Invent to Learn: Game Changer Technologies

Coding in The Classroom

Many new trends are taking over the educational world, debated as being great trends that will help students prepare for life in the 21st Century. STEM education has become very popular and widely used. In many different capacities, STEM challenges students to think like engineers, mathematicians, and incorporate the ELA standards into their learning. Students are becoming independent learners who are able to guide their instruction towards ideas and concepts that are interesting to them. One of the popular capacities of this is Coding. Coding is a computer science program that helps students understand how computers control and produce graphics and many other things. Thus, bringing us to a major game changer in education: computer programming (Estes & Mintz, 2016, pg 130).

A popular platform for this comes from Code.org. Nine states have labeled coding as a legitimate math and science curriculum (Code.org). When implementing this game changer technology in the classroom, students are learning critical thinking and problem-solving skills that will boil over to other projects, lessons, and cultivate 21st Century skills (Estes & Mintz, 2016).

My Successes with Coding

In the 2017-2018 school year, I was a second-year teacher, teaching second-grade for the first time. I was excited to be in a new school with a positive support system and a family atmosphere among the staff. I felt that I could truly try anything and would have the help and support that I needed. As I have mentioned before in my posts, I have vowed to stay away from the “drill and practice” and direct instruction techniques that I had when going through school. I want to provide my students with authentic and real learning experiences that can take them beyond the brick and mortar of our classroom. I am in full support of the shift in education where teachers are becoming more of a facilitator, fostering 21st Century skills in their students.

With this being said, teaching is still a tough, yet rewarding profession. I remember the first day that I introduced Code.org to my students. They were excited but also frustrated at the same time. They were used to getting things instantly and not really having to think about how to “debug” errors, or fix mistakes (enter the growth mindset lessons I soon implemented). At that first student meltdown (because they are 7 years old) I felt defeated. I just expected my students to be as excited as I was and to persevere through. This was a great lesson for me because even though students are experts on using mobile devices, they still need guidance with their critical thinking and problem-solving skills (Alepeis & Troussas, 2017).

After learning that I needed to model and guide students through using this platform, I was able to explain to them the process of “debugging” and problem-solving. We discussed how things won’t always work the first time that we try them. Part of learning and growing is trying things over and over again until it works. Mistakes are the biggest guides in our learning. After we discussed this and found ways to cope with mistakes and to use them for guidance in our next attempt, it was amazing to see the triumphant smiles and sense of accomplishment in my students. We started to have conversations about becoming computer programmers, or engineers. What a great door that came open for my kiddos. And, it was even as young as second-grade.

Sources

Code.org. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from https://code.org/

Estes, T., & Mintz, S. (2016). Instruction: A Models Approach 7th Edition. Boston, MA:

Pearson. ISBN-13: 978-0-13-398558-0