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The kid in my 3rd period class asked why her loop ran forever, and I froze for a sec
She wrote a while loop for her quiz score program at Jefferson Middle and forgot to change the counter inside it, so it just sat there printing the same line. I almost grabbed her keyboard to fix it myself but stopped and asked her to read the loop out loud instead. Took her about 30 seconds to spot it on her own, way faster than if I'd just typed the fix. Do you let beginners hunt for their own bugs first, or jump in when they're stuck?
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drew_reed621mo ago
Was she hoping the computer would just get tired and give up? I get why you froze though, it is hard not to just grab the keyboard when you can see the fix from across the room. But making her read it out loud was the right call, because the kid who finds their own bug learns something and the kid who watches you fix it learns nothing. Mine usually spot it the second they slow down and say the code in plain words, the whole thing falls apart right there. So yeah, let them squirm a little first, just not so long they decide coding is dumb.
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