Explain the “discards qualifiers” error in C++ using the metaphor of a contractor who has signed a contract not to change instance variables, but then attempts to use subcontractor who hasn’t agreed to the same terms or signed the appropriate forms.
Play musical chairs to explain while loops so students develop physical experience navigating through the structure of a loop to better understand while loops.
Have students give you instructions on how to get from the door to chair on the other side of the room to teach them to be precise when giving instructions to a computer.
Use an Arduino and three LEDs to make an electronic, binary die to teach students about data representation, programming basics, and Arduino in an engaging introductory activity.
Use note passing for explaining the difference between methods with no return (void methods) and methods with return to provide students with a relatable example.
Explain nested for loops using a car odometer, the innermost loop controlling the ones digit must cycle fully before the outer loops steps forward, to help students better understand nested loops through a real world example.
Show a storyboarding video clip from Pixar’s Toy Story to show students that storyboarding is a real world activity and that storyboarding is vital in some careers.
Use some of the following real world constructs to help beginning students form better understandings of abstract object-oriented principles.
Use Potato Head Toys to teach classes, objects, methods, and properties so that students develop hands on experience with abstract topics.
Give commands to an imaginary person sitting in an empty desk to model what happens when you give commands to an object that hasn’t been instantiated to help students understand null pointer exceptions.