Have students think through the steps of a racquetball simulation to help them create problem solving strategies.
Be careful when using coin flips and gambling in examples to avoid offending students with moral objections to gambling.
Examples in intro textbooks can be boring; create your own examples to match your students’ interests.
Compare variables to gym scoreboards to help students understand them and how they can be used in a game.
Ask students if the games they are designing are games they’d want to buy to keep students making progress toward your learning goals for them.
Break necessary skills for students down to a meaningful difficulty level to motivate students designing games.
Organize curriculum around building a one-level mini-game to introduce elementary school students to introductory computer science.