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What is Math 4 ME? The Programming Workshop Conclusion Appendix: Materials Used in the Math 4 ME 2000 Programming Workshop |
The Programming Workshop
Given the short time frame of Math 4 ME, I decided that a project and tutorial based approach to learning to program would be more successful and fun for the campers than a structured, systematic approach. The StarLogo web site provides a very useful introductory tutorial to StarLogo, with which we began.(1) Each camper had her own computer to work at. Girls had to type their own programs, but were encouraged to work together and ask questions of each other to facilitate their learning. I was available to answer their questions and to help with debugging, as were several volunteers.(2) Campers were thus able to work at their own pace, and could move on to the next exercise or tutorial as they finished. After the StarLogo tutorial, participants were given an exercise in using the StarLogo Reference Manual. The goal of this exercise was for the girls to familiarize themselves with the format of the Reference Manual, so that they could look up commands that they needed and become more self-sufficient as programmers. It also gave the campers an opportunity to find aspects of StarLogo that they, individually, found particularly interesting. I designed two additional tutorials to introduce the campers to some higher level programming commands and to include in the workshop some mathematics and discussion of gender roles in school. The first of these led the girls through the creation of a program to encrypt pictures drawn in the StarLogo Graphics window. Before starting on this tutorial, I gave a short and informal exposition on base two and modular arithmetic, and asked the girls to work some problems to make sure that they understood these concepts. We then discussed what encryption was, and I explained how the encryption algorithm that they would be coding worked.(3) In the second tutorial, the campers developed a program to model the effects of a supportive environment (or lack thereof) on a girl's academic progress in math and English. As they were beginning this tutorial, we held a discussion about the campers' likes and dislikes among their classes, their academic performance in these subjects, and what they perceived as major factors affecting their enjoyment and performance in classes. I asked the campers to think about the accuracy and validity of the model as they worked through the tutorial. Afterwards they got together into small groups and designed and programmed their own extensions to the model. At the end of the week, campers presented their work to each other and to their parents with PowerPoint slide shows. |