Pascal News

MACALESTER COLLEGE
1600 GRAND AVENUE
SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA 55105
612-696-6000
A Geographer Teaches Pascal -- Reflections on the Experience
October 7, 1981
Jerry Pitzl
Macalester College
St. Paul, Minnesota
Mr. Riek Show
Pascal Users Group
P.O. Box 888524
Atlanta, Georgia 30338
Dear Mr. Shaw:
The enclosed article reports my reactions and those of my students to the first Poscal
programming course that.1 taught •• I am fairly n:~ to the field of computer science
and this particular teachIng experience was excIting to say the least.
I hope this short piece will prove to be af interest to you and your readers.
GRP:ba
Encl.
Sincerely,
~~PitZI
Associate Professor
Macalester College, a small (1700 students), liberal arts institution
located in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently initiated a new major in Computer
Studies. Several courses in programming have been offered over the years
but increased student demand for a wider range of offerings and faculty
recognition that a full and complete program would be necessary in order
for us to keep pace with the rapidly growing field of computer science
necessitated this significant change.
As a further enhancement to the computer program, Macalester College,
in 1979, became the recipient of a National Science Foundation grant to be
used to expand the use of computers within science laboratory settings.
Initial purchases of hardware included three DEC MINC-ll computers
especially configured for laboratory applications. In addition, the
departments of geography, of which I am a member, and geology received a
Magnavox S-4 Orion stand-alone graphics system, a 22" x 22" Talos S622
digitizer, and a 300 LPM Printronix Printer/Plotter. The graphics system
is used primarily within the geography department in a computer mapping
course.
Dul"ing the academic year 1979-80 I was on a sabbatical leave and spent
virtually all my time at the University of Minnesota auditing courses in a
variety of computer and mathematics related areas. I had no prior
knowledge of computer languages, but I knew that I would have to become
familiarized as quickly as possible because I was slated to do the computer
mapping course. Needless to say, the transition to the "kind of thinking"
required for success in the computer field did not come that easily for me
a t first; my long-term background, primarily in the humanistic realms of
geography, had produced a "mind set" that was placed in a mild form of
intellectual shock at first exposure to computer operations, and this
condition perSisted for at least the first few weeks.
Fortunately, however, my intrOduction to computer programming was
through the Pascal language. I found the language to be logically
constructed and relatively easy to use. The form of program development
using algorithm formulation and structure provided an ideal transition to
the eventual writing of actual Pascal code. I soon became unequivocally
"hooked" on Pascal. So much so that in the following year I set out to
develop a course in programming with Pascal which was introduced during our
January "interim" session of 1981. Interim is a one-month period in which
courses not available in the regular semesters are given. It is a good
time to introduce and test a topic or theme which may later become a
regular curricular offering. In our case, Pascal was not a new topic on
campus; it is being taught along with other languages in a one-semester
course. However, I felt that the language should receive a great deal more
emphasis and perhaps eventually be the sole subject of a full semester. It
is, as most agree, the most appropriate language for" teaching the concepts
of structured programming.