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... The reason I am telling you all this is to set some kind of background to what I want to ask you about. I am about to engage myself in research as a PhD-student, focusing on how programming and algorithmic thinking can be taught to high school students. I have been very fascinated by Python, and have decided to use that as the first thing to try out in order to get some results on how high school students should (or shouldn't :) be taught. ...

Linda, as a PhD candidate you must have some theories on how high school students should or shouldn't be taught. Would you care to share?

What experiments do you plan to do to test you hypothesis?

Thanks, Jeff Sandys

Hi Jeff, Nice to see you are interested in teaching programming to high school students programming. As I wrote in my first post (I think), I am in the very beginning of my research, and haven't made any final decisions yet. Currently, I am reading about what have already been done, and my plan is to choose the best parts from different approaches and combine them into one, single strategy for teaching. This is probably the way all researchers in this field start out :) At this point I am thinking of using Python, pair programming, "lectureless instruction" and work in labs. I will write a short tutorial in Swedish, using "How to think as a Computer Scientist" as a basis. I am not really sure on how detailed the tutorial will be, that depends on how much time I have :) I have also thought about introducing PyGame as "something fun to work with" outside class. Before I make any decisions regarding experiments etc. I want to read the book "Computer Science Education Research" by Fincher and Petre (http://www.szp.swets.nl/szp/books/19629.htm). I have ordered it, but it hasn't come yet; with my luck, I am sure it won't arrive until after the vacations sometimes in August. I would be glad to share and discuss ideas with others. Teaching programming is a challenge, but indeed an interesting and motivating one! /Linda *********************************************************************** Linda Grandell, M.Sc. Assistant, Department of Computer Science Åbo Akademi University http://www.abo.fi/~lgrandel "You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true." - R.Bach