Special Seminar: Antti Laaksonen "How to Teach Programming?"

How to Teach Programming?

Antti Laaksonen

Abstract:

It is a difficult task to find a good way to teach programming. In this talk, I will present my teaching methods and discuss what I have learned after teaching programming for a decade. I have taught children the basics of programming, coached young people for programming contests, and lectured university programming courses, which has allowed me to follow the learning process of a programmer from novice to expert from many perspectives. At the end of the talk, I will present my plans on creating an international online platform for learning programming and studying individual learning paths of programmers.

Bio:

Antti Laaksonen received his PhD in Computer Science in 2015 from the University of Helsinki, and currently works there as a university lecturer. He has authored two popular textbooks on programming and algorithms, and is a main developer of the CSES online programming learning system. Since 2013, he has coordinated the Datatähti programming contest and led the training of Finnish students for the International Olympiad in Informatics. He is a founder member of the Linkki science lab at the University of Helsinki, and currently leads the Tie koodariksi project that creates programming material for schools.