The dynamic development of Informatics introduces new educational and pedagogical challenges, including the instructional design of teaching and learning. How can we teach our students better in such a growing and demanding field? Moreover, how can we motivate them and together have better learning results? This paper aims to give answers to these questions, through a student-centered framework for effectively encompassing alternative teaching methods within CS. The proposed framework (ATMF) summarizes the benefits of alternative teaching methods in contrast with known issues of traditional teaching. In addition, ATMF is built upon empirical evidence and concludes that alternative practices, if used under the right conditions, can provide increased motivation for learning and better learning outcomes.