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Resources for Teaching C to High School Students?
mctk asks: "I'm a high school teacher who, disappointed with the lack of computer science in school, has promised to teach a few motivated students programming after school. As an enthusiastic novice with three semesters of C under my belt and a few side projects worth of experience, I feel competent yet ignorant. I would really appreciate suggestions for resources on C that are written to be accessible to high school students and contain lots of ideas for activities. Perhaps you've had success with a series of books that spans beginner to advanced? Do you have any activities you would recommend? How would you map a student's first year of coding? I welcome any and all suggestions. While we're on the subject, is there a brace style that is most standard in the industry?"
I definitely agree with the parent post. Without understanding things like basic algebra or how to plan out an algorithm before even coding it, you won't get past "Hello, World" with most of them. You can't assume they'll already know this stuff or have any programming experience.
Try a few exercises away from the computer where the students can learn without the pressure of a blinking cursor demanding some kind of input from them right off the bat. Look at things that are popular in their culture such as games and have them try to break the rules of each game down to instructional steps, as well think about the thought process that goes into planning a move, and then explain it in instructional terms... all of it in plain english.
Another good one, is learning how to sort various forms of data, along with the numerous ways one can achieve a sort (such as the bubble sort). A great physical example of sorting are things like the Towers of Hanoi puzzle (the one with the disks and three pegs), or a deck of playing cards.
Pushing an entire programming language on someone before they know the basics of how programs function will only scare or frustrate them... especially when they have the prospect of a failing grade looming overhead.
Get them thinking outside the box before putting them *in* one.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I agree with the OP, C would be a terrible choice for first-time programmers IMHO. You need to keep them motivated, and that works best when the reward-to-effort ratio is high. Python would be a great choice: learn them the basics (forced indenting! \o/), and introduce them to stuff like pygame which allow nice results with very little code. At the end of the semester they would be able to make small stand-alone games. Kids like flashy things.
For a follow-up course, you could choose to go C/C++. But it would only be of use to those who will eventually get a CS/EE degree, which already (should) have enough courses on C.
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If you want to teach basic programming skills using Python, there's a very nice free book which can help: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python
Morality is usually taught by the immoral.