How do programmers train in Karelia

At Petrozavodsk State University, students have been preparing and participating in ACM and other competitions for more than 10 years. Participation is not unsuccessful, our teams show good results. Regularly in Petrozavodsk are held the collections of the strongest teams, participants of the ACM final, including with the participation of foreign teams. Also, local training for our student teams is held several times a year. To ensure the continuity of generations, it is necessary to work with students. Work has been going on for a long time, almost as much as with students. Since 2002, almost every year fees are organized for schoolchildren. Below is described in detail how schoolchildren are now preparing for programming competitions in Petrozavodsk and how summer camps are organized. To whom it is interesting - welcome under habrakat.

Work during the school year.

2 years ago it was decided to start mass preparation of Karelian schoolchildren. The following training program for children is currently being formed:

1 year of study:

In October, a group of about 100 people. Students in grades 6-7 are invited, although other classes are also allowed. I don't care if there are 100 or 120 people in the audience. After the start of classes, the natural screening begins due to the fact that some become uninteresting, others realize that they cannot pull out the proposed pace. Children are given lectures of 2 pairs per week. Learning begins with the basics, explaining what an algorithm is, the concepts of a variable, and other elementary things. In this case, training is conducted at a very high pace. The basics of programming are initially explained by the example of flowcharts. We consider the elementary problems, such as: the problem of a fake coin, the choice of the maximum of 2,3,4, a sequence of numbers. Linear arrays are also studied in block diagrams. This material takes about 2.5 months. After the flowcharts, proceed to learning the C ++ language. After 3-4 classes in C ++, children begin practical classes in display classes. By this time, slightly less than half of the students remain. For practical classes, children are divided into 2 groups of about 20-25 people. At first, you have to work on 2-3 people at the computer, but the screening of children is accelerating, because they understand that writing programs is too hard for them. Children are offered an initial set of 15 simple tasks. Those who solve the proposed set get access to the automatic testing system and the next set of 100 tasks. Writing the first 15 tasks usually takes about 1-2 months (March-April). In the meantime, C ++ is read further in lectures. OOP is not considered. After completing the study of the language, we proceed to the study of the basic algorithms: search for the minimum / maximum in the array; linear, binary element search; bubble sorting, counting, merging, quick sorting; permutation generation; list, queue; By the end of the year, 10–15 children have completed the program, and 5–7 have difficulty coping with it. Those who have mastered the program are invited to summer gatherings and everyone is invited for the next academic year.

2 year of study:

The composition of the group remains almost unchanged after the first year. Those who coped with the first year, go to the second. During the year, lectures on basic algorithms are given, and in practical classes in display classes, children solve problems related to the subject. An exemplary set of topics addressed: data structures; search and sort; pyramid and quick sort; dynamic programming; graphs; geometry; combinatorics; long arithmetic; bit operations.
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3 year of study

Groups of the 3rd year of study do not exist yet, there are plans. The plans are that there is no sense to build a consistent lecture program; it is necessary that the existing skills be consolidated. For this purpose it is supposed to act in the following directions:
1. every Sunday to hold a training contest. Some contests are thematic, some of a different set of tasks. After the contest - the analysis of tasks, and in the week after this - a lecture on relevant topics, if the tasks were thematic. Thus, it turns out that the student first ponders the problem and looks for a solution based on his experience, then immediately after the contest he receives the correct solution of the problem, and after a few days - a lecture, the material for which he has already prepared.
2. From each student to require task solving on online servers.
3. Schoolchildren are invited to team up, each team is assigned a personal trainer who directs the team in the right direction.

After the 3rd year, the student will be engaged in this program before entering the university.

Summer fees.

The Karelian Summer Computer School is an event that organizes the Club of creativity of programmers of Petrozavodsk State University for schoolchildren who in the Club are engaged in preparing for the Olympiad programming. It takes place in the village of Essoila , 70 km. from Petrozavodsk. This year the school was held from June 28 to July 8, and it was already 8 times.

The program of fees is about the same from year to year. 25 children spent 10 days in the settlement of Essoil, 70 km from Petrozavodsk. The daily routine was something like this:
7:30 Lift, washing
7:50 charge
8:30 breakfast
9: 15-13: 15 problem solving
13:30 lunch
14-18 lectures / task analysis
18:00 dinner
19:00 - 20:00 reshenie
after dinner free time or organized entertainment.
22:30 soft hang up: children should be in the rooms or wash.
23:00 hard end: determination of candidates for extraordinary duty the next day.

You probably already thought that there were too many classes. So it is, if every day to do so. Therefore, if the capricious Karelian weather gave us a good day, then we cancel part of the classes and go swimming, play ball, etc.

How do we live in terms of life? We live in a comfortable building of the boarding school. During the school year, children from the surrounding villages live here, from where it is difficult to take a bus every day. In the summer for these 10 days the building is given to us. A little cramped, we have to use training classes, using them as living rooms. Boys live in rooms for 7-9 people. This causes problems only for teachers, when it is necessary, after retirement, to make the whole crowd calm down and stop talking. We eat in the school cafeteria, we are engaged in school classes. The distance between the school and the boarding school is about 300 meters.

What is the age of children? 4-11 classes. The scatter is very strong. It does not create problems, children have similar hobbies, about the same level of training in this direction, which allows them to communicate on equal terms, regardless of the difference in age.

How do we do? Classes are held in the form of lectures, in the form of training competitions. The subjects of the classes are the same as during the school year: tasks for sports programming, lectures in mathematics and algorithms. To diversify my studies, I told the younger children a little about the PLO. I wanted to tell you about MS .NET, C # so that they could play around with programs with a graphical interface, but did not have time. I don’t regret the fact that I didn’t have time; the children rested a little more.

What do we do besides solving problems and sitting in lectures? One of the tasks of this summer school is to make a single collective of children, which will continue to form the Club. This is achievable only through joint activities. In the first minutes after arriving this year, I heard the sounds of a guitar. By the way, this year we have 4 guitars, including one mine. In the second evening, 20 players played in the mafia. Later, I brought out a kit for playing Go. In Go, children usually enjoy playing with each other or trying to outplay me. On Saturday, they organized an obstacle course, which requires collective work to overcome. After the obstacle course there is a picnic, a bonfire, songs with a guitar. They arranged for a trip to the zoo complex located nearby. Quiz on who will call the most programming languages, operating systems.

Who does all this? I lead the summer school, I am a teacher at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics of Petrozavodsk State University. In addition to me there are a few students - Olympiad. They bear the main burden. Also a person comes to us who was able to start and still leads all the olympiad programming training in Karelia, Professor Kuznetsov Vladimir Alekseevich. He helps us to give lectures, solve everyday problems that arise, with incredible pleasure communicates with children, and they with him.

What do we want to achieve for the fees? During the immersion into the atmosphere of regular classes on one topic, there is a sharp jump in the level of training of the participants in the training camps. The second goal, as already mentioned above, is to make a cohesive team of children. Well, of course, give children the opportunity to take a break from the city, play, swim.

Copyright: some of the ideas of the organization and some sets of tasks were taken from the LKSH. Many students who teach in the summer Karelian school have been to the Kindergarten both as pupils and as teachers.

Who pays for all this? CLCS is funded by the Ministry of Education of Karelia. In addition, a small parent fee is transferred, about 4 thousand rubles. The work of teachers during the school year is paid at the expense of institutions of additional education for children, as well as at the expense of PetrSU. The amounts paid for the work do not cover the efforts expended by the teachers, therefore the size of the teaching staff in the Club is small. I want to say a big thank you to the people who work mainly on their enthusiasm.

What problems do we have?
1. School approach for children to learning - “explain to us” instead of trying to understand ourselves.
2. Great dropout. Generally, the screening takes place in the first year, but even then, within a few years before the university, many lose interest.
As a solution to reduce the dropout rate in the first year, I plan to post lecture materials and test questions on the site so that parents and school computer science teachers can casually ask the child how things are and how he learns the material. Smart kids fall off without understanding any little thing, but I can't track it down. With an audience of about 100 people, I do not have enough experience to control everyone individually, if this is in principle possible. Already agreed with a group of teachers on a special seminar for them. Maybe it will help.