Computation teaching problems

Gareth Funning, University of California, Riverside

Who we are

37% Hispanic or Latino

31% Asian American

15% White

4% African American

• R1 school• UC land grant campus for

inland southern California• 20,000 undergraduates• 3,300 graduate students

2010 – GEO 244, Numerical Methods and Modeling in the Geosciences• Graduate class, taught alternate years• Command line, shell-scripting, GMT, LaTeX and MATLAB

(focus on inverse models, regression, optimization) • Essential skill development for graduate research

2015 – GEO 111, Numerical Skills in Geoscience• Undergraduate class, required for all majors (planned)• MATLAB (focus on visualization, simple box models,

simple climate/biogeochemical models) • A basis to build upon for other classes in the major

Computation in Earth Sciences at UCR

I went into this class, very interested in the material, but pretty scared of it. Now, I feel I am walking away with a useful set of skills that I am comfortable using.I have a much better idea of what I'm doing now, honestlyThis class was great. I learned a whole lot useful skills which will help me analyzing and presenting my work.Homework assignments were a little lengthy, I spent on average 12-15 hours a week on them…other than that, great class and learned a lot about programming

What went down in GEO 242

• Geophysics students

• International students

• 75% positive

What went down in GEO 242The Instructor could benefit from preparing several explanations and acknowledging that the students…are just beginning, and that it may take longer for them to understand even simple concepts.

Most students were lost and confused. It forced many to have to spend the entire week looking up solutions to create maps, images, and plots.

It was difficult keeping up with mathematical concepts as the teacher had a fairly fast pace…I believe this course can be tailored to cater to every students need, not just a select few.

• Atmospheric science students

• Geology students• 19% negative

• Even successful students take far too long over the assignments (not knowing when to ask for help?)• Pacing was difficult with a wide range of abilities in the

class, some got left behind, others finished early• More varied examples needed to keep all engaged• Teaching the underlying math as well as the MATLAB

implementation was too much for some• Reading error messages was a major issue for some

students (basic computer literacy?)• Student frustration is often mirrored back by the

instructor!

Lessons learned

Students often don't get the generic terminology (‘variable’, ‘parameter’, etc)

…it turns out if students don't grasp the science, it confuses the programming learning

They enjoy relatively simple programming tasks that result in a disproportionately fancy success. Creating a simple movie was a great motivator.

BUT! movie2avi – RIP

I wish MATLAB would not keep making previous usages of code redundant

They don't understand or appreciate the exactness of computer programming…you cannot randomly insert spaces, omit commas etc.

Students 100% don't have a clue how to use the MATLAB help…I am sure it is wonderfully mathematically and computationally correct, but it is entirely useless to my students.Andy Ridgwell, UCR

http://www.appstate.edu/~marshallst/GLY3455/

But it’s not all doom and gloom…

I spend two lectures just talking about directories and paths…until we cover it students won't understand why MATLAB doesn't know where their .m file is.

Have significant time for office hours. Students will get stuck on very tiny syntax errors and waste hours on something very simple.

I think it is essential for students to see me write code on the fly, see me make mistakes and know that even their instructor gets errors all the time.

In my course, I use data from petrology, to geophysics, strike and dip stuff, hydrology, image analysis. Students are quick to dismiss something challenging if they think it is only relevant outside of their primary interest.

I tell my students to never spend more than 45mins on a single error.

To succeed, you must start out VERY simple.

Scott Marshall, App. State