Skip to main content
CS Teaching Tips

Main navigation

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

Intro Programming

Show students examples of unreachable code to help them reason about how conditionals are executed.

Explicitly show students how to login to Scratch because not all students have the same level of computer literacy.

Misconception: Students often have off by 1 errors when working with loops, which can result from mixing up > and >= as well as forgetting that arrays start at index 0.

Use the model of Towers of Hanoi in order to help students understand recursion. To demonstrate Towers of Hanoi, use three baby ring-stacking toys and the programming language Alice.

Misconception: Students think the positioning of scripts within the script area in Scratch influences the order in which they are executed.

Misconception: Students have trouble understanding that when the value of a variable is reassigned its previous value is irrelevant.

Misconception: Students believe that when they assign a = b, they are copying b into a rather than making a point to b.

Misconception: Students think that “return x*x” changes the value of x to be x*x.

Misconception: Students think that when they create a new variable within a function, that function will automatically return that variable’s value when executed.

Misconception: Students create a new instance variable when they only need a local variable.

Pagination

  • Previous page ‹‹
  • Page 5
  • Next page ››
Subscribe to Intro Programming

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

Privacy Policy