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Ten quick tips for teaching programming
Open accessAbstract
Research from educational psychology suggests that teaching and learning are subject-specific activities: learning programming has a different set of challenges and techniques than learning physics or learning to read and write. Computing is a younger discipline than mathematics, physics, or biology, and while there have been correspondingly fewer studies of how best to teach it, there is a growing body of evidence about what works and what doesn’t. This paper presents ten quick tips that should be the foundation of any teaching of programming, whether formal or informal.
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“This strategy creates a shared experience for all participants, and encourages peer learning by providing an opportunity for question and answer during guided activities (Brown & Wilson, 2018; McClatchy et al., 2020).”
From Student‐led workshops: Filling skills gaps in computational research for life scientists (2021) · cites this paper as Brown & Wilson, 2018
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“This strategy can improve application of new skills to individual research tasks in the future (Brown & Wilson, 2018).”
From Student‐led workshops: Filling skills gaps in computational research for life scientists (2021) · cites this paper as Brown & Wilson, 2018
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“Second, online delivery, especially of complex technical topics like bioinformatics, can lead to cognitive overload that impedes participant learning (Brown & Wilson, 2018).”
From Student‐led workshops: Filling skills gaps in computational research for life scientists (2021) · cites this paper as Brown & Wilson, 2018
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Metadata
- Authors
- Brown, N. C. C., & Wilson, G.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Wilson, Greg
- Venue
- PLOS Computational Biology
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2018-04-05
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e1006023
- ISSN
- 1553-734X (ISSN-L)
- 1553-7358
- PMC
- PMC5886386
- OpenAlex
- W2795628086
- Cited by
- 89
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 11.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS Computational Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Teaching and Learning Programming
- Social Sciences › Education › Innovative Teaching Methods
- Social Sciences › Education › Educational Robotics and Engineering
- Keywords
- programming education, computer science education, educational psychology, informal learning, best practices in teaching
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Programming Languages, Software, Computational Biology
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