Summer Programming Boot Camp, Teach High Schoolers First and Let Them Teach Middle Schoolers

As a summer camp for middle school and high school students, a new method of learning/teaching computer science was explored: Teaching high schoolers MIT's App Inventor for 2 weeks and then during the following two weeks, having the high schoolers teach middle schoolers ranging from upcoming 6th to 9th graders. The program, App Inventor, simplifies the process of coding, making it an ideal method of teaching beginners the basics of computer programming and computational thinking practice. The simplicity of the program is evident through the rapid learning process of the high schoolers, who were mostly beginners at coding. Additionally, during the process of teaching and helping the middle schooler's debugging session, the high school students were able to properly digest the principles and fundamentals of computer programming by revisiting and teaching what they learned. The students, both the high schoolers and middle schoolers, collaborated in exploring and experimenting with multiple variations of apps that could be made with the given teaching materials. The level of comprehension amongst the middle schoolers was evident through their ability to produce the final products, which ultimately varied depending upon the method of teaching that the high schooler chose to teach with. This paper presents the organization of the summer programming camp, contents and learning outcome.