Teach students (even young kids) the 20/20/20 rule: every 20 minutes, students should focus their eyes on an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds to protect their vision and create healthy habits.
Tell students they should only give instructions when helping other students - rather than demonstrating with the keyboard and mouse - because showing instead of telling other students can cause a variety of problems.
Require that students ask two other students for help with their bug before asking you to encourage cooperation and to help them make progress learning debugging skills.
Ask students with raised hands if they’ve discussed their question with their partner before helping them because this encourages students to teach each other and helps make sure more of the students’ questions get answered.
Perform role-play skits to show both positive and negative pair-programming dynamics so that students have memorable and easy to reference examples when providing constructive criticism to other students.
When pair programming in class, set a timer for when students should switch roles of driver and navigator. When the timer goes off, have students stand up, switch chairs, and give each other high fives.
Assign each student in a pair programming partnership to the role of 'driver' or 'navigator' to allow students to start working together without having to negotiate roles.
Students may have an easier time learning about conditionals when using a visual programming language like Scratch.
Emphasize to students that visual programming languages like Scratch are bona fide computer programming languages.
When talking through your thought process with students, check in with them to ensure they’re following along, adapt to their needs, and show that you care.