Sparking Student Interest in Coding

Computer science, computer programming, and coding are all areas that can be very intimidating to both students and teachers when brought into instruction in the classroom. Because of this, it is important that the teachers facilitating and guiding code in the classroom not only a growth mindset in their students, but also spark student interest in the coding activities.

As an elementary educator, more specifically a first-grade teacher, I find it very important to find ways to intrigue and engage my students in any content. Student engagement is even more important when introducing a concept as intricate as coding. This engagement and interest can be tricky because to many teachers and students, coding is an abstract concept that can be hard to bring to life, thus making it hard for students to grasp on to the idea and run with all the opportunities and possibilities that can come from coding.

To find out ways and strategies to get students interested in computer science, click here!

Student interest, as well as a growth mindset (grit), is crucial to young coders because of the inescapable failure that comes along with coding. This failure can be very discouraging to students, but when teachers preface a coding opportunity by explaining this fate, students can expect it and better deal with the frustration. Like Brookhouser and Megnin (2016) state "all computer programmers- from preteen amateurs to full-time professionals-experience bugs, errors, and frustrations all the time. In fact, encountering and fixing problems is almost entirely what they do" (p. 66).

Check out this well-prepared lesson in an elementary classroom that includes an introduction to coding, a teach model of coding, a group collaboration to guide the BeeBot through the map, and an opportunity for students to investigate and explore on their own. If this doesn't scream engagement and interest, then I don't know what does!

One of my favorite aspects of this lesson occurred from timestamp 3:30 to 4:40. During this time period in the lesson, the students run into a failure, or bug, within the code the students had programmed the BeeBot to perform. When the students experienced this failure, the class was able to regroup and reprogram the BeeBot to perform the correct instructions. This segment within the lesson directly supports the statement that Brookhouser and Megnin (2016) made that "programs almost always fail to run the way our kids planned because computers can't read intentions! They follow instructions exactly, and humans almost never enter a perfect set of instructions on the first try" (p. 65).

BeeBots, as seen in the videoed lesson above, are not the only coding tool that can be used for elementary-aged students. Check out the link below to explore other coding tools for elementary school students.

https://www.commonsense.org/education/top-picks/best-coding-tools-for-elementary


References

Best coding tools for elementary. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/top-picks/best-coding-tools-for-elementary

Brookhouser, K. & Megnin, R. (2016). Code in every class: How all educators can teach programming. Irvine, California: EdTechTeam Press.

Plotnick, N. (2015). 7 ways to get students interested in computer science. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2015/12/07/7-ways-to-get-students-interested-in.html

Vacca, M. [Mr. Vacca]. (2017, December 3). Using beebots in kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade classrooms- Hour of code with Mr. Vacca [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uULpYYE1Agc

Social Media Interactions

Social media has become one of the most popular and powerful forms of communication and interactions one can have. As Hicks (2013) states, "part of the benefit of a social network is the ease it provides to be, well, social" (p. 153). On almost every social media platform, users have instant information, reactions, and opinions at their fingertips. Because of this nature of social media, these platforms have become a popular mode of bringing forth argument in various forms including words, images, and videos.

One social media platform in particular, Twitter, gives its users real-time access to posts called "tweets" and other user's reactions to those status updates. More often than not, these tweets are filled with intentional content used to make its readers feel a certain way, react a certain way, and respond a certain way. Below you will find a particular tweet that presents a constant argument among educators and the education world- teacher pay.

As you can see, the tweet itself and the responses have brief, but powerful content. This is because tweets are limited to the number of characters used in posts. As Hicks (2013) states, "the art and skill of composing something as seemingly simple as a tweet is more than simply typing a limited number of characters into a small box" (p. 142). This tweet takes into consideration the type of social media it is being presented on (short phrases that get straight to the point), the audience that will be captured by the post (teachers who relate to the frustration many feel about teacher pay), and the purpose behind posting a controversial issue such as teacher pay (to bring light to how teacher pay is not enough on its own to support families). Because of the power in the content and portrayal, various Twitter users were prompted to respond to the original tweet with their own opinions and experience on the suggested topic. As Turner and Hicks (2017) states, "often, we don't recognize that the simple act of sharing information itself makes a claim, positioning us in certain ways- and that those who read what we share can engage in the argument" (p. 104). 

Although this tweet did catch other users' attention, use a popular hashtag, and elicit a response from them, the composition of the tweet could have been different in order to have been more engaging. The use of visuals, emojis, call to actions, and even link to statistics on teacher salaries could have improved the effectiveness of this tweet. 

Finding the "just right" way to compose a tweet can be pretty tricky. To discover way to make your tweets more visually appealing and more effective in its design and content, visit the links included. 

References

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

HSTeachProbs. (2019, November 3). Tweet. 

Hutchinson, A. (2016). 8 tips for creating more effective tweets (from Twitter). Retrieved from https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/8-tips-creating-more-effective-tweets-twitter

Lufkens, M. (2017). The perfect tweet. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@luefkens/the-perfect-tweet-ece83ad60e4b

Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: Teaching adolescents to read and write digital texts. Portsmouth, NH:Heinemann.