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Have all functions return something in an intro course to help students understand that functions have a start and an end, even though they are always returning.

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  • Seeing what is returned allows students to start debugging without immediately needing to step through the inside of the function. from a function helps students debug what’s going on inside of the function without immediately digging into the function.

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Tags

  • CS 1
  • Intro Programming
  • Development Methods
External Source

Interview with Walt Schilling

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Other Tips By Walt Schilling

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Use programming spreadsheet functions as an introduction to programming to give students a simple but powerful mechanism for writing basic programs.
When explaining code to the class, project your code and use a tablet to draw on top of it. Ask students for debugging suggestions to make them more comfortable finding bugs and to show them that all programmers, even you, make mistakes.
Use a diagram with variable-value pairs for each call of a recursive function to help students see the change of control flow as calls are made and completed.
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