Opinion: Debugging the Curriculum
How can and should we include coding in primary and secondary schools?
Depending on your state or county school curriculum, you may or may not have experience with coding during your middle school or high school years. As time passes, the ability to be able to program is becoming more and more commonplace for students in primary and secondary schools.
More employers seem to be expecting some form of technical ability, but school systems are not completely reflecting this demand. The schools that do meet this criteria are funded by companies that influence what is taught and how. This rift brings the question of how programming can be implemented without leading students right into the control of companies.
Promoting vs. Pipelining
Recently, states have been pushing for the integration of coding into the curriculum but there are also rumors of possible intent of creating a “pipeline” of workers for big tech companies. Pipelining is where tech companies provide incentives to schools such as access to computers or certain software with the intention of training students for low-end positions at their company.
“Nearly 20 states have already passed legislation requiring public schools to make computer-science classes accessible to high-school students” –The Wall Street Journal
Public schools run the risk of falling victim to the financial power of technology companies by implementing certain mandates for learning computer science courses. Given our current dependence on technology, it is a growing concern how schools can balance introducing computer science into the curriculum without overwhelming students, limiting their opportunities to learn technical skills, or creating a pipeline of labor for tech giants.
A survey conducted by Education Week found that “60 percent of teachers think Big Tech has too much influence in K-12 schools” but company involvement is left largely up to state legislation.
“They want kids to be successful in K-12. It’s a fundamental macroeconomic issue for [tech companies], to return to having high-quality graduates in the United States so that they don’t have to move.” — Larry Singer, the former CEO of the nonprofit Open Up Resources.
Considering the competitive nature of our economy, it seems only natural that companies search out possible candidates for hire in high school. To gain an advantage, companies seek out students as early as possible to establish their brand. With all this competition, what could a healthy technical presence within the classroom look like?
Potential Difficulties
In addition, there are a number of concerns when it comes to teaching students how to code in a classroom environment, including:
Hours spent debugging (instead of learning computing concepts)
A lack of single solutions
Difficulties adjusting to how computers interpret programs
These issues can create an environment where students struggle to remain motivated.
The Importance of Computational Thinking
However, there are ways to incorporate computer science into a curriculum in less disruptive ways. Within computer science, the concept of Computational Thinking (CT) involves using procedural knowledge used to write programs as a method to solve everyday problems. For example, CT may teach students how to develop a procedure to alphabetize books on a shelf or find the most efficient routes for the school bus. Developing CT is essential for processing dense lines of code or solving complex problems. For instance, students can be taught how to read code relatively easily, but gaining efficiency can only be done by developing this procedural knowledge through CT.
A healthy involvement with technology would ideally include students being aware of all the applications of CT in other aspects of their studies as well as acknowledging the difficulties as a part of the process. Computer science has the ability to complement essentially every subject taught within primary school. Students can implement CT by designing programs that can calculate integrals, which would further their understanding of solving calculus or proofs by breaking the problem into pieces. Additionally, students could design a graphic for their English project on Hamlet, building a technical ability that allows them to present ideas in a creative, concise format. This flexibility allows for a plethora of opportunities for students to study various subjects in higher education or apply programming in their careers.
RAISO’s Take
Obviously, every student will not need the ability to use computational thinking nor will they have a desire to learn this skill. In order to adequately provide students considering coding with access, classes should be formatted in such a way that prevents any barriers to students who want to attempt.
“..the goal of CT is not to teach students to think like a computer scientist, but to teach them to apply CT and computation techniques to solve problems and identify new issues across all disciplines.” (Wong, et al)
Keeping this idea in mind, the curriculum should be designed considering how it can be applied to each of the students' other core subjects and instances outside of academia. This can include any courses that develop the “non-traditional” skills that wouldn’t typically be desirable for technology companies such as designing their very own programming languages.
As we make further progressions in technology and AI, the technical literary standards change in fashion. The modern era could potentially include reading simple lines of code as an essential aspect of being considered literate.
Works Cited
Giacomo Bagnara. “Should All Children Learn to Code by the End of High School?” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 24 Feb. 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/should-all-children-learn-to-code-by-the-end-of-high-school-11582513441. https://www.wsj.com/articles/should-all-children-learn-to-code-by-the-end-of-high-school-11582513441
Klein, Alyson. “What Does Big Tech Want from Schools? (Spoiler Alert: It's Not Money).” Education Week, Education Week, 15 Sept. 2021, https://www.edweek.org/technology/what-does-big-tech-want-from-schools-spoiler-alert-its-not-money/2020/01. https://www.edweek.org/technology/what-does-big-tech-want-from-schools-spoiler-alert-its-not-money/2020/01
G. K. W. Wong, H. Y. Cheung, E. C. C. Ching and J. M. H. Huen, "School perceptions of coding education in K-12: A large scale quantitative study to inform innovative practices," 2015 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE), 2015, pp. 5-10, doi: 10.1109/TALE.2015.7386007. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7386007
Written by Dwayne Morgan