("Look at book
    X, chapter Y..." or "You need to provide a procedure which does a,
    b and c...") is probably not a bad idea and I have seen several
    people provide exactly that kind of help. But anyone who posts
    something to the effect of "I need someone to send me a quicksort
    algorithm in Ada for my class assignment" is looking for someone
    to do some of their jogging for them. (Which may show some
    potential for management, but this isn't B-School ;-))

    MDC

Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer    ATT:        561.796.8997
M/S 731-96                                      Technet:    796.8997
Pratt & Whitney, GESP                           Fax:        561.796.4669
P.O. Box 109600                                 Internet:   CONDICMA@PWFL.COM
West Palm Beach, FL 33410-9600                  Internet:   CONDIC@FLINET.COM
===============================================================================
    "Languages don't kill people. *Programmers* do!"

        --  Rich Stewart - Language Lawyer & Language Control Opponent.
===============================================================================

Re: Helping Students

[baker]

Okay, I see your point. However, all I meant was that I would have
liked to be pointed in the right direction by somebody who knew what they
were talking about. That's all. Just to be pointed in the right direction.
I too don't think that's it's particluarly beneficial to be told exactly
what to do. However when I posted for help, I mentioned that I didn't want
the whole thing answered for me, just that I wanted to be steered in the
right direction. What I didn't expect was a lot of abuse from people who
thought I shouldn't be posting here at all.
However, thank you to those who did give me a helping hand without getting
all uptight about it.
 
=============================================================================
  Jonathan M Baker                  "Come Back As Fire
  Sky Blue Dragon -=UDIC=-           Burn All The Liars
  E-Mail: J.M.Baker@bton.ac.uk       Leave A Blanket Of Ash On The Ground"
                                                  - Kurt Cobain.
  
  "This new security software reacts to three situations. An improper
  password entry, an invalid login syntax or just a crazy hunch that
  you're just another scumbag with misappropriation of secured data on his
  mind."  - The 5th Wave.
=============================================================================

Re: Helping Students

[Michael Feldman]

In article <5bukg7$sgg@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
FerretWoman <Ferretwoman@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

[snip]

>To all the students I say this...go see your teacher!  If you want to
>chat up here about the types of things you are learning that's fine,
>but when it comes to a problem, don't expect these people to solve it
>for you.  That's not learning...that could be considered cheating...

Whether it's cheating or not depends on the course rules, which ought
to be spelled out by the prof. 

More to the point, though - generally, we intro-course teachers try to
give projects that are within the grasp of our students. Generally,
we're not interested in seeing them fail, we're interested in seeing 
them succeed. Obviously I can't speak for John English, but in my own
course (intro-level, like his), I'm very much interested in having 
students ask _me_ (or my TA) for help. How do we calibrate the
difficulty of our exercises, how do we help to bail out students who
are in trouble, if they don't come to us?

So I say to my CLA friends: if a student asks for help, I can;t prevent
you from giving hints, but one of the hints ought to be something like
"have you taken advantage of the help offered by your prof and others 
associated with the course?"

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman -  chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) 
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/faculty/mfeldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Pork is all that money the government gives the other guys.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ada on the WWW: www.acm.org/sigada/education or www.adahome.com 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Helping Students

[Tom Moran]

> I will go to my teacher because I believe she can
> help me in person much better than someone trying to explain in
> writing how to solve the problem.
  This is probably true, but shouldn't be.  
If future education will involve a lot of internet communication, and
less one-on-one teacher/pupil time, then we had better get good at
explaining things in writing.  c.l.a. seems like as good a place as any
to start practicing.
IMHO

Re: Helping Students

[FerretWoman]

As a student learning Ada (I'm in the second semester of learning this
language) I read this newsgroup only to learn things I may not learn
in class.  I don't read all the articles, only a select few, but if I
am having a problem, I will go to my teacher because I believe she can
help me in person much better than someone trying to explain in
writing how to solve the problem.  Sure, you may be able to tell me
the code I need to do a problem, but you sure aren't going to be able
to help me figure that out on my own, step by step, and I'm not going
to learn this way.  Those who ask for help up here, unless they have
gone through all the other steps before this (ie, teacher, computer
lab workers, other students, etc.) don't really want to learn ada
(IMHO) but just want to get through the problem they have to solve the
easiest way they know how.  Hey, I know what it's like to struggle
through learning this language.  I've spent lots of time in my
teacher's office.  I've spent lots of time screaming at the computer
because my program is not working and I can't see where the code is
incorrect.  But I have solved all my problems, not by asking you guys
what I should do, but trial and error.  THAT is how I've learned what
I have so far, THAT is why I feel I have a very good grasp of the
language which my grades have proven, and that's why I feel mostly
confident that I will be able to do well in this second part of the
class.

To all the students I say this...go see your teacher!  If you want to
chat up here about the types of things you are learning that's fine,
but when it comes to a problem, don't expect these people to solve it
for you.  That's not learning...that could be considered cheating...


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Re: Helping Students

[Ted Dennison]

baker wrote:
> 
> be an accomplished Ada programmer in order to teach the subject, but if
> your book is anything to go by, you have little understanding on how to
> pass on your obviously extensive knowledge to the complete beginner,

Going for that 'A', are you?  :-)

Hey, with the teacher on your side, and us doing all your homework for
you, how can you miss?

-- 
T.E.D.          
             |  Work - mailto:dennison@escmail.orl.lmco.com  |
             |  Home - mailto:dennison@iag.net               |
             |  URL  - http://www.iag.net/~dennison          |

Re: Helping Students

[Bob Klungle]

As an instructor in Ada, C, C++, Unix, Unix advanced programming at UCLA,
I wholeheartedly agree.

Bob Klungle
rklungle@ix.netcom.com

Michael Feldman <mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu> wrote in article
<5c19q5$b56@felix.seas.gwu.edu>...
> In article <5bukg7$sgg@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
> FerretWoman <Ferretwoman@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> >To all the students I say this...go see your teacher!  If you want to
> >chat up here about the types of things you are learning that's fine,
> >but when it comes to a problem, don't expect these people to solve it
> >for you.  That's not learning...that could be considered cheating...
> 
> Whether it's cheating or not depends on the course rules, which ought
> to be spelled out by the prof. 
> 
> More to the point, though - generally, we intro-course teachers try to
> give projects that are within the grasp of our students. Generally,
> we're not interested in seeing them fail, we're interested in seeing 
> them succeed. Obviously I can't speak for John English, but in my own
> course (intro-level, like his), I'm very much interested in having 
> students ask _me_ (or my TA) for help. How do we calibrate the
> difficulty of our exercises, how do we help to bail out students who
> are in trouble, if they don't come to us?
> 
> So I say to my CLA friends: if a student asks for help, I can;t prevent
> you from giving hints, but one of the hints ought to be something like
> "have you taken advantage of the help offered by your prof and others 
> associated with the course?"
> 
> Mike Feldman
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Michael B. Feldman -  chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
> Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
> The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
> 202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) 
> http://www.seas.gwu.edu/faculty/mfeldman
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>        Pork is all that money the government gives the other guys.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ada on the WWW: www.acm.org/sigada/education or www.adahome.com 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

Re: Helping Students

[Robert Dewar]

Jonathan asks

"I have no idea why you people get so upset about helping students with
their school work, after all, aren't you here to help pass on your Ada
skills and knowledge? I mean, that's what you'd be doing as I am learning
Ada at the moment."


If you have no idea, stop and think for a moment. There are probably several
thousand students starting a new term or semester learning Ada right now.
If all of them expected comp.lang.ada to do their homework for them, then
we would have thousands of messages on CLA, swamping the newsgroup and making
it useless.

Thankfully, most students are considerate enough to realize that a newsgroup
like comp.lang.ada is not the right forum for getting simple help for their
assignments!