How to help a programming student get unstuck
This is pretty much how I taught my High School Computer Science classes.The biggest step for me was to never touch the student keyboards. And then I basically only answered their questions with more questions.Sometimes I would hear students grumble "He never answers my questions...", But in the long run, they would start asking themselves the same questions they knew I would ask (what did you expect it to do?, what did it do?, Why did it do that?)... Then they would usually solve their problem without me!Or, when they called me over they would start with "I tried a, b, and c" and got results x, y, and z" which is a way better start to a learning experience for everyone than the old "it doesn't work, fix it, please"