Misconception: Students think that both the IF and the ELSE cases of a conditional are executed every single time a conditional runs.
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.
Have students act as elements walking through a network to sort themselves to teach students about how Sorting Networks function.
Use physical activities to demonstrate sorting algorithms and help students build intuition about how these algorithms work.
Organize a game in which students in a circle need to obtain their assigned item by passing the items between empty-handed neighbors to interactively demonstrate deadlock.
Compare loops to climbing a flight of stairs to give students a model for how for loops work in real life.
Challenge students to place the fewest number of ice cream vans on a map of a town while maximizing ice cream availability to introduce the brute-force method in an accessible way.
Be on the lookout for loop syntax that belongs to another language when students are learning multiple languages because they sometimes confuse syntax and create hard to spot bugs.
Use Monopoly, explaining that the game is a class, to demonstrate Java classes and objects in a familiar and interactive way.
Create a physical model of Java objects and references in order to demonstrate situations where multiple references point to the same object in a way that’s easier for students to comprehend.