[Edu-sig] Teaching python to non-CS students

[chester_b]

On Monday 16 December 2002 01:51 am, Danny Yoo wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Dec 2002, chester_b wrote:
> > I'm currently working on a project to create a programming class for
> > non-computer science students. The class is meant a college level intro
> > class (so it is not meant to be hard, just an introduction). I want to
> > use python.
>
> Hi Chester,
Hi, thanks for replying ... sorry it took me a week to get back to you. I've 
been out-of-town for a while. 

> > Questions:
> > 1) Has anyone tried to take a similar approach?
>
> Hmmm... you might find the book "Simply Scheme", by Matthew Wright and
> Brian Harvey useful:
>
>     http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/simply-toc.html
I'll look into picking up a copy.

> The book is tailored toward people who are interested in
> programming, but don't have a CS background. 
This is exactly what I'm looking to do.

> Its focus is less on math
> and numbers and more towards computing with sentences and words, and this
> may appeal to non-CS students.
Intersting approach.

> Forgive me for my enthusiasm; my background biases me somewhat about this.
> *grin*
Glad to hear it. Now i know I'm not alone.

> > 2) i don't know bio or chemistry. Have people tried to teach biology or
> > chemistry (or any other discipline) students python? What did you do for
> > projects? (l looked at biopython, which seems like a great tool kit, but
> > i couldn't find example projects, i could have over looked them though).
>
> The Newcomers page on Python.org,
>
>     http://python.org/doc/Newbies.html
>
> is a good resource that you can pool for material, and it lists a few
> tutorials for the beginning Bioinformatician or Physicist:
>
>     http://www.pasteur.fr/recherche/unites/sis/formation/python/
>     http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sann1276/python/handbook/
>
> The first has more substantial examples with Biopython.
Excellent. Do you happen to know where bioinformatics fits into a biology 
curriculum? It is something that a first year student would learn, or is a 
more advanced topic?

> I've also seen that Python's starting to get used with linguistics,
> especially Natural Language Processing:
>
>     http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~cis530/
>     http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~cs114/\
This is very cool. I actually contract for a company which does voice 
recognition. 

> Out of curiosity, what kind of students are you expecting in your class?
> What's the length of the course?
Students: I expect to get students which are in their first or second year in 
college (primarily first year). Their background should consist of basic 
knowledge in their major of interest. We plan to use their interest in their 
major to get them interested in learning how to program practical 
applications in their field, to make their life easier.

Course Length: The university which this will be taught has 7-week terms. It's 
kind of strange. There are 2 terms per semester. The class will meet 4 or 5 
days a week. Oh, the university is WPI (http://www.wpi.edu), in case your 
interested.

> Good luck to you!
Thanks!
-b