Put debugging tips inside the test cases when you provide students with JUnit test cases to help students improve their own debugging abilities in Java.
Use sounds in Scratch to make it clear when particular lines of code are being executed because it can be really hard for students to figure out the order of execution.
Create an anticipation guide to elicit prior knowledge, identify misconceptions, and prepare students for a lesson.
Set aside class time to check in with students when they’re working on large (2-3+ weeks) group projects in order to catch them before they get derailed and create a project that doesn’t demonstrate assignment requirements.
Help students get their development environment up and running during the first class to avoid technological problems as the class progresses.
Show students what code looks like with and without new programming constructs (e.g., methods, Objects, inheritance, loops, switch statements) to motivate the reasons for using new concepts.
Alert students working with csv files about removing different types of white-space because students don’t always expect to need to remove white space.
Empathize with students who struggled to get their code working, these students may not be ready to think about how to advance the design of their program; suggesting they refactor their code immediately after it finally runs can be discouraging.
Show students many examples so they see that Java passes arguments by value to help improve student understanding of scope.
Show code where the name of the method’s actual arguments and formal parameters are different so students see first hand that these two items don’t have to match for code to execute and improve their understanding of scope.