I’m really surprised to hear that teaching C# to 7th graders is easer than teaching them python. Python was invented to teach. It looks like pseudo code. I have almost zero experience in teaching so I trust your experience. But can you elaborate a little? What makes teaching C# easier?
I just replied to someone else with the same question. Less can go wrong (but in either case a non-OOP language, like Pascal, is a much better starting point. You should only ever teach students one concept at a time).
As it is, when we had to teach them HTML, the resources we were given were using PHP at the same time, so I scrapped that and just taught them HTML myself. We never teach more than one concept at a time, so I don’t know how these other things found their way into the curriculum/resources.
P.S. as a teacher, I can tell you I have seen students who even struggle to write pseudo code. It’s like trying to teach them Greek (not all students, but some, and we need to cater to the lowest common denominator).
Oh! I just remembered this video. If you wanna know how students can struggle with pseudo code, watch the video. I use this video when I teach algorithms (students are even worse at that than pseudo code).
I’m really surprised to hear that teaching C# to 7th graders is easer than teaching them python. Python was invented to teach. It looks like pseudo code. I have almost zero experience in teaching so I trust your experience. But can you elaborate a little? What makes teaching C# easier?
Surely an unpopular opinion lol.
Python is a great first language.
…and riding a bike is easy. Now go watch some kids who have never ridden a bike before and see how that’s working out for them.
as an adult who never rode a bike I can see
I just replied to someone else with the same question. Less can go wrong (but in either case a non-OOP language, like Pascal, is a much better starting point. You should only ever teach students one concept at a time).
Pascal was my first language. Self-taught. It was pretty good.
My first language was Basic, and Pascal is definitely better than that as a first language (it’s what it was designed for).
As it is, when we had to teach them HTML, the resources we were given were using PHP at the same time, so I scrapped that and just taught them HTML myself. We never teach more than one concept at a time, so I don’t know how these other things found their way into the curriculum/resources.
P.S. as a teacher, I can tell you I have seen students who even struggle to write pseudo code. It’s like trying to teach them Greek (not all students, but some, and we need to cater to the lowest common denominator).
Oh! I just remembered this video. If you wanna know how students can struggle with pseudo code, watch the video. I use this video when I teach algorithms (students are even worse at that than pseudo code).
Does it though? I imagine most pseudocode looks like the language the writer is most familiar with. My pseudocode definitely doesn’t look like python.