Studying Anything
I’ve been thinking recently about the basic path taken when learning a new subject or skill. It appears to me that generally learning something new follows these basic steps:
Context
To learn something new, a context to place the new knowledge has to exist. Generally this context first has to be developed through hands on experience, but in more advanced subjects can be previous academic experience.
Introduction
The new subject is introduced within the existing context. The learner can create a general model of the knowledge, using the existing context as a base.
Reinforcement
Repetitive drills or actions are used to reinforce the new knowledge. This “sets” the memory in the learners mind, be it a fact, or muscle memory.
Currently, based on this post, I believe that lack of context is the primary reason why there is such a great difference in the apparant aptittude of students entering computer science. I am going to try to develop a hands on activity to give context to “how machines work” and algorithmic thinking, focusing on variable assignment, and then sequential processing. Might make a nice master’s thesis 