[Haskell-cafe] Teaching High-School one-semester FP (using Haskell)

[Gregory Guthrie]

Nice situation and goal.

I have seen several nice books in Python which make programming and problem solving fun – perhaps you coud adapt one of them, but code in Python – end up with a book for further reuse! Or just use the basic tone and approach.

“Impractical Python: Projects Playful Programming Activities to Make You Smarter”
“Playful Programming - Python at Home”



Dr. Gregory Guthrie
Maharishi International University
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From: Haskell-Cafe <haskell-cafe-bounces at haskell.org> On Behalf Of Zachi Baharav
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2020 3:55 PM
To: Haskell Cafe <haskell-cafe at haskell.org>
Subject: [Haskell-cafe] Teaching High-School one-semester FP (using Haskell)

Dear mighty Haskell list,

I am a high-school teacher in the US (California, Palo Alto). We have an advanced CS course that students can take after completing the AP-CS-A (in Java). This is usually Juniors and Seniors, after at least 2 or 3 courses of coding (Python+Java). Traditionally, I've done a potpourri of subjects, mostly search algorithms as applied to 'games'. Of course a little bit of data-structure comes in, and each year we did some 'other' interesting subject (like halftoning, barcodes, and so on) and investigated and implemented algorithms there.

THIS year, for the second half, I would like us to do Functional-Programming. From what I have seen, my students over the years tend to write more and more convoluted codes, electing first to search on stackOverFlow for some similar pattern, rather than think and find a concise and clean solution. I think FP would supply them with a new way of thinking, which will help with whatever they will write later on.

I've been coding with Haskell for about 7 years, so feel ok leading the class.

The question: I have many books on Haskell (i think 'all', but who knows.  Haskell, Real world Haskell, Learn you a haskell for great good, programming in haskell, and many more).
--->  I am looking for something more hands-on and 'fun' for HS students. may i say the buzzword 'project based', or maybe better 'problem based' for our case.
Something that I could teach a little, and then we can solve a bunch of problems, and teach a little more, and so on.

It doesn't have to be a Book!!  Just an outline of a course someone did with associated bunch of problems would be awesome. We have 18 weeks in a semester. My thought right now (if I don't find anything) is to relyon Euler project early problems. These are often clean and simple in Haskell.  Or otherwise some CSES problems (which we've done in Java).

Ok, long enough email.

If you have material and can share here, great!
If you have material and want to reach out privately, please do (zbaharav at kehillah.org<mailto:zbaharav at kehillah.org>).
If you have a good pointer, that would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any help!
   Zachi
(Dr. Zachi Baharav, HS teacher  (after 20 years in Industry and academia))







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