Content Misconceptions

Misconception: When students trace through recursive code, they have trouble figuring out if operations are done before or after the recursive call.

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Have students pay close attention to loop bounds when tracing through code to help them identify and avoid off-by-one errors caused this way.

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Discuss and explore the difference between additive (sequential) and multiplicative (nested) loop structures to give students practice reasoning about loops.

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Encourage students to replace variables with values when tracing through code to reduce the necessary cognitive load.

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Misconception: Students think that arrays start at 1 instead of 0.

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Misconception: Students get confused with object-oriented programming in Python because function declarations explicitly take self as an argument, but function calls don’t use self as argument.

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Misconception: Students who first learn object-oriented programming in Python don’t realize they need to explicitly define instance variables in Java because this is done implicitly in Python.

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Misconception: Students have trouble distinguishing between instance variables and parameters in Java.

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Misconception: Students may not realize that websites need and use servers to store, process, and deliver content to users’ browsers, causing struggles with the distinction between Server side vs. Client side.

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Misconception: Students have trouble understanding the overall flow of a Ruby on Rails application when they access an individual page.

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