Hello Everyone,

I am a TA for a summer course that teaches povray for about three weeks
(5 days a week 2-3 hours a day) to high school students.

I have gone through povray tutorial and I can show some of the basic
techniques (which is enough for this course), but I have trouble
coming up with engaging ways.

The only method I can think of is to do it yourself type of teaching
where I render a picture and explain the codes I used and ask the students
to do it, then going around the classroom (10-15 students) making sure
they are ok with it.

I wanted to ask if any of you have a practical yet interesting ideas.

Even with my current method, I am quite troubled due to my inexperience in both
povray and teaching. Because I lack (somewhat) creativity, I have hard time
thinking of projects or pictures to draw.

Thanks

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"quoderatd" <quo### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> I am a TA for a summer course that teaches povray for about three weeks
> (5 days a week 2-3 hours a day) to high school students.
>
> I have gone through povray tutorial and I can show some of the basic
> techniques (which is enough for this course), but I have trouble
> coming up with engaging ways.
>
> The only method I can think of is to do it yourself type of teaching
> where I render a picture and explain the codes I used and ask the students
> to do it, then going around the classroom (10-15 students) making sure
> they are ok with it.
>
> I wanted to ask if any of you have a practical yet interesting ideas.
>
> Even with my current method, I am quite troubled due to my inexperience in both
> povray and teaching. Because I lack (somewhat) creativity, I have hard time
> thinking of projects or pictures to draw.
>
> Thanks


Have you considered using simple, commonly available everyday objects as
references for creating simple, commonly available everyday objects in Povray?
;)

That can be as difficult or as easy as you make it, depending on their (and
your) skill levels, and having a good reference object that you can view from
different angles and measure may make things easier.

-Reactor

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Because I worked as a teaching assistant at the university here, I once
participated in a small course about teaching. As an exercise, we had to
give a small lesson about anything we wanted. Since povray was part of the
computer graphics course I was a teaching assistant of, I decided to give
the lesson about that subject.

  I had this idea: I brought a big bunch of large lego bricks to the
"students" (the other people taking the same course) and I showed the
povray code to generate lego bricks of different sizes, and how to position
them. The task was for the "students" to form groups and then first construct
anything they wanted with the physical lego bricks and then replicate it with
povray (in this case it was only in paper because there were no computers
available). I would then review their SDL code.

  Afterwards the other people participating in this simulated exercise would
review how they liked it. The feedback was positive. They liked the novelty
of the idea.

  I don't know if this type of exercise would fit in your case, but I just
thought I'd mention it.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

quoderatd wrote:

> I wanted to ask if any of you have a practical yet interesting ideas.

I don't have teaching experience but it might be motivating
to reserve some time (say, the last lesson each week?) for free
work (i.e. let the student think of something to render, apply
the topics learned, and ask questions if stuck). Assuming there
isn't already additional time scheduled for excercises.

For teaching the topics themselves, it may be useful to provide
a scene template for each topic (possibly identical for multiple
topics) so students can focus on the things you're explaining
without getting side-tracked by other issues.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   Because I worked as a teaching assistant at the university here, I once
> participated in a small course about teaching. As an exercise, we had to
> give a small lesson about anything we wanted. Since povray was part of the
> computer graphics course I was a teaching assistant of, I decided to give
> the lesson about that subject.
> 
>   I had this idea: I brought a big bunch of large lego bricks to the
> "students" (the other people taking the same course) and I showed the
> povray code to generate lego bricks of different sizes, and how to position
> them. The task was for the "students" to form groups and then first construct
> anything they wanted with the physical lego bricks and then replicate it with
> povray (in this case it was only in paper because there were no computers
> available). I would then review their SDL code.
> 
>   Afterwards the other people participating in this simulated exercise would
> review how they liked it. The feedback was positive. They liked the novelty
> of the idea.
> 
>   I don't know if this type of exercise would fit in your case, but I just
> thought I'd mention it.
> 

Brilliant!*  But maybe just give the code for one example brick?

*And I am not even a fan of lego.

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