10
votes
Best Practices / Effective Strategies For Building Diversity In High School CS Programs
Three concrete ideas come to mind based on my experience building a CS program essentially from scratch at the high school level:
Have at least one class that has no pre-requisite. We have one intro ...
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9
votes
What to do when pupil destroy lab equipment?
How should I prevent damage to equipment?
Number each piece of equipment, assign each student (or each group of students) a number, and instruct students (or groups of students) to use only their ...
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9
votes
Why do (all) professors teach C++ 11?
The advantage of C++ for teaching programming is that it is reasonably close to the actual raw workings of the computer whilst being high level enough to teach higher level concepts. The features ...
- 201
7
votes
Accepted
Why do (all) professors teach C++ 11?
As a professor who teaches C++17/20(/23: mdspan for scientific computing): the 11 standard was the big evolution, and 14/17 are only minor improvements over it. If ...
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5
votes
What is the best layout for a Middle School computer lab?
The features that should guide your classroom layout are visibility, accessibility, and distractibility — maximizing the first two, and minimizing the third.
Visibility is simple: every student ...
5
votes
How do teachers motivate students to persevere and learn?
Your instinct are dead-on. Students, at least in grades k-12, are not terrifically motivated by what they will "need" in the working world. There are plenty of good reasons for this. First of all, ...
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5
votes
Why do (all) professors teach C++ 11?
In regards to "How does this choice impact students' [...] preparedness for industry standards?", as a software engineer working in industry (now retired), I would not expect a negative ...
- 518
4
votes
What to do when pupil destroy lab equipment?
Some ideas, not all of which may be useful to you:
But you need to be aware that the age group is problematic, having little realization of the consequences of their actions. The older students can ...
- 36k
4
votes
How do teachers motivate students to persevere and learn?
I'm not a teacher, but based on my experience as a student, I would suggest that you try to show them what they can make out of it or what it does in actual everyday life.
Me and most of my ...
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4
votes
What is the best layout for a Middle School computer lab?
A modification to the traditional classroom arrangement that is relatively simple is to replace the straight tables with half hexagon tables.
Place them so that the center seat is facing the front of ...
- 5,435
4
votes
Best Practices / Effective Strategies For Building Diversity In High School CS Programs
There are some good ideas in Peter's answer, but I notice that they all imply or at least come from the perspective of the student being the actor. In many cases, this is just fine. In some other ...
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3
votes
What is the best layout for a Middle School computer lab?
You may address your primary concern with the privacy filters (as low as $7.99 apiece) without changing the layout at all.
If the school director gave you not only an opportunity, but a budget as ...
- 462
3
votes
Giving Students a Break
We do most of our work in vampire-mode, i.e. lights-off. Turning the light on for breaks goes a long way towards encouraging students to rest their eyes and stretch.
I put a 5-10 minute timer on the ...
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3
votes
Giving Students a Break
I don't understand all the hate this question is getting. I'm guessing the answers depend on the context a lot.
Context of my answer
I regularly hold company trainings. Adult education. These are ...
- 1,398
2
votes
Giving Students a Break
Breaks? I'm in highschool (not an adult) and I'd be kind of offended if someone told me to go "take a break", especially in an elective - I took this course to learn, not to get told that "sitting is ...
- 4,684
2
votes
How do teachers motivate students to persevere and learn?
There are many ways to motivate students, but it is a personal, not a group thing. The first thing to keep in mind is that your job is not to deliver material. Wikipedia etc. can do that just fine. ...
- 36k
2
votes
How do I deal with students being unkind to each other when I'm not there?
I have a couple thoughts of how I'd handle it:
Address it with the bad actors 1-on-1, but don't assume bad faith. We might not know the whole story and there might have been a good reason to walk ...
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2
votes
Why do (all) professors teach C++ 11?
I'm no teacher, though following the community online I have the impression that too many students are exposed to C++98/03, pre-standard C++ or C in their C++ courses. If they all would be making the ...
- 121
2
votes
Platform for annotating students' code assignments
I was not aware of GitHub ClassRoom as mentioned by @Ryan_Nutt above, but I have been using repl.it for classroom coding exercises.
It will do auto-correction (based on unit-tests or output matching) ...
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2
votes
What to do when pupil destroy lab equipment?
Run a class/small group exercise where you ask learners to come up with good plans for making sure the equipment doesn't get damaged. They could look at topics like
Producing risk assessments for ...
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1
vote
How do I deal with students being unkind to each other when I'm not there?
First, as Kevin Buffardi pointed out, don't assume bad faith. Poor social skills may be playing a role, and it's also the case that everyone finds people who just rub them the wrong way from time to ...
- 32.9k
1
vote
How do I deal with students being unkind to each other when I'm not there?
This guy's teaching is the best I've ever found on conflict-reducing communication: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Enriching-Education-Communication-Performance-Relationships/dp/1892005050
In summary, ...
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1
vote
How do teachers motivate students to persevere and learn?
I am a big fan of Bem's theory of self perception when it comes to student motivation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-perception_theory
On one occasion I attended a staff meeting where the Head ...
- 523
1
vote
How do teachers motivate students to persevere and learn?
The OP lists "two motivations in life", which perhaps are universal. If someone is interested "because they enjoy it" (reason #1), then that would play out regardless of money being involved, or ...
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1
vote
How do teachers motivate students to persevere and learn?
First day of class I have this conversation with my students. I ask them if they want to be successful - notice I don't say have a job, or make money. They all respond "of course". Then I go around ...
- 2,349
1
vote
Giving Students a Break
If the class isn't too big or too small, you could organize some simple games. You can have a tournament, possibly with prizes. The prize can be as simple as a gold star sticker like the ones ...
- 36k
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