I recently had the privilege of being picked to teach Java to at risk youth, but I feel like I am in need of some advice as per where to start.<p>I'm not having an issue with dealing with the kids, it's just what angle should I start with? Should I start with the basics of what happens when you type "System.out.println()"? the JVM? OOP? Should I just go into how to do variables, loops, and if statements and let them build a slow understanding through use of the language?<p>thanks so much!
Show them useful or interesting examples first. If you start on mechanics before application, you'll lose their interest.<p>Games a great way to do this. It's harder to impress kids these days (to whom "game" is "Call of Duty 4" with a multi-million development budget), but it's still a great way to make the mental connection between "I like games" and "I can make games".
That's really commendable.<p>It'll be easy to bore the kids with tons of details about variables, loops, and structures. At-risk kids are usually less curious and more interested in usefulness (I think).<p>First, get their attention by giving them the fastest route to a simple working program. Basically just show them that they can make programs that can be useful, then help them build by being a local expert.<p>You can teach variables, loops, structures as your students need them to make their programs work correctly - that way they'll have a good reason to want to learn.
I've done a lot of online self learning. I have to say that udacity's cs101 course has been the most useful resource I've encountered thus far. During the course of the program we built a very basic search engine. I think structuring the program around the goal of a functioning program that's actually interesting was really motivational for a lot of us. Yours could be a web app or a game or whatever, but I think it would be good to have an interesting end goal to build up to from the basics.
Does it have to be Java?<p>I think it's best to start with something that doesn't requiretoo much boilerplate, allows kids to create something cool with a few lines, and has quick feedback. Like turtle graphic in logo or python.<p>I've heard processing for java allows for writing simple programs without boilerplate, and has nice einvironment. But I didn't used it, so I don't know if it's good for kids.
You might want to start with the general concept of how algorithms work, what a computer program does, code being a set of instructions that is read by another computer program, flowcharts, and the like.<p>It depends on how much time you have. If you are only meeting them one day for a few hours, give them a page of code that does something and run through how it works from start to bottom, then give them the basic control and data structures like loops and lists and a simple goal like a blackjack program or number guessing game. You may also want to make (or find online) a cheat sheet of the language keywords and what they do, and hand a copy to everybody.