Organize a game in which students in a circle need to obtain their assigned item by passing the items between empty-handed neighbors to interactively demonstrate deadlock.
Have students act as elements walking through a network to sort themselves to teach students about how Sorting Networks function.
Have students find the best method of sorting a group of unknown weights to teach them about sorting algorithms.
Have pairs of students aim to achieve the same patterns on Battleship boards to teach them the precision necessary for algorithmic design.
Include college seniors in intro courses by having them write blog posts reviewing interesting developments in information technology to engage intro CS students.
Have students practice creating an infographic as an option for the Visual Artifact component of the CSP Performance Task: Explore.
Tell young students that computer programming is simply writing rules for a computer to follow, similar to bossing around a younger sibling, to help them connect programming to everyday life.
Organize an activity where students make phone calls to their classmates with the goal of summing the numbers 1 through 6 in order to demonstrate recursion.
Use PEZ ® dispensers to demonstrate the push, pop, and peek methods for stacks to provide a clear and accessible illustration of these methods.
Use these two novel Prolog problems with solutions that are not commonly available online to spruce up your prolog assignments in an engaging way.
Have students create a Burrito class in Java to practice object-oriented programming using an object they are familiar with.
Have students write a program that constructs an n x n Magic Square in Java so they gain practice working with bounds in 2D arrays.
Have students create polygons in Scratch to help them practice debugging and reasoning about geometry.
Use different methods of counting the stairs of the Eiffel Tower to explain how different algorithms affect Big-O runtime.
Show students the visual representation of recursion in the Modern Family title sequence for a fun way to introduce them to this concept.
Have students use lollipop sticks or toothpicks to represent each statement call in an N-ary recursive algorithm.
Set aside class time to read parts of Blown to Bits, a book about the social impact of technology, and then have discussions about the content and your students’ responses.