The best system of education is the one that prepares learners for the workplace of the future. According to international acclaimed teacher Brian Aspinall, Future-ready students need to be creative. They need to know how to communicate their ideas and how to collaborate as problem solvers. To master these and other twenty-first-century requirements, they will need to be critical thinkers.
According to Techopedia, coding refers to creating computer programming code. Coding, in the simplest of terms, is telling a computer what you want it to do, which involves typing in step-by-step commands for the computer to follow. Code powers computers and computers power many everyday objects like phones, watches, microwaves and cars. In fact, almost anything powered by electricity uses code. Here are few reasons why your school should teach students how to code today.
1. It Makes Students Active Learners
“Active learning” according to Teaching Commons means students engage with the material, participate in the class, and collaborate with each other. In a coding class, students don’t simply listen and memorize; instead, they demonstrate a process, analyze an argument, or apply a concept to a real-world situation. With coding, your students become content creators rather than consumers as they are empowered to express themselves in really cool ways.
2. Coding Improves Academic Performance
According to Tynker, Coding significantly improve the learning of key subjects such as Mathematics and Writing. Children who learn how to code finds it easier to visualize abstract concepts in a Mathematics class; This consequently lets them apply math to real-world situations and makes math fun and creative. Also, kids who code understand the value of concision and planning, which results in better writing skills.
3. Coding is Another Form of Literacy
Just as “Must be a Computer Literate” became a key phrase in every job advert, coding is set to be another form of literacy everyone will be required to have very soon. According to Jan Cuny – Program Officer, National Science FoundationAll of the today’s kids will need—along with reading, writing, and arithmetic—a basic understanding of computation and the role that it plays across a wide range of disciplines. Coding teaches storytelling with games and animations; It is a new type of literacy and will be a large part of future jobs. will.i.am – Musician/The Black Eyed Peas and Entrepreneur advocates that starting at 8 years old, Children should learn to read and write code.”
4. Coding Engenders Creativity and Confidence
Kids learn through experimentation and strengthen their brains when they code, allowing them to embrace their creativity. Parents enthusiastically report that they’ve noticed their kids’ confidence building as they learn to problem-solve through coding. Because learners are required to bend, join, break and combine code in a way it wasn’t designed to, coding affords them the opportunity to take risks and fail safely which builds innovation and self-reliance. Susan Wojcicki – Senior Vice President, Google believes that If we want our young women to feel empowered, creative, and confident as adults, a great option is to expose them to computer programming in their youth.
5. Coding Builds Valuable Soft Skills in Learners
In today’s world where adverts and notifications are ubiquitous, and reduced attention span is causing more accidents than ever before, learners naturally develop better focus and concentration as they write more complicated code. They also develop problem-solving and critical/analytical thinking abilities which will make them excel in whatever profession they choose. In the words of Nicholas Negroponte – Founder and Chairman Emeritus of MIT’s Media Lab once shared that “Programming allows you to think about thinking, and while debugging you learn to learn.”
6. It Prepares Learners for the Future
Computer science opens more doors for students than any other discipline in today’s world. Learning even the basics will help students in virtually any career—from architecture to zoology. Salman Khan – Founder, Khan Academy believes that To prepare humanity for the next 100 years, we need more of our children to learn computer programming skills, regardless of their future profession. Along with reading and writing, the ability to program is going to define what an educated person is.
7. Parents Love It
80% of parents want schools to teach computer programming, and students love it. A poll organized by TechGen Africa research team found that 8 out of 10 parents want schools to teach computer science so children grow up not just using technology but learning how to create it. According to a mum, with any other co-curricular activity, like baseball camp, you get a great reaction from people, but when you say your son is learning to code … it’s a bit of a different stare!
Enrolling kids in programming classes especially during the summer period is one crucial way of setting our kids up with soft skills that they will always benefit from in the new age.
Tobi Adeyemi, a 10 years old Grade 5 pupil Developed 2 games; Ping-pong 1 (Tennis) and Bug Killer. We find Tobi very amazing because he makes a lot of advancement on every task completed in class.
Ebuka Agarua a 10 years old Grade 6 pupil developed his first game; Hide and Seek. Ebuka is very attentive and dedicated and we find him very logical as regards problem-solving.
