"Struggling with Coding: A Teacher's Frustration and a Call for New Strategies A tutor and former teacher is sharing a heart-wrenching account of trying to help a student with special needs grasp fundamental concepts in computer programming and coding. Despite the student's Individualized Education Program (IEP) and diagnosis of ADHD, the tutor notes that the student's brain seems to struggle with recognizing patterns that would come naturally to most people. The tutor, who has a background in autism and has developed strong arithmetic skills from an early age, is finding it challenging to adapt their teaching methods to the student's unique needs. With limited time to work with the student - just an hour per session - the tutor is seeking new strategies to help the student overcome their struggles and keep pace with the demands of software development in their technology class. As educators, how can we better support students with special needs in the classroom, and what innovative approaches can we use to help them succeed in subjects like coding and programming?"
I used to be a teacher and sub, but now I mostly tutor and I'm working with a student struggling in computer programming and coding. The issue I'm noticing the most that is difficult to help him with is that his brain doesn't seem to recognize patterns that most people would find simple. For example, his assignment was coding a particular output based in greater, less than, or equal to numbers regarding ranges of numbers/ages. It was going top to bottom starting with age 76+ then to 66-75, 56-65, 46-55, etc. I was writing some hints on my dry erase board that my camera is on, and each time I asked him what the next sequence of numbers down is, he couldn't figure it out. Also, we were evaluating and carrying out a function starting with if>75, if>65, if>55, etc... I told him we went from 75, 65, 55, so what is our pattern in these numbers? He eventually got it, but I had to ask him to count down with me and sometimes re-explain things. Each time I did an example, I would ask him to do the next one without me using the same pattern, and he couldn't figure it out without help. I wasn't given any information other than he is on an IEP and has some ADHD. It's tough to explain, because I feel in kindergarten I would have understood that, but that's because one of my autism skills is my brain quickly computing numbers and my mind had invented some arithmetic strategies before the teachers even taught us them, so I grew up not understanding why people struggled so much in math. The point is that I'm trying to think of strategies that aren't just breaking it down and counting the way you'd do in 2nd-3rd grade math, because software development that they are working on in technology class typically assumes that knowledge and we only have an hour session, so I can't just go down to the basics. submitted by /u/Ok_Practice_6702 [link] [comments]