Lessons learned from seven years of pair programming at North Carolina State University

A recent survey conducted on the SIGCSE mailing list indicated that up to 80% of CS1, CS2, and data structures instructors allow students to collaborate. The use of collaboration increases as students advance through the computer science curriculum. Some computer science educators use pair programming as the model for their student collaboration, sometimes with mixed results. At North Carolina State University, over a thousand students have pair programmed in CS1, undergraduate software engineering, and graduate level courses over the last seven years. This paper provides a summary of the lessons we have learned through experience and through extensive research over this period.