▶MIT OpenCourseWare · Dr. Ana Bell
What is computation?
Full lecture · Fall 2016 archive ↗
Watch with a question
Start with “What is Computation?” and listen for the difference between describing a problem and specifying a method for solving it.
Your original practice task
Describe a method for finding the largest of five numbers without sorting all of them. Explain what information you keep after each comparison.
Reflect before enrolling
Does a classroom lecture help you reason through a problem? Can you reproduce a small example without looking back at the explanation?
Keep a useful record
Save the course to My space, then write down what interested you and what you still need to check. Trying a task is a starting point for exploration; it is not an aptitude diagnosis or a guarantee of progress. If the first attempt is difficult, inspect the prerequisites and try a smaller example before deciding.