Why should we bore students when teaching CS?

Authors:
Tuukka Ahoniemi;Essi Lahtinen;Keeko Valaskala
Affiliations:
Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland;Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland;Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland
Venue:
Koli Calling '07 Proceedings of the Seventh Baltic Sea Conference on Computing Education Research - Volume 88
Year:
2007

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Abstract

Motivating students is extremely important. This poster is about pursuing the use of humour, or at least real-life related examples, on assignments in CS courses. We conducted the wild experiment of disguising a boring assignment description as a humorous pirate story. The outcome was surprisingly positive. This sort of approach can have a direct and positive effect on the dropout rate of the course, so it is worth trying.