Poconos snowboarding

As someone who has never snowboarded before, you could probably go anywhere in the Poconos and be fine. There is plenty of easy terrain to learn on in PA. I used to ski/ride in the Poconos a lot when I was growing up. I taught at Shawnee for a few years. It would be a pretty good place to learn. I think Big Boulder has a lot of freestyle terrain these days. I'm sure everyone has their favorites.

Big boulder hands down. They're the best resort anywhere in the poconos that actively maintains their terrain. The next closest competitor for park would be mountain creek in vernon, nj. The jumps are nearly geometrically perfect and their park crew is always out. They have anything from side hits, to beginner park trails and features to the 30-40 footer shipsail jumpline. A lot of the park features are really creative as well. I'd say about 70% of the trails at big boulder have some sort of features on them so it's basically a playground. Wednesday nights is college night, if you have college ID it's $10 for a lift ticket 3pm-9pm. Sunday nights is "family night" where it's $15 for a lift ticket for anyone 3pm-10pm. They also offer unlimited college season passes for $299. BB is also beer/bud friendly, just don't be stupid about it.

Why other nearby mountains suck? (RE: Freestyle terrain)
Camelback: Their jumps and some features are unsafe, someone needs to give their park manager a protractor - last year they had to rebuild their jumps because too many people were getting hurt within a short period of time on their jumps because they were "Geometrically unsafe" haha. You also have to buy a separate pass for the park, which can be a good or bad thing. They also don't groom it all too often but it's not too bad. They regularly mash down all of the sidehits carved out on all the trails because it's a "family resort" As it's a family resort they're pretty strict, if they see you with a beer in hand when you're not inside the bar then chances are they're going to ask you to leave, take your lift ticket, or possibly try to fine you...or all of the above.

Shawnee: Usually has some pretty good sidehits all around depending on how much snow they have. The incubator park isn't too bad, it's a little rail garden and the run in's are usually decently groomed. However their only other park which has the jump line is usually pretty sketchy. I've never seen anyone grooming the jumps, there are usually really nasty ruts in the center of the jump and landing zones, if you don't land perfectly straight in the rut there's a good chance you're going to eat it pretty hard. (Thank all of the 8 year old kids on ski's for riding up and back down the jumps for this)