CS 301 (Clancy) Homework 3
Fall 2002

Reading

Read the two papers handed out in class on October 14:

· “Mind Your P’s and Q’s: Using Parentheses and Quotes in LISP”, by Elizabeth Davis et al., Empirical Studies of Programmers: Fifth Workshop, Cook et al. (editors), Ablex, 1993. Davis et al. describe misconceptions that students learning about parentheses and quotes in a Lisp course develop. The misconceptions might arise, say, from inappropriate generalization from examples or from inappropriate transfer from other knowledge areas.

· “Student Beliefs about Pascal Programming”, by Ann Fleury, Journal of Educational Computing Research, volume 9, number 3, 1993, pp. 355–372. Fleury describes student attitudes that can interfere with their learning.

These papers aren’t available online to my knowledge. I will leave extra copies in the “out” rack by my office door (779 Soda).

Homework (due October 28)

List three misconceptions that students might develop while trying to learn one of the difficult concepts or techniques from the course you’re working in or are most interested in. Also provide a set of exercises or class activities that would expose these misconceptions.

Also suggest one or two ways in which attitudes students have developed, either from earlier courses or from earlier experience outside school, might interfere with their learning the material in your course. Provide another set of exercises or class activities that would counter these mistaken attitudes.

By October 28, hand in (on paper or via e-mail to clancy@cs) your list of three misconceptions and one or two mistaken attitudes, and your sets of exercises or class activities that would expose the misconceptions and counter the bad attitudes.