How are teachers actually dealing with the new coding curriculum?
Tech city voices
How are teachers actually dealing with the new coding curriculum?
Ok. Is it safe to ask now: “What we were actually teaching in the previous ICT curriculum?”Primary school teacher Niomi Roberts discusses http://websecurites.blogspot.inteaching coding for the first time
Glancing back at it, we were teaching some solid MS Office skills, and how to connect and communicate in the digital world.
It was a curriculum that laid solid foundations for
connecting with technology, and I fondly remember all of the insistent
questioning from children as ICT sessions began: If I just say my words
out loud, the computer must be clever enough to type it onto the word
document, surely?
The new view is different. Rather than consume technology,
we need to teach young people how to create it, design it, and, dare I
say, ‘program it’.
The new computing curriculum
There is a general sense of exploration and manic researching around the new curriculum; many schools are sending teachers on courses that encompass the new ‘computing’ requirements.I work alongside a fantastic ICT/computing co-ordinator and am being reminded daily of the new areas we need to cover in class.
Speaking to colleagues about their views on coding and the use of new programs, they too have spent much of their summer becoming familiar with new concepts. Over the next half term, they will finally be putting their research into practice.
What does coding even mean?
Teachers have questions. For the most part, they go along the lines of:- Will I have the skills to teach coding effectively?
- How can I make it applicable to other subject areas?
- Will it improve the children’s overall understanding of computing?
- How will I know how to assess these new areas?
More than anything else though, the overriding question on
most teacher’s minds is ‘Will my teaching and knowledge be impacting
enough to inspire the children?’
As the skills gap grows, where do we focus?
The areas of focus in the new curriculum are as follows:
communicating, exploring, and shaping the digital world. In my opinion,
the shaping of the digital world is the most important factor, as these
are the skills that are later transferred into the work place.
Code.org
suggests by 2020 there will be more than 1m jobs unfilled because of
the lack of computer science graduates. We need to ensure that we ignite
that passion for computer science and technology in children from an
early age!
If teaching coding is the way forward, teachers need the
requisite resources to ensure that we can teach coding (and everything
that comes with it) to the best possible standard.
I, as well as many others in this profession, strive for the best
results from the children, and it harks back to the idea of “Would you
send a workman to fix a roof without a ladder?”Where do we go now?
There is a genuine sense of excitement about computing in
schools. Teachers are intrigued and want the opportunity to deliver
inspirational computing lessons
The children are likely to be fully engaged; the programming tools,
such as Scratch, focuses directly on many of the animations and games
children endlessly discuss in school.I often catch the children in my class discussing Minecraft and referring to it when completing artwork or other design projects. They enjoy discussing their creations because they have a sense of ownership over their designs.
Myself and many other teachers will be encountering a
considerable amount of change, but change is good and the curriculum is
moving in the right direction.
It is moving in a direction that encourages children to be their own
designers and show their potential in and out of the classroom!
Every child has a unique gift, uncovering this and making
sure that child knows their gift, is the ultimate challenge. The changes
that are taking place will allow more and more children to flourish!
Niomi Roberts will be writing a monthly column for Tech City News about the rollout of the new coding curriculum. She is a primary teacher at Notley Green Primary School in charge of Science and also training to become Middle Phase Leader, which leads years 2, 3 and 4.
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