Slashdot Mirror


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?"

2 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. I know I'll get modded down for this: by kestasjk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But don't teach them C. Teach them a language that focuses on how to structure programs without bogging them down with memory management, pointers, etc, etc. A firm understanding of OO would also be much more useful and much easier to grasp.
    There's a reason there are so few resources on teaching C to high school students; it wasn't meant to be taught to high school students.

    --
    // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
  2. A free book to learn CS using Python by bigsmoke · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.