Programming Languages in the wild

From doing these activities students will

Learn the format for class time
Learn how the 3 roles for class activities work
Open up discussion on programming languages they know

Warm-up activity

You will have 5 minutes for this activity

Please take an index card from the entrance of the room and write:

Your Full Name
Your nickname or preferred name if you would like to be called something else
Your pronouns
Order of the following tasks by how much you like them: Reading, Writing, Coding, and Presenting

Matthew will collect these by 9:05am, and they will count for one participation point (1% of final grade).

Groups and Roles

You will be randomly assigned into groups of 3+ for in class activities and assigned one of the following roles. By performing the duty of a role you will earn one participation point (1% of final grade).

Scribe

The role of the scribe is to take notes during the conversation while participating. Then, they will contribute to a formal write up with the other scribes on the class wiki. For example, after this activity, the scribes will contribute to a "Programming Languages in the Wild" Wiki page in the Reading wiki with details about what languages were discussed and what their identifying features were.

Manager

The role of the manager is to help pace the group using the time estimates accompanied by each class agenda, making sure the group touches upon each question or activity. Then, they will contribute to github issues to assign to the instructors or other classmates asking for information / work the class needs before the next class meeting in order to be successful. For example, If during discussion, someone asked a question about a programming language feature, and the instructors could not answer it during class, but promised to follow up with an answer, the manager would make a github issue detailing the question on the Reading repository and assign it to an instructor. Managers also may prune/clean-up the issue tracker to get rid of old tasks, re-assign them, etc.

Ambassador

The role of the ambassador is to represent their group in the fishbowl discussion at the end of the activity. For example, after each group finishes this activity, the ambassadors will come togther and summarize what languages were discussed and what the big ideas are. They will also be the first ones to answer follow up questions from the rest of the class, or to pose questions to the rest of the class that would be helpful to discuss. Then, they will meet with the instructors before the end of the class to go over the "meta" of the class, and discuss how workload, group pacing, and other housekeeping items went.

Ice Breaker Activity: 20-questions

You will have 30 minutes for this activity. From your homework questionaire (hw00-1) or from your experience if you were unable to complete the homework before class, please think of a programming language and the features of it.

In your groups of three, take turns clockwise, asking yes-or-no questions to the next person, clockwise, about their language. For example, you may ask a question like "Is your language object-oriented?". Also, guessing the language "Is your language Java?" is question itself. Scribes please note what questions were asked and what the answers were. Managers please keep track of time where each Question should take up no more than 30 seconds.

Ambassadors Report

You will have 10 minutes for this activity. Ambassadors will form a tight circle in the middle and the rest of the class will form a circle around them (room permitting). Ambassadors will take turns discussing what they discovered in their groups, what made languages easy to guess, what was difficult etc. Then the floor will open for the rest of the class to ask questions.

Cool-down activity

You will have 10 minutes for this activity.

All scribes will get together to start their wiki write up to be finished at latest a week from today.

All managers will get together and make at least 1 ticket for following up on the scribes, assign it to Matthew, and @ every scribe in the description for reference. They will also make any other tickets as needed from the discussion.

All ambassadors will get together with Matthew and Kathleen and discuss how they think the day went, how they think the pacing went, what they are looking forward to, any worries they might have about the class, etc.

Class Dismissed

Please look ahead at next week's reading (to be read before class on Monday Sept, 9th) and the first coding exercise. Please finish this weeks homework by Friday if not done for today.