3 posts tagged with "Teaching"

Background​

I co-teach an advanced placement computer science class at Heights High School in Houston with the TEALS program. The curriculum utilizes the Java programming language and has an emphasis on object-oriented programming. From a school IT system perspective, we have limited options for the software we can distribute to the students’ laptops. During my first year of volunteering, we opted to use BlueJ for the first couple of months before exposing them to Eclipse, a more heavy-duty integrated development environment. Both editors have their challenges and limitations for novices, so we began to evaluate several other options, including Visual Studio Code. After considering numerous factors, including the complexity of installation, editor features, and accessibility, we opted to try a radically different option: Repl.it.

A Semester in the Classroom​

I volunteer co-teaching an advanced computer science class at a Houston high school. This involves me being in the classroom for up to three days per week. In addition to lecturing, lesson planning, and grading, I’m simultaneously mentoring and being mentored by an experienced science teacher who has never taught programming before. One of my majors was computer science, and I have years of real-world software engineering experience supplementing my formal education. In turn, the teacher provides excellent guidance on education methodologies and best practices, as well as moral support.

My first week of teaching is in the books, and there’s already a ton to reflect on. Overall, I think that class so far has been a success, but I’ve already identified several opportunities for improvement.