How is teaching young students Python changing with the advent of LLMs? This week on the show, Kelly Schuster-Paredes from the Teaching Python podcast joins us to discuss coding and AI in the classroom. Kelly shares her current thoughts on teaching Python to young students. She stresses that the earliest classes still need to cover the fundamentals. We also discuss how coding instruction is evolving toward reading and reviewing code more than writing it. Course Spotlight: Building a Python GUI Application With Tkinter In this video course, you’ll learn the basics of GUI programming with Tkinter, the de facto Python GUI framework. Master GUI programming concepts such as widgets, geometry managers, and event handlers. Then, put it all together by building two applications: a temperature converter and a text editor. Topics: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:01:28 – Starting to use AI in the classroom 00:05:17 – How did students react to using NLP and NLTK? 00:06:40 – Teaching Python beginners now 00:12:31 – Code editor changes with LLM features 00:15:25 – Less in-classroom teaching 00:16:22 – What sparks interest in coding for students? 00:21:14 – Video Course Spotlight 00:22:44 – Exploratory robotics 00:25:56 – Do you need to struggle to learn? 00:32:52 – Working through frustration and the tendency not to read 00:36:37 – Mixed feelings on the changes to teaching 00:41:19 – Teaching through reading and code reviewing 00:45:33 – Lower-level classes are still about fundamentals 00:47:47 – Other areas of teaching using AI tools 00:51:29 – Improving prompting skills 00:54:22 – Using these tools to organize creativity 00:54:53 – What AI tools are working for you? 00:57:13 – Sharing knowledge and techniques with other teachers 01:00:02 – General advice for teachers 01:02:03 – What are you excited about in the world of Python? 01:02:52 – What do you want to learn next? 01:03:46 – How can people follow your work online? 01:04:10 – Thanks and goodbye Show Links: Teaching Python Podcast Code With Mu Flint - AI for schools Claude colab.google AI Explorers’ Club 🛶 – Center for Digital Thriving Building a Python GUI Application With Tkinter – Real Python TensorFlow SPIKE™ Prime – STEAM Set - Grades 6 - 8 - LEGO® Education Hexapod (robotics) - Wikipedia How to Use AI Without Becoming Stupid - Commoncog Prompt Cowboy - #1 prompt generator Get started with Python in Excel - Microsoft Support Episode #186: Exploring Python