Overview
Pair programming is a way of working on programming tasks where learners are paired up and take turns acting as the driver or navigator. The goal behind this practice, especially when it comes to collaborative learning in industry settings like companies with many developers, require more than just one person doing all their thinking for them because they cannot always collaborate effectively without any outside assistance from other employees who may have different skillsets that could help solve problems more quickly/efficiently etc.
So by having two people work together at once you allow each partner ample opportunity not only learn what another individual knows but also share ideas & thoughts.
Using pair programming in the classroom
Girls who solve problems collaboratively may find computing more accessible than those simply reading instructions. See how Katherine Child's shows these schools' students as part of a Gender Balance in Computing Programme, designed a project to explore this effect and how it can contribute towards increasing girls' attitudes toward programming tasks.
The outcome is that when they encounter difficulties while coding or trying out new software tools for themselves, having another person present during the process could help them get back on track faster with less frustration which will result into higher persistence rates overall; thus giving all children an equal chance at succeeding.
Study results
To investigate the impact of pair programming on learners' digital skills, we ran a study with 97 schools. Schools were randomly allocated to either an intervention group that used our training material and methodologies for implementing these techniques in class or else they served as controls by teaching Computing normally without any knowledge about how it would affect their students' performance later down the line; this way there could be some blindness involved which is often necessary when conducting studies.
The results showed that pair programming had a positive impact on girls' attitudes toward computing and increased persistence when encountering programming challenges.
By Lauren Rose Eddy