At the end of each class, have students write themselves a summary of the big ideas they learned so they get practice sifting through lots of information to find its most important ideas.
Ask students what they found confusing at the end of each week to identify problems so you can tailor future instruction to students needs.
Create online multiple choice questions for students so they receive immediate feedback and you receive insight into their understanding of the material.
Use an auto-grading tool to provide students with instant feedback on their programs and allow them to resubmit multiple times before the deadline so they can learn to find problems with and debug their code.
Make all students say “I don’t understand” out loud, in front of the class to show them that nothing bad will happen to help them feel more comfortable saying something when they don’t understand something in the future.
Have students complete a weekly log about what they accomplished this week, what they hope to accomplish next week, and what might hold them back from accomplishing these things.
Stretch your students to help them improve their skills by asking them what they are most struggling with and making them do that regularly.
Use plagiarism detection tools such as AntiCutAndPaste and/or MOSS (Measure Of Software Similarity) to easily discover if any of your students are cheating off of one another.
Allow students to resubmit their first few assignments for the course so they can master basic concepts and be rewarded for their persistence.