If you’re a STEM-minded teacher and think your students might benefit from being introduced to programming, you might be right. Students with programming skills—however basic they may be—are able to explore a wealth of great opportunities from internships to future employment because this is one of the most important skills employers are looking for. Here’s some helpful hints to get you on your way to empowering children with relevant, real-world knowledge.
Teaching Technology, Programming and Robotics
One of the many ways today’s students can make a splash as they look to enter the workforce in a few years is by participating in and learning the basics of programming and programming languages during grade school. Everything from computers to apps and even robots need to be programmed in order to function in the ways in which they are meant meaning that there is an increasing demand for designers who have the necessary skills. Finding teachers who are not only willing to leave their comfort zones but also have the expertise to teach kids these crucial skills is no easy task for schools and districts and a large reason why there is a lack of computer science education in K-12 schools today. There is always a way around the shortcomings, however, and easing into programming education is one way to make sure it’s happening.
It’s fairly easy to design and implement a basic programming curriculum, especially in early elementary school. Since the tools kids can use to learn are so intuitive and affordable, it makes for an easy learning experience and, more importantly, an easy teaching experience. The long list of tools available also guarantees that there will be an element of fun intertwined with the learning while kids collectively build other skills, such as math and verbal proficiencies. Teachers—when they get these kinds of programs off the ground—tend to agree with the effectiveness of a programming curriculum. Students often engage in the content more since they are more interested in learning something of a greater significance and due to the extent of interactivity that these kinds of courses offer.
Programming classes can be offered for children of all ages, starting as young as seven or eight years old. It is then that they build the foundation for mastering programming skills and, as they advance in grade level, their programming tasks develop into more complex challenges once they have learned how to apply the basics. To ensure that they have the opportunity to learn these skills, they need to have somebody who is capable of teaching them. Although it can be complicated and, a lot of times, daunting at first, the expertise comes with practice. Once teachers have the necessary skills to teach programming in their classes, the versatility of today’s tech tools allows for a wide variety of customized lesson plans that align with educational standards and teach key concepts. Half the battle for teachers is just being open and willing to learn how to teach.
Supporting Modern Classes with Programming Opportunities
To enjoy the maximum amount of benefits from introducing programming into any of your STEM classes, there are a few things teachers must first realize. There seems to be a general sense among those in the education community that programming is most closely related to math. While the two certainly are related, programming activities can, as we said, be incorporated into the school day in more ways than one. As long as the hands-on work yields authentic and positive value in the classroom, it’s definitely worth the implementation. Ask any of the great teachers today and they’ll tell you that neither programming challenges nor class content come before the other; they work together to create a dynamic approach for molding future-ready students.
Programming—like most hands-on STEM activities—supports the development of key problem-solving skills among students of all ages. The actual learning comes when students translate mathematical problems and ideas to execute them in code. They can create commands for virtually anything and watch their machines carry them out in real time. This requires that students gain an increasingly deeper understanding of the problems they are dealing with so they may be able to find a way to represent these problems in a programming language, killing two birds with one stone as they learn how to program and then use those skills to solve a genuine problem.
When programming, students are driven to be explicit about their problem-solving strategies and compelled to be creative in their execution. Even when they’re writing the code to solve the problem, they’re essentially forced to break the issue down into smaller and perfectly clear chunks, a truly powerful problem-solving technique. It’s invaluable for educators to see how students approach a problem as they can use this information to develop personalized plans to support each student’s learning goals. Programming also teaches precision and hones students’ carefulness in being detail oriented. Since every detail matters, students must focus deeper on the details and never bypass a step as they may have done in other phases of learning. Finally, and, perhaps above all else, programming practices constantly provide teachers with valuable feedback about student skills, progress and understanding—ensuring that they actually are learning effectively with technology.
Teaching Programming with Minecraft
One of the newest, most popular tools in education these days, believe it or not, is Minecraft. With the popular video game, kids can interactively and genuinely build real-world skills like programming, problem solving and exploration. Many teachers, heeding the advice of educational experts, have adopted some form of the popular game into their day-to-day curricula. Made and developed by Microsoft, Minecraft has blossomed into a full-fledged EdTech tool, helping students in many different grade levels learn everything from programming and science to math, art, languages and history in a way that better prepares them for life in the 21st century.
This may come as a relief to parents who can’t seem to pull their children away from the wildly popular video game. Minecraft activates their brains in ways that actually boost cognitive development rather than slowing it down. All the materials kids encounter throughout the course of the game—from dirt to trees—represent building blocks that they can use to craft shelters and tools they need to survive. They quickly move past the basics and showcase their creativity in ways that allow their characters to survive longer and more efficiently. The whole time, they’re learning vitally important skills like computer coding, engineering, design planning and architecture among others and the programming aspect literally allows kids to change aspects of the game themselves.
Minecraft allows for an immersive and project-based learning experience and one that kids generally cannot contain their excitement about. Every aspect of the adventure seems to require they get more creative in order to survive, which (lightbulb) would seem to translate somewhat to success in today’s real world. In just a short amount of time, Minecraft has evolved from what parents believed to be a distraction to a tool that educators continue to swear by. Some even think that, soon enough, it will be a part of every classroom, helping shape future developers and programmers in a way that they love! There is no doubt that Minecraft’s emergence as an educational tool has been a surprise, but there is also little reason to speculate that it’s going to go away any time soon.
Could Programming Replace Foreign Languages in 21st Century Schools?
Foreign languages like, Spanish, Latin and French have long been a part of required courses in almost every school across the country. With the emergence of new technologies, including pocket translators and apps that instantly get the point across, many educators are starting to rethink the practicality of teaching foreign languages in schools. That’s not to say they don’t think kids shouldn’t be learning a new language—they just think it’s time for that new language to be coding. Today’s students could go the length of their career without needing to communicate in a foreign tongue, but the likelihood that they will get through it without needing to know how to code is drastically lower.
Programming is a central skill that’s becoming more and more necessary in order for workers to thrive in an increasingly technological era. It’s on its way to (if it has not already) becoming a global language and an undeniable component of global culture. Much more so recently, the enthusiasm about teaching coding in skills has grown in large part to President Obama’s plan for broadening computer science and STEM education. The goal is to make coding a basic skill in all students, but to do that, schools would need to replace a subject these kids are already taking with this new one. Logically, since programming is a language, their foreign language requirement might be the first to go in a lot of cases and that might not be such a bad thing.
Since we consider coding to be a language in itself, revamping what we already teach today’s students to shift the focus to a more modern skill seems like a useful idea. Coding and programming can function as a supplement to today’s math and science courses in a way that both helps strengthen the material previously discussed and allows kids to put their knowledge to use in a hands-on way. Computer languages are used for communication between people and machines—something that today’s students will need to have proficiency in or risk having their careers ended by smarter machines. The language of coding is the great equalizer in sustaining profitable careers and remaining relevant to employers. Can we really risk not exposing all students to the world of programming?
How to Build Programming into the Curriculum
Finding the tools and aligning them with educational requirements in an effort to teach kids programming is not always easy and sometimes even a daunting task for many of today’s educators. Often strapped for resources and time, teachers can get discouraged when they know what they should be teaching, but cannot find a way to acquire the tools they need or even learn the necessary skills to impart that wisdom. Luckily for those hard-working teachers, there are a fairly sizable amount of EdTech tools that offer viable simulations for teaching students the basics of programming. Some—like Scratch—are Web-based and others—like the Kano Computer Kit—provide tangible programming activities.
Now that you’ve got some tools in mind, finding ways to incorporate them into the curriculum might still be somewhat of a challenge. It’s easier than it seems, however, as even basic programming is still programming. Especially for early-level educators, exciting kids with programming challenges is super simple—and something you might already be doing without even realizing it. One of the simplest tools to use to learn about programming is the Ozobot. With the Ozobot, students explore color coding challenges to program a tiny little robot to execute a number of cool moves on their desk or tablet screen. The cool thing about the Ozobot is that it responds to color cues, so by following the instruction cards and drawing out the codes exactly as they’re displayed will result in a student-programmed and totally controllable robot!
Programming challenges help instill confidence in kids, teach them the basics of key scientific skills and help provide a platform for them to work together to develop creativity, collaboration skills and systemic reasoning. As students get more comfortable with their programming prowess, of course, we encourage them to move on to more complex tasks. Perhaps, they could learn how to use a Raspberry Pi microcomputer to program any number of DIY devices or grab an Arduino board and unleash its built-in power. One of the best tools to use in your next step, however, is the EZ-Robot Humanoid, an interactive and modular robot that pairs with your computer. Using the ez-builder software, kids can select actions from a pre-loaded list and program the robot to execute these actions—like waving when it recognizes their face, for instance! There’s no reason to be afraid of asking to implement a programming curriculum—especially with the availability of all these great EdTech tools!
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