Best Practices for Teaching at CSSI

###Delivering content:

• Why is your lesson important- Every lesson should start with a WHY. Why is this topic important, relevant and exciting?! Find ways to connect with student’s background knowledge and every day life.
• Chunking lectures- Stop after each new skill and get a class temperature check (thumbs up/thumbs down or a fist to five). Consider reteaching the skill if students are confused or have students turn and talk to their partners.
• Talk aloud- When you are coding to talk through your thought process. When you run into an error DON’T PANIC, model debugging and searching for documentation.
• Be creative about naming variables especially when data is being passed in multiple places rather than just using x and y.

def add (dog,cat):
  return dog + cat

platypus= 50
giraffe= 20

add (platypus,giraffe)

Check for student understanding:

• Fist to Five- Ask students how comfortable they feel about the skill or concept. Consider introducing the eyes closed fist of five which can be more illuminating and helpful.
  • 1 if you need help from a teacher
  • 2 If you need help from a partner
  • 3 you are doing okay
  • 4 You feel confident in your understanding
  • 5 You can teach this to someone else
• Awkward silence- After you ask a question, allow the silence to linger a little longer than is comfortable can get students to speak up. If no one speaks up that is a sign that the class didn’t understand the concept. Go back and reteach the last skill.
• Calling on Students- Avoid calling on the same students that always raise their hands. Call on quiet students with review questions, call on table teams to answer questions as a group, and have students turn to their partners to answer the question.
• Affirm and Redirect- When students give the incorrect answer, acknowledge their answer is wrong but affirm their thought process. “That’s not it, but I can see how you came up with that answer.”
• Loop back with students- When a student gets the wrong answer, feel free to ask another student but try to come back to the same student and ask the same question again to ensure they understand the concept.

###Individual lab work:

• Don’t give away the answer- Coach students towards answering their own question rather than giving them the answers. Encourage them to search online for documentation or direct them towards where their error message might be.
• When a student asks a technical question, resist the urge to take the keyboard. Allow the student to remain as the driver.
• Don’t accept a student’s word when you ask “Do you get it?” and they say, “Yes”
  • Ask them to explain it back to you in english and walk you through the code
  • If they are having trouble walk them through it again in plain english
  • Repeat until they can walk you through it independently and confidently
  • Having them verbalize the concept is very important and will be validating for them!
  • If another person asks the same question, empower the student you just worked with to teach the content to that person because they are now an expert!

###Group work:

• Have students pair program as much as reasonable. Half of the class has their laptops closed and students talk through their thoughts as they code. It works best if you explicitly assign partners for coding.

###Culture and motivation:

• Encourage rubber ducky debugging. Have students explain their code before you giving trying to help find a solution to their code.
• Reinforce that error messages are GREAT!! Error messages are the means of the computer communicating with us where the bug is. Failure is the first step in learning. If you notice a student getting frustrated or discouraged remind them that every programmer has gone through this process and is continuing to fail everyday! Trust the process
• When asking students how they are doing in the framework of learning zones. Ask them if they are in their safe zone, stretch zone, or strain zone.
• Remember students are new to computer science so as much as possible introduce concepts using metaphors and real life examples that are relevant to them.
• As much as possible, refer to each student by their name. If students don’t have their place card ask them to take it out and put it on their desk.
• Be authentic and show students that you’re excited to help!

###Logistics:

• Use the same technology and environment (editor, terminal, etc.) as the students
• Incorporate live coding in your lessons when possible. Slides are great for reference but they should not be the majority of your lesson.
• Practice with git and Github before project week. It’s super helpful to be familiar with the bugs that students will see before they see them.
• Begin each day with a review session or independent lab time.
• Insist on organizing folder structures from day 1. When using Atom make sure to only have the file that is meant to be changed open.
• Many students did not attend breakout sessions if they were phrased as review or beginners. Phrase breakout sessions to be topical rather than review/advanced
• Develop a glossary for all the new terms students learn for each language. It can be a shared google doc or written on poster paper.

Instructional Strategies