Teaching Java

Chance to Teach

In my spring semester of freshman year I took an introduction to educational psychology class, and for an assignment we had to teach any topic of our choosing to about 5 elementary school students. I initially wanted to teach something not computer science related, but factoring in resources and lack of inspiration I ended up picking coding in java as the topic I wanted to teach.

While brainstorming I wondered what about java I should teach within the 20 minutes I had with the kids. After reviewing what I knew and considering what would be interesting to the kids I found a website that teaches very basic coding skills but in a way that is visually intereactive. So I did all the lessons on the website and picked a few interesting lessons/activites I found and taught those to the kids. One thing I didn’t account for was if the kids would already have coding experience, and I guess unfortunately for me the kids already knew how to most of the lessons I planned to teach. Now I had to find a way to fill in time and so with the remaining minutes left after the lesson I showed my own projects I working on up untill then. Showing a game I created for a previous class and letting the kids play the game, they were very interested in the code and so to finish off the time I broke down my code and tried my best to explain to them what each line did.

Reflection on the Lesson

After the teaching experience I felt good with my lesson and happy with the improvisation I did with showing my own project to the kids. Although I wish I could’ve done more for the kids and manage the time I had with them better, I realized that I am able to help teach those that want to learn and that I’ve improved quite a lot from when I started to learn about java. Now for the future I hope to be able to get the chance to help others whether through teaching or working on a project that will help people. I am excited for what the future may bring me.

Source: Website