Why do professors . . . ?
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If you're this certain professor or closely enough acquainted with some of these certain professors, why do they sometimes give homework whose solutions consist of components that haven't been covered yet? Is it to make sure that only the "people who don't really need the class anyway except for the credit" strictly get the highest grades rather than having merely to share that status with everyone else who's comprehended everything that's been taught so far? And does the frequency of this happening strongly correlate with how high the school is ranked?
I'm more concerned with why professors are generally incompetent in the fields they're teaching. At least that seems to be the case with just about every C++ course I've ever seen.
Some of the homework assignments I've seen... man. It really makes me wonder how those teachers have jobs.
Some of the homework assignments I've seen... man. It really makes me wonder how those teachers have jobs.
I wouldn't know the percentage of incompetence among C++ teachers. My current availability bias consists only of this one mathematician teaching this "Thinking in C" course, and he seems almost competent enough for the task. The underlying knowledge of the statements that flow out of his mouth seems extensive, at least to me, with the exception of saying things like, "You should be able to let the user make it of arbitrary length," and then going on to #define that very length in his own code.
Anyway on this one lab,
Anyway on this one lab,
scanf had been vaguely introduced (which is all you can expect to be already a master), and the problem was to use structs and to be able to enter in data until the Enter key without data was pressed to break out of a while loop. It was suggested we use a conditional on the strlen of the entered data, and we could be expected to know that since that was also covered, but through genocide sweat and tears it wasn't utilizable until knowing about gets that was only shown for the first time in his solution.
Reminds me of my C/Java teacher...I didn't notice it much in the C class since I basically already knew everything we were learning, but once we got to Java I started realizing how crappy a teacher she was.
She goes over stuff in class, then gives out unrelated assignments and basically says "Read the book." >_>
If the rumors are right though, she won't be teaching next year...hopefully the replacement is better...
She goes over stuff in class, then gives out unrelated assignments and basically says "Read the book." >_>
If the rumors are right though, she won't be teaching next year...hopefully the replacement is better...
In some cases it is because there isn't time to cover everything in class. For example, in my compiler construction
class, we had to implement our compiler in C++. For the vast majority of the class, C++ was a new language.
There wasn't time to teach in lecture both compiler construction concepts and a new programming language.
As a programmer, either you will encounter often problems for which you don't know the answer and must
research, or you will be a menial code monkey who has to be spoon-fed both the answer and problem at
the same time. Good programmers are those who can independently research what they don't know and
solve the problem without relying on someone else to give them answer.
class, we had to implement our compiler in C++. For the vast majority of the class, C++ was a new language.
There wasn't time to teach in lecture both compiler construction concepts and a new programming language.
As a programmer, either you will encounter often problems for which you don't know the answer and must
research, or you will be a menial code monkey who has to be spoon-fed both the answer and problem at
the same time. Good programmers are those who can independently research what they don't know and
solve the problem without relying on someone else to give them answer.
| jsmith wrote: |
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| Good programmers are those who can independently research what they don't know and solve the problem without relying on someone else to give them answer. |
Hooray for lone wolfism!
closed account (1yR4jE8b)
| Good students are those who can independently research what they don't know and solve the problem without relying on someone else to give them answer. |
fixed
| Good students/programmers are those who can independently research what they don't know and solve the problem without relying on someone else to give them answer. |
I have a similar feeling. In this case, the course is not accompanied with a textbook; it's only a series of lectures with slides and source code, some of which is not supposed to be peeked at before doing the assignments. I'd normally struggle through and complete them on my own even though I could usually expect the teacher's solution to be an optimized version that he likely never derived under the same amount of student experience.
The course from the outside presents itself as "Close your browser, come, read, listen, and be encouraged that you can put together and reproduce on your own up to what you've been shown in this fun self-contained class," but from the inside it presents itself as "Come and be impressed with all that I know about C that you don't."
This isn't an actual college course, although it's given by a smart enough professor. Later in an actual college course, having done this would count as being "a good student/programmer who can do independent research." The question remains not really answered of why it seems very important for professors to keep "the students who don't really need the class except for the credit" in an exclusively superior grade bracket.
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I think a lot of courses expect the students to do the reading outside of class and only focus on the main details in class. If your interested in doing well then you will be doing outside reading regardless. It is important to take responsibility for your own learning rather than expecting someone else (like a teacher) to do it for you.
That goes for any subject, not just programming.
That goes for any subject, not just programming.
This course doesn't have a textbook for reading outside of class or any reference to one. And it's one thing for a professor to create his own assignments based on "the lectures and the chapters and web pages the lecture's based on," but it's another thing for a professor to create his own assignments based on "the completion of another course with the same title as this one." I want to understand this latter tendency.
Has your professor ever written a serious project? No need to ask him, if he never mentions a concrete project, then he probably hasn't.
@Disch: hehe... I once mentioned at this forum my bad opinion about highschool math teachers (similar to yours of C++ professors) and got flamed on quite some :)
I'm more concerned with why professors are generally incompetent in the fields they're teaching. At least that seems to be the case with just about every C++ course I've ever seen. |
@Disch: hehe... I once mentioned at this forum my bad opinion about highschool math teachers (similar to yours of C++ professors) and got flamed on quite some :)
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This is his CV: http://uvu.freshsources.com/page4/files/cv.pdf
So it looks like he has. Either way, it might take more to explain why in some classes a perfect score isn't achievable unless you really didn't need the class in the first place (except for the credit). I suppose that, regardless of why it's this way, if you want a perfect score just know everything before the semester starts. Someone should just be able to call them on it, since it probably wouldn't be much more than a fetish for giving holy 100 percents to superachievers.
So it looks like he has. Either way, it might take more to explain why in some classes a perfect score isn't achievable unless you really didn't need the class in the first place (except for the credit). I suppose that, regardless of why it's this way, if you want a perfect score just know everything before the semester starts. Someone should just be able to call them on it, since it probably wouldn't be much more than a fetish for giving holy 100 percents to superachievers.
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| in some classes a perfect score isn't achievable unless you really didn't need the class in the first place |
| Good students are those who can independently research what they don't know and solve the problem without relying on someone else to give them answer. |
Good teachers are those who can determine the research capabilities of students and supply them with enough knowledge and support to fulfill a given task.
EDIT:
I jut came across .. this:
http://xkcd.com/754/
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| Faerie wrote: |
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| If you're this certain professor or closely enough acquainted with some of these certain professors, why do they sometimes give homework whose solutions consist of components that haven't been covered yet? |
| Galik wrote: |
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| I think a lot of courses expect the students to do the reading outside of class and only focus on the main details in class. If your interested in doing well then you will be doing outside reading regardless. It is important to take responsibility for your own learning rather than expecting someone else (like a teacher) to do it for you. |
| Faerie wrote: |
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| Is it to make sure that only the "people who don't really need the class anyway except for the credit" strictly get the highest grades rather than having merely to share that status with everyone else who's comprehended everything that's been taught so far? |
| helios wrote: |
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| Someone who's understood almost everything will get a 8/10 or 9/10. 10/10 typically means this isn't the first time they've done this. |
If you have classmates that already know the subject, it does not mean you get lower grades. Your grade is not proportional to your classmate's grade or even related.
But I do feel how you feel, I also struggle to be at the same level my advance classmate's level.
I'm totally new to programing in any language, let alone C++, and am in my second class (data structures) this summer. Honestly, I don't mind at all when our teacher gives us an assignment, or even just a "for fun" suggestion, that he knows is outside our current knowlege base. As has been pointed out before,
That makes sense to me. And I'm going to learn more from actually doing an excersize than I am from having the answer given to me.
What I have really disliked about my teacher (same guy for both of these first two classes) is the complete lack of feedback. I understand that there might not be a right way to solve a particular problem. But I'd like to get some sort of feedback that, 'hey, that was a good way to deal with that', or, 'did you think about trying this, which might be easier to write, and more efficient?' If all I wanted was to learn a little code, I could have bought C++ for Dummies. Instead, I took classes thinking I might get some constructive criticism. Silly me ...
| Good students are those who can independently research what they don't know and solve the problem without relying on someone else to give them answer. |
What I have really disliked about my teacher (same guy for both of these first two classes) is the complete lack of feedback. I understand that there might not be a right way to solve a particular problem. But I'd like to get some sort of feedback that, 'hey, that was a good way to deal with that', or, 'did you think about trying this, which might be easier to write, and more efficient?' If all I wanted was to learn a little code, I could have bought C++ for Dummies. Instead, I took classes thinking I might get some constructive criticism. Silly me ...
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