Teaching Programming
September 23rd 2008
I’ve taught programming on-and-off since the 1970s. Most recently I’ve taught some Java and C. If you’re teaching the mechanics of programming to lots of people (not just the few who instantly “get it”) then you must take an incremental approach. You start with simple concepts and mechanisms and work up from there.
In particular, you start with “straight line” programs (no IFs or loops) so students learn about assignment statements, expressions, and output formatting. Get them used to the idea of variables changing in order of execution. Then you introduce IF clauses, comb structures, and bracketing. Finally, start with Do While loops, While loops, and finally, For loops. Continue Reading »