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Use your own mistakes to teach students what mistakes are common and how to identify them.

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  • Any mistake that you make is likely to be one your students will also make.
  • Set a precedent of making intentional mistakes in your code and letting your students find them so they know what to look out for. Also, it trains students to read code critically: an important skill for debugging.

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Interview with Jim Huggins

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Other Tips By Jim Huggins

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Demo visualizations of code executing online, using tools like Python Tutor, and on paper before having students practice visualizing code execution in the same way to better learn how code executes.
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.
Use a four-point structure when teaching data structures to keep class consistent for optimal learning: introduce an abstract data type, cover implementation, demonstrate use, and review Big-O analysis.
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