Planning a Python Course for Beginners

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 1:02 AM, Stefan Ram <ram at zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> writes:
>>Why a new Python course?
>
>   It is not a course in the sense of a written text
>   (which I would call "course notes").
>
>   It is a course in the sense of an event, where I will meet
>   participants in a classroom. I will get paid for it, so this
>   payment is the reason I do it (simplified ;-).

Ah. Well, that's a good answer to the question of "why are you even
bothering to write this", but unfortunately doesn't answer the
questions that I hoped it would, about target audience and such. Heh.
C'est la vie.

>   Since this is my first-ever Python course, but has not yet
>   begun, I do not know the participants, but I can say this:
>
>     - the course description requires that the participant
>       have experiences "working with a computer", but not that
>       they have any knowledge about programming.
>
>     - the participants in my other courses for other
>       programming languages usually are slow learners, so I
>       prepare for this kind of audience. I try to avoid topics
>       that are abstract, advanced or complicated as much as
>       possible. I try to include very simple exercises.
>       Most books and tutorials assume faster learners,
>       so that's another reasone why I don't use them.

So, this here is the important info. In that case, I would start with
wowing them with the amazing stuff Python can do. Start with a few
demonstrations of the simplicity and beauty of expression evaluation.
It's okay to use concepts you haven't yet explained; instead of
starting with concrete info and building up to something interesting,
start with something interesting and then explain how it all works.

Just my opinion, of course, but if you didn't want totally unbacked
opinions, you wouldn't have come to this list :)

ChrisA