Teachers look to increase ranks of students with computer code writing

Matt Bower
Posted 12/2/14

The main meeting room at Warwick Public Library was filled with teachers last Monday evening.

Most of them were from Warwick and they were there to learn how to write code for computer …

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Teachers look to increase ranks of students with computer code writing

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The main meeting room at Warwick Public Library was filled with teachers last Monday evening.

Most of them were from Warwick and they were there to learn how to write code for computer programming as part of Hour of Code.

According to hourofcode.com, “Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics.”

Hour of Code is organized by Code.org, a nonprofit that provides an online tutorial on how to write computer code.

Hour of Code has reached tens of millions of students in more than 180 countries. Although Hour of Code can be hosted by anyone at anytime, the goal is to get as many students as possible to participate during Computer Science Education Week, which is Dec. 8-14.

Last year, 15 million students worldwide learned an Hour of Code, including more than 10 million girls, which means more girls tried computer science than in the last 70 years.

Warwick Neck Elementary School participated last year and first grade teachers Tracy Mollock and Amy Dolan are not only preparing to do it again this year, but they’re getting more teachers involved in the Hour of Code movement.

“We wanted to share the knowledge with others,” Mollock said. “We hosted an Hour of Code workshop already and the feedback was so great, we opened it up again.”

She said 25 to 30 teachers from nine schools participated the first time around and approximately 20 more teachers from an additional seven or eight schools came for the second workshop last Monday.

“We started this last year and people have been expressing an interest,” Mollock said. “We already set up the classes to code, now teachers are practicing on their own to learn how to code. We offer up the workshops for teachers to learn at their own pace.”

Mollock said the Hour of Code training sessions are coordinated through Create and Collaborate, a teacher-designed program that provides professional development for teachers by teachers to directly impact student learning.

“Teachers present what they do well in the classroom,” Mollock said.

The teachers behind Create and Collaborate include Mollock, Dolan, Dawn Manchester, a sixth grade teacher at Lippitt Elementary School, and Deidre Pesola, a sixth grade teacher at Norwood Elementary School.

“Our hope is to provide teachers with an opportunity to bring something back to the kids,” Mollock said. “We’re hoping they bring back what they learn here to their school and host an Hour of Code in their classroom.”

Mollock said Hour of Code allows students to play around with computer science, exposes them to higher level thinking skills, while meeting Common Core state standards at the same time.

“Students are exposed to a higher level curriculum. In first grade, they are learning about angles,” Mollock said. “It’s more advanced this year and there are more programs available for students.”

Mollock said Create and Collaborate has quadrupled its numbers since the first time they met. In addition to the professional development component of Create and Collaborate, she said they also try to keep things fun, such as including a raffle with the Hour of Code workshop.

“If teachers make a tweet or take a selfie at the selfie station, they get a raffle ticket. WB Mason provides our raffle prizes,” she said. “And all teachers leave the workshop with a swag bag filled with materials for the K to 5 curriculum.”

Mollock said Hour of Code has not only been successful with students, but also with teachers.

“We had positive feedback from the first training session,” she said. “We had four teachers come back to learn even more and help out new teachers.”

One of those teachers was Lynne Seidenberg, who teaches first grade at Sherman Elementary School.

“I went to the last training session, loved it, and came back because I felt I could get a bit further,” she said. “I was worried about the kids not having enough information. It’s been great; there’s been good feedback. I don’t mind doing anything that’s worthwhile.”

Judith Monzack, a third grade teacher at Lippitt, said she heard about the Hour of Code training session from another teacher who told her it would help her students who are more digital.

“It’s a way to get the pulse of kids and how they’re doing with digital learning,” she said. “I want to reach the kids. So many are digitized and this will really appeal to them.”

Monzack said Hour of Code is an exciting opportunity to get kids to learn high level thinking skills and computer programming.

“This helps kids become intuitive and learn map skills,” she said. “I’m grateful for the opportunity for professional development and to help the kids.”

Mollock said the Code.org website is very user-friendly and allows teachers to monitor the progress of an individual student as well as the entire class.

“It monitors your progress,” she said. “Teachers can see the solution, the answer is already there.”

Instead of typing commands, students choose from a list of available commands by dragging and dropping their desired command into a window and arranging them in order to execute the program.

“I want you to see how cool this is, and if you introduce it in your class for an hour, you’ll see how useful it is and will want to use it for more than an hour,” said the training session instructor.

Mollock said Hour of Code triggers an interest in coding for many students.

“The kids really enjoy it and work to figure out the program, it’s very worthwhile,” she said. “It combines math, art, and reading. There are also 25 vocabulary words, such as algorithm, that they learn. It’s good for the kids.”

To kick off Computer Science Education Week next week, Mollock said Warwick Neck second-graders will present an Hour of Code on Monday, Dec. 8 at 9:15 a.m., showing programs they wrote from learning how to code as first-graders last year.

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  • Pmaloneyjr

    The teacher at John Brown that ran this program for my child was Karen Monteiro. She did a great job and the kids got a lot out of it. This is a good program. I am glad they are doing this. Thank you.

    Wednesday, December 3, 2014 Report this