Decoding Barriers' Computer Science Course Lectures Available on YouTube
- Decoding Barriers
- Jun 14
- 2 min read
Introduction
Sabrina, our Program Director, has been leading an introductory course for students with no or little programming experience. While the lectures are primarily taught in Pashto, Sabrina recorded course content for students who were unable to make classes due to time conflicts in English.
Understanding the Course Structure
Course Details
This course corresponds to the Exploring Python Programming course curriculum found at https://academy.cs.cmu.edu .
Lecture Details
Each lecture video corresponds to each course section. Sabrina walks through the learning checkpoints involved with each module, and pauses to allow the student to try the corresponding exercises on their own. The lecture continues to the exercise solutions. In the course itself, students collaborate on projects, create their own programs, and complete homework assignments not covered in the lecture videos. Furthermore, students learn to set up their own IDE and begin familiarizing themselves with Python packages not covered in the course, such as Pandas and Numpy.
Accessibility and Inclusivity
As there are students across the globe engaging with similar course content, we wanted to make these videos accessible to anyone interested in exploring programming. One of our greatest motivations for developing this course was to make educational content more accesible to those who do not speak English as a first language, As YouTube generates subtitles for each video, we have had viewers view our lectures in languages such as German and Spanish.
Tips for Maximizing Learning from the Lectures
Pause Before Watching Video Solutions
Before each checkpoint and exercise solution, Sabrina pauses to give students sufficient time to answer questions on their own. These portions of the lecture videos are meant to serve as a guide if the student is stuck. To gain more experience, pause the lectures and attempt the exercises and checkpoints to test your knowledge.
Leverage Online Resources
CMU CS Academy is one website that offers free curriculum for those interested in programming; however, there are many online options for those interested in learning more advanced programming skills or programming in languages other than Python:
Engage with Us
We have been delighted to see the positive reception thus far from our videos from our students and those not currently or previously enrolled in our courses. Feel free to comment with any questions or feedback on our lecture videos - we are always here to help! We plan on releasing more content soon, so please like our videos for visibility and subscribe to receive updated videos from our channel.
