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Do new methods make computer science courses easy to teach?
TEACHING sciences pertaining to computers (and their related logic) has always been a difficult task, even for the most learned of teachers. No matter how good you are with Java, it always seems far harder to teach it to the Joe average student. Most teachers even feel that something gets lost in between their transmission of their lecture and what the student ends up absorbing. Students are finding it harder and harder to catch up with difficult and sometimes disorienting concepts revolving around even the most basic of tools.
Many a times you can hear the student blaming the faculty, the college or even the whole educational system for their faulty concepts connecting with all things computer sciences.
So how does a budding programmer genuinely learn programming? And how should a teacher effectively transmit his or her experiences and nuances of a certain computer sciences subject to the student? This article is not going to suggest methods to improve the existing lecture based system of teaching. In fact it is going to do the exact opposite. It is asking you to completely remove this archaic methodology and replace it with a radical new approach towards teaching known as the case study method.
Complains
I recently asked a couple of experienced teachers in a high ranking institution about their opinions about the interpersonal dynamics in a regular one and half hour session class. First in line were feelings of frustration and inadequacy over lecture diffusion. According to them, around 70 per cent of the students had a blank look on their faces suggesting that they had understood approximately nothing concrete out of the lecture. What was worse was the fact that they were not thinking dynamically over the matter dished out to them, and were instead opting for complete passive processing. A lot of the students preferred not to answer any of the questions thrown by the teacher as they could not answer them properly or just did not care less.
Some of the students, who are well versed with given topic, would also constantly interrupt the teacher by nit picking small issues from the teacher’s argument, as an attempt to publicly grill the teacher. This has proven to be a big dissatisfaction on the part of both the teacher and the students, who are trying to understand and balance arguments out.
When the same question was asked from the students, nearly all of them showed comparable level of frustration over the inadequacy linked to the teacher’s method. Most called it run-of-the-mill, boring or just plain trite. Most claimed not to understand a thing out of the lectures, and most said that they did not answer questions as they could not care less with such “low grade teachers”. Keeping in mind the high expertise and experiences of the before mentioned teachers, such a comment sounded more like a slur than an honest opinion.
Casualty
So the crux of the proverbial matter is that people just don’t seem to get it. No matter what you teach and no matter how smart you have been in the past, you just can’t seem to get it. And this goes true for both teachers and the students. Teachers like to stick to the safe method of teaching which is as ancient as the golden age Romans. They discourage questions mid lecture claiming that it disrupts their planned flow of knowledge, and continuously sidestep logically complex questions in order to not “confuse” rest of the students.
The students on the other hand have become lazy and placid with years of spoon feeding and no longer want to actively participate in class. Consistent discouragement of questions by teachers over the years has created an inherent fear amongst most students to jump into the inquisition processes. In fact, “unnecessarily” large amount of questions is perceived as “buttering up” or “being too geeky” on the part of the student. So all in all, the whole archaic system of teacher-student dynamics is bogging down learning on part of both the parties. This is where case study method jumps in to the picture.
Case study
When I first joined LUMS, I perceived the case study method as an over elaborate mechanism conceived by the University’s faculty, as an attempt to distinguish itself from the rest of the country’s business schools. When the dean first came on the podium and started ranting about the glories of case study, all I did was yawn through out the way. Who needed this fancy system when you could have easily taught the same stuff through the regular approach? Somebody smarter than me once said “It is always tougher to tread on the less traveled path”. This is exactly what happened to me and the forty other odd MBA students when the case study method was thrown at us with full force. To put in a nut shell case study approach is completely focused towards speaking in class. Every student gets a fair amount of chances to speak in class about the related problems and the whole process is geared towards solving the issues at hand. The “gearing” is done by the teacher who is nothing more than a director, cleverly throwing arguments in and around class, pitching people against one another and taking strategic positions and biases.
So, in fact, it is the student who is teaching and the student who is learning through out the process, while the director is beautifully orchestrating the class in the logically viable direction. The beauty of case study is that there is never a “right” way towards solving a given issue. There could be 20 dozen different possibilities, just as in real life.
What is needed to make it work?
First of all a given educational institution is required to completely revamp its grading policies. No more should class participation be given a measly 5 per cent of the total grade, as that is a complete de-motivator on part of the system for the student to speak. In places like Harvard, class participation (or CP) lies somewhere 40~60 per cent of the total grade! That is far greater than the midterms and finals combined together.
The reason behind such an alarmingly high proportion in the final grade is to coax a student into speaking into class. When a student knows that his or her grade lies in his or her ability to speak, that student will speak, on the double. I have personally seen introverts radically transform into extroverts as a result of such a skewed marking scheme. This forces over active participation of the student, which is the life blood of the case study method.
The second requirement is a healthy dose of cases with parallel reading material, for each subject, which is supposed to be analyzed (or “cracked”) before each class. These cases have to represent real life situations and, in the case of business schools, are directly picked from actual happenings in corporations and small businesses. This brings the student directly in touch with the events in the real world, making them realize the consequences of their decisions in real life.
Thirdly is the formation of official discussion groups within the class, not exceeding five students per discussion group. This discussion group should be dictated to sit down and discuss each given case for at least half an hour before class, as to allow different perspectives to be mixed (ala the drawn Lenn Model).
Fourthly, teachers with at least three years worth of specialized experience are required. This sounds rather contradictory to the before mentioned statement that the teacher does not need to “teach” anything. The reason behind this steep requirement is the demand for strong directorship in the class. If the teacher has never had real life experience, he would never truly know in which direction the class is needed to be taken. Real world constraints such as budgets, competition, technological limitations etc. can never be learnt from a book, as most books are never written in that perspective. Plus a “text book” teacher would almost never think out of the box, as his limited experience would create an inherent fear in him to try out the radical ideas thrown in by the actively participating students. Thinking out-of-the-box is the spinal cord of the case study method, and an inefficient director is bad enough to snap it.
Stereotyping
Although the case study method is highly popular for subjects such as business, law and medicine, it is rarely applied to core sciences such as genetics, geology, IT and computers. There are two reasons. First, the general stereotyping of the case study method as a sole domain for “practical” subjects such as the before mentioned business and law. Second is the lack of real life documentation of cases thanks to low demand and the relative age of the science subjects. This creates a lot of hurdles for the advocates of this method, and gives reason enough for most science schools to deviate away from this tool.
But the University of Buffalo and many others have successfully attempted this method on subjects as diverse as acid rains, ozone depletion, cold fusion, cystic fibrosis and AIDS in the past five years. Students registered higher levels of learning via the case study method, and there was a 100 per cent level of participation and excitement on their part.
CS and IT
The e-commerce boom and the rapid innovation in computing prowess have led to many interesting scenarios for a class to delve in. Real life problems starting from the web structuring of Dell’s online ventures to the fabricating issues in the 13µ processor construction are all well documented and very much public domain.
Case writings on a variety of local and international problems can very much be initiated. Say if the networking class needs to discuss the pros and cons of the choice between using fibre optics or Wireless mediums, could very well discuss a case written on a real life company (say NetSol) which went under the same dilemma for its communication systems. Or maybe the choice of a special algorithm in the artificial intelligence can be further accentuated by a case written around Quake 3’s AI routines, which are well documented by the developer’s plan files, or its open source code present in its engine. This would make the learning process a whole lot more interesting as the students would be more than eager to jump in and argue over the pros and cons of the choices made. In fact many a times the class could divert towards even a more optimal solution, thanks to the rapid fire sessions.
Negatives
As with most things real life, not everything is rosy about the case study method. Foremost of all complains is the level of stress involved in the preparation and the implementation of cases in their true forms. As someone who has been part of the case study system for sometime, the immense pressure is crushing. This is because of the high percentage of marks involved and this result in a constant distraction for the student.
The fairness of allocation of marks is another issue. The students constantly refer to blind spots or biases a teacher has while selecting students who are allowed to speak in class. Thus there is a frequent disagreement of students and faculty over the marking methods. To counter this, assistants are employed which record each and every comment that a student makes, as to allow the marking to be fair as soon as the teacher leaves the class.
Thirdly, in courses with high software implementation such as programming, class participation can prove to be a costly alternative. This is because most teachers would prefer to jump directly into actual programming, as mistakes occurring right there and then would help hone a student’s skills. But then again, if the student never really knows “why” he should be programming a certain algorithm, instead of the “how”, the whole purpose of the training is lost.
Another problem is the lack of good cases for IT and CS courses. Due to the before mentioned reasons, there is not a substantial number. This means that the teacher has to write down cases on his own, digging from past experiences of both himself and his colleagues. A badly written case is a big road block towards the learning experience of the class. The solution towards is the hiring of a proper case writer who articulates the faculty’s experiences in to their respective cases effectively.
Positives
The pros for the case study are numerous. First of all is the enrichment of class dynamics. The whole drama like scene of the arguing student body is enough to capture even the sleepiest student’s attention.
The high workload with rapid practical implementation insures the permanent imprint of knowledge on the minds of the students, which is impossible with the lecture method. The constant public speaking process rapidly boosts the confidence of the students, which is necessary for job market absorption, which no longer demands just technical skills from the applicants.
The distribution of skill level throughout the class becomes more homogenous, as the skilled students jump voluntarily into the arena as to help the lower skilled students. The teacher benefits from the whole process, as he or she learns newer viewpoints per class per case. This is constant training and allows broader thinking process on the part of the teacher.
With the case study method, all the newer innovations could easily be implemented within a case, without much modification. Thus this would allow the class to keep abreast with the times.
Conclusion
I don’t promise the case study method to be the cure for all the problems that haunt our institutions today. But it certainly is a quantum leap towards the right direction. This method could very well put our beleaguered institutions up to par with the biggies of the world, thus making our generation more competitive in both the national and international markets. If we don’t adapt ourselves today, a lot of our computers programs could very well close down thanks to high student turn over and low intake levels.
The writer
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