Skip to main content
CS Teaching Tips

Main navigation

  • Browse All Tips
  • Tags
  • 3D
  • About
  • Rate Tips
  • Tip Sheets

Development Methods

Teach students to use a system of inquiry, testing, and refining to debug their code, develop better coding habits, and deal with their frustration.

Encourage students to modify and break provided code as a way to better understand the code and its underlying concepts.

Reassure students that, over time, they will develop more accurate hypotheses when debugging.

Misconception: Students get frustrated when they try to point their character to the left and it ends up flipped upside down because they don’t understand how changing the direction a sprite faces works in Scratch.

Misconception: Students have difficulty transitioning from working with one sprite to multiple sprites in Scratch.

Have students play the Gidget debugging game for practice debugging in an engaging environment.

Misconception: Students have trouble understanding the difference between the “glide” and “go to” blocks in Scratch.

Teach students to storyboard in Alice so they know a systematic process to follow when approaching challenging problems.

Trace through example code in class to show and encourage students to debug effectively

Misconception: Students believe that in a primitive assignment, x = y could be the equivalent of y = x; they think that the computer science “=” sign is the same as the mathematical “=” sign.

Pagination

  • Previous page ‹‹
  • Page 4
  • Next page ››
Subscribe to Development Methods

For more information or to report a bug, contact us at admin@csteachingtips.org. Built with Bootstrap. Powered by Drupal.

Privacy Policy