How to teach programming to teenagers
It’s not all about Data Structures and Algorithms
In the past, many enthusiastic parents have approached me and asked me how I learned to code in the beginning — mainly with the interest in finding ways to help their children how to code. And every time, I didn’t have a clear answer for them, because I learned to code at a much later age than most of the children of these parents. In the interest of helping these parents, I also tried to find resources that are made to help the children learn to code.
I discovered that there are a lot of resources help K-6 students learn how to code. Some examples include Scratch and the Hour of Code in Code.org which are quite useful for someone new to get acquainted with programming.
Through these platforms, students write simple programs that make graphical creatures move or build simple games and learn the basic tools of programming — such as loops and conditionals — while building useful problem-solving skills. The major strength of these platforms is the visual feedback from the platform, which really helps the students stay constantly engaged with the curriculum and the exercises.
However, teaching programming to teenagers over the 6th grade is a completely different beast. This article shows that over 95% of teenagers today have…
