<p>The only way is to make the unpopular popular! Give your students the right motivation to learn things - but be careful about "important" legacy technology. </p>

<p>When you are teaching, focus on the core concepts - those are similar for many languages or topics. COBOL might be outdated, the concepts behind are not. When the students understand the concepts of imperative, procedural languages, it will take them a week to learn COBOL when needed - but I would never ever teach it! </p>

<p>For other unpopular things like standards etc.: Focus on the most important topics and throw the students into real world problems so they understand why they are needed. Most or our students hate QU topics, but when they are returning from their internships at larger companies, they understood that those topics are crucial. </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-10-29T14:57:41.470Z
2018-10-29T14:57:41.470Z
OBu
<p>The world is full of computing technologies that have been put to productive use but may be unpopular or unfashionable with students today due to their complexity, their lack of support, limited takeup within industry, or simply because they are perceived to be "old" or "out of date".</p>

<p>In many cases, it isn't an option to simply stop supplying educational materials that cover these topics due to the critical nature of the technology. In the case of COBOL, for example, it is often claimed that there are over 250 billion lines of the stuff out there and that the world needs engineers to maintain it. Such arguments seem to encourage engineers to be to adopt the technology for altruistic reasons - but does that approach really work?</p>

<p>In summary, what methods do educators use to engage students when teaching unpopular, yet important, computer science technologies?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-26T11:14:23.570Z
The things you mention aren't comparable. Complexity isn't like obsolescence. Why should anyone prepare students for a 20th century career?
Buffy
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-26T18:15:39.300Z
What sort of students do you teach?  High school?  College?  Adults transitioning careers?  My answer would be a little different depending on your target audience.
Ben I.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-27T01:16:33.010Z
Hi @BenI., I work on mainframe technologies and develop educational and training content for this community.
Adam J Limbert
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-29T17:21:51.580Z
**Educate** you students, then if the fees are high enough, they will **train** them selves to use Cobol. While I agree that teaching language of the day, is not a good strategy, I also think that teaching an old language, because we thing there is a market for these programmers is equally miss-guided. Teach using a good teaching language, don't consider industry languages, until the students can program well (they need to learn at least two languages anyway).
ctrl-alt-delor
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-10-03T14:30:24.587Z
Frame challenge: "*the world needs engineers to maintain it*" isn't an appeal to altruism but to ambition. The subtext is "*study this and you'll be guaranteed a stable job*".
Peter Taylor
<student-motivation><social-context><student-perceptions>
Methods for engaging students when teaching unpopular or unfashionable topics
# Methods for engaging students when teaching unpopular or unfashionable topics

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-09-26)

The world is full of computing technologies that have been put to productive use but may be unpopular or unfashionable with students today due to their complexity, their lack of support, limited takeup within industry, or simply because they are perceived to be "old" or "out of date".

In many cases, it isn't an option to simply stop supplying educational materials that cover these topics due to the critical nature of the technology. In the case of COBOL, for example, it is often claimed that there are over 250 billion lines of the stuff out there and that the world needs engineers to maintain it. Such arguments seem to encourage engineers to be to adopt the technology for altruistic reasons - but does that approach really work?

In summary, what methods do educators use to engage students when teaching unpopular, yet important, computer science technologies?

**Tags:** student-motivation, social-context, student-perceptions

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: The things you mention aren't comparable. Complexity isn't like obsolescence. Why should anyone prepare students for a 20th century career?  
> **username_2**: What sort of students do you teach?  High school?  College?  Adults transitioning careers?  My answer would be a little different depending on your target audience.  
> **username_0**: Hi @BenI., I work on mainframe technologies and develop educational and training content for this community.  
> **username_3**: **Educate** you students, then if the fees are high enough, they will **train** them selves to use Cobol. While I agree that teaching language of the day, is not a good strategy, I also think that teaching an old language, because we thing there is a market for these programmers is equally miss-guided. Teach using a good teaching language, don't consider industry languages, until the students can program well (they need to learn at least two languages anyway).  
> **username_4**: Frame challenge: "*the world needs engineers to maintain it*" isn't an appeal to altruism but to ambition. The subtext is "*study this and you'll be guaranteed a stable job*".  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2018-10-29. Score: 1

The only way is to make the unpopular popular! Give your students the right motivation to learn things - but be careful about "important" legacy technology.

When you are teaching, focus on the core concepts - those are similar for many languages or topics. COBOL might be outdated, the concepts behind are not. When the students understand the concepts of imperative, procedural languages, it will take them a week to learn COBOL when needed - but I would never ever teach it!

For other unpopular things like standards etc.: Focus on the most important topics and throw the students into real world problems so they understand why they are needed. Most or our students hate QU topics, but when they are returning from their internships at larger companies, they understood that those topics are crucial.


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