Kids crack code of programming
Early exposure and tapping into their areas of interest are key, teachers say
When Kyle Cardinale began teaching at the private Toronto girls school Havergal College in 2014, only six students signed up for his first two computer science classes combined. This year, he is teaching 48 students across three classes.
The trick? Cardinale found his students were most interested when they were stringing together code to create their own version of Super Mario, or crunching their volleyball stats, or customizing their Tumblr blogs.
In other words, applying coding skills to their own lives. Today, it’s an anime-themed Tumblr blog, but tomorrow coding skills could qualify students for some of the most in-demand jobs on the planet. When Indeed Canada re- leased its ranking of the top 10 best jobs of 2017 last May, only two were outside tech (real-estate agent and optometrist).
Rankings were based on the number of job postings, salary and growth opportunities. In June, the federal government pledged $50 million to teach coding and other digital skills to young people as well as train 500 new teachers.
Mike Washburn, head of computer science at Richmond Hill Montessori and Elementary Private School, teaches kids as early as Grade 2 the basics of coding using code.org, a hub for coding-themed games featuring characters that kids are already obsessed with, including those from Angry Birds, Star Wars and Moana.
“We ran into a problem the first year because when parents asked, ‘What did you do in computers today?’ students would say, ‘We played Angry Birds!’” Washburn says. “I had a lot of questions and I had to explain to parents, ‘No, we’re not playing Angry Birds, they’re using Angry Birds characters to learn how to program.’ If you want to teach kids how to do this, you have to meet them where they are.”
Kingsway College School (KCS) in Etobicoke is one of many schools that introduces senior kindergarten students to Dash and Dot, a pair of robots that can be programmed via one of five apps to exhibit behaviours such as blinking, performing music, or spinning in a circle. It’s just one of the ways students are subtly introduced to coding, reflecting the way coding has become an organic part of our lives.
“Coding opens a whole new world of creative opportunities,” says Andrea Fanjoy, assistant head of academics at KCS. “And students, by their nature, are uninhibited.
Many teachers believe early exposure to coding is the key to generating interest later in life. And yet there are no mandatory computer studies courses in the Ontario curriculum, which doesn’t even introduce computer studies as an elective until Grade 10.
At Havergal, students study coding concepts from Grades 1 through 6. Their next encounter with coding isn’t until Grade 11 computer science — if they choose to enrol. Cardinale thinks that is a mistake. “Studies have shown that Grades 7 and 8 are when they form their interests,” he says.
When Cardinale first came to Havergal, he aimed to bridge that gap by hosting a special hackathon event for those students. “Most of these girls had no idea about HTML and picked it up in one day,” he says. “Exposure is the key, I think.”
Three years later, those students who attended that hackathon are now packing his Grade 11 computer science courses.