[Haskell & FP in Education] Welcome and introductions

[Fernando Alegre]

Hi all,


I'm Fernando Alegre. I am working on developing curriculum for high school computer science courses.
The first course I developed, called Introduction to Computational Thinking, has been running as
a pilot in several high schools in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for two years. The course uses Chris's
CodeWorld platform, so that schools do not need to install anything. The course covers relatively
little content in terms of computer science, but it is heavier on the math than other introductory
courses, including Bootstrap. In the summer, I have a five-week all-day professional development 
program, where I have the teachers do all the activities in the course, so that they go from
zero-knowledge in programming to being somewhat comfortable with teaching the course and helping
students debug their code.

I am also testing material for other courses with a couple of teachers and also directly with
a small group of advanced students. I liked the CodeWorld environment so much that I decided I would
try it with the advanced students, and the feedback I got has been very interesting. Apart from
their dislike of the syntax and similar nuances, their main complaint is that functional programs
are too dense, and that increases their cognitive load too much, so that, even though they can
write the code, they do not enjoy doing it. I am struggling to find ways to make it more enjoyable
for them, as it is really fun for me.

I someone is interested, I can provide more details about all that.

Regards,
Fernando