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Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Lately, Coding
theodp (442580) writes "The NY Times reports that the national educational movement in computer coding instruction is growing at Internet speeds. 'There's never been a move this fast in education,' said Elliot Soloway, a professor of education and computer science at the Univ. of Michigan. But, cautions the NY Times' Matt Richtel, it is not clear that teaching basic computer science in grade school will beget future jobs or foster broader creativity and logical thinking, as some champions of the movement are projecting. And particularly for younger children, the activity is more like a video game — better than simulated gunplay, but not likely to impart actual programming skills. 'Some educators worry about the industry's heavy role,' adds Richtel. 'Major tech companies and their founders, including Bill Gates and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, have put up about $10 million for Code.org,' which recently announced its CS programs will be rolled out to more than 2 million students — nearly 5% of all U.S. K-12 students — at 30 school districts this fall. Among the 20,000 teachers who Code.org says have signed on is Alana Aaron, a fifth-grade math and science teacher who, with her principal's permission, swapped a two-month earth sciences lesson she was going to teach on land masses for the Code.org curriculum. 'Computer science is big right now — in our country, the world,' she said. 'If my kids aren't exposed to things like that, they could miss out on potential opportunities and careers.'"
It seems to me if you add coding to math curriculum, it would enhance both. In my high school during the '80's, boolean logic was not discussed at all, nor were principles like recursion, numerical approximation, and general algorithms. If those were added to algebra, geometry, and shown how computers help solve normally unsolvable problems (e.g. the simple pendulum without the law of sines approximation), the students understanding of both math and computer science would synergistically increase.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
"Coding" is nothing more than translating what computer science created into what a computer understands. Equating computer science with coding is like equating architecture with putting down bricks to build the house.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejou...
Stoll re-emphasizes his belief that the most comprehensive educational programming and technology systems could never replace a quality teacher. He recalls his own experience in a graduate physics class. The professor is discussing radiative transfer as Stoll is daydreaming in the back of the classroom. The professor realizes that Stoll isn't quite following the lecture and pauses to ask Stoll a few questions. Caught off-guard, Stoll has to think quickly and come up with a valid response. Fumbling through his first few questions, Stoll is skillfully led to the answer by a talented professor, using the only educational tool available; the Socratic method. Stoll states that there are plenty of computer programs that calculate radiative transfer, and even admits to writing some of them. However he believes that there are no software programs which could have taught him "as effectively as goofing off in Professor Marty Tomasko's class did" (p. 120).
miss out on potential opportunities and careers
If you teach a 10 year old to write "code", that won't help them in 8 or 10 years time when they try to apply for a job. The "code" technology will have moved on in that time, so the stuff they learned a decade ago will be obsolete. The knowledge that a professional programmer has, has a half-life of a few years: maybe as long as 5 years in some areas - possibly as a short as 1 or 2 in rapidly developing fields of work.
Since nobody can tell what skills will be needed in the next decade, learning a particular coding language, the "learning to code" is almost certainly teaching the wrong language to children. It would be far better to teach them basic maths, basic logic and how to think in abstract terms - rather than focusing on tangible, here and now, stuff that will produce children who can blink an LED on a Raspberry Pi today, but will have no clue about hw to deal with the "AI on a chip" they might be faced with when they start their professional careers.
When I started my first job after graduating, the job description didn't even exist when I started my university course. So what is the chance that teaching 5 or 10 year children a specific computing skill will be relevant to their career prospects in 10-15 years time?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"Coding" is nothing more than translating what computer science created into what a computer understands.
You are using a very narrow definition of "coding". Decades ago, a "computer scientist" would design an algorithm and perhaps draw a flowchart, then a "programmer" would implement it with pen and paper in a language such as FORTRAN, then a "key-punch operator" would key in the program and print the Hollerith cards. Today, nobody does it that way. Algorithms are designed directly into a high level language, and typed directly into the computer, by a single person. When people like Bill Gates talk about "coding" they are encompassing the entire process of algorithm design, implementation, and testing.
Coding is necessary to competently use a computer to solve problems.
I have to strongly disagree here. I work as a software engineer and I have seen both sides of this coin. I have seen multiple people working as software engineers that could model and create respectable algorithms that couldn't use a computer beyond that to save their lives. CS =/= IT. I have also seen people that couldn't write "Hello World" if I gave them Eclipse and had it auto-create and format the shell for them, but they could do stuff with Excel and other pieces of software that I was unaware that software even had those features.
I am all for this movement of we need more software developers, because we have tons to be done and no where near enough people (course this kind of works in my favor, but that is neither here nor there), but bottom line is software development is not some elementary skill that you should teach every kid in the world. Some people are just not geared to do it. That doesn't mean that software developers are inherently better or something, just different. There are still plenty of things these people can do. I just feel like we should make sure the opportunity is there (which in a lot of cases it is not right now), not try to cram it down everyone's throat (like what some of these movements are doing, and in many cases they seem to only have a rudimentary understanding of what they are trying to do).
Code.org specifically I am on the fence about still, but there are quite a number of these other movements that are just plain hogwash ("learn to code in a year, in your spare time!" yea, right).
having educators and scientists leading our education system using what has been proven to work
Where is the "proof" that what we are doing works? I live in California, and the three big things the "educators" are pushing are 1) Common Core, 2) Credentialed Teachers, and 3) Smaller classes. Here is the number of controlled studies that I have seen that show that that "Common Core" is effective: 0. Teachers with education credentials have been found to be LESS effective than teachers with degrees in other subjects. Teachers with advanced degrees in education, have found to have NO improvement over teachers with bachelors degrees in education (both are inferior). Lastly, there is astonishingly little evidence to show that smaller classes improve student performance, considering the billions spent on implementing them. Smaller class sizes have been shown to be beneficial in only narrow circumstances, specifically poorly performing students in lower grades. And in even then, there is some evidence that the real benefit is quieter classrooms rather than smaller classes. For brighter kids, the smaller classes often reduce performance, because they are more likely to be compelled to follow along with the class, rather than read ahead. So please tell us, where is the evidence that educators are using what has been "proven to work"?
This topic comes up once a quarter, or so. I agree with the gent above suggesting 'Chess' but in a different way. Teach the original abstract, not the implementation. If we've time and room in the curriculum, teach the kids logic. This will let them code, play chess, think, reason and analyze no matter what the end up doing for a crust in later life.
And 'Critical thinking' - which someone had taught me that at Scumbag High. I had to work a lot of it out myself in later life. With Critical thinking around, we'd have a lot less homeopaths, psychics, spiritualists, gamblers...
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
having educators and scientists leading our education system using what has been proven to work
Where is the "proof" that what we are doing works? I live in California, and the three big things the "educators" are pushing are 1) Common Core, 2) Credentialed Teachers, and 3) Smaller classes. Here is the number of controlled studies that I have seen that show that that "Common Core" is effective: 0. Teachers with education credentials have been found to be LESS effective than teachers with degrees in other subjects. Teachers with advanced degrees in education, have found to have NO improvement over teachers with bachelors degrees in education (both are inferior). Lastly, there is astonishingly little evidence to show that smaller classes improve student performance, considering the billions spent on implementing them. Smaller class sizes have been shown to be beneficial in only narrow circumstances, specifically poorly performing students in lower grades. And in even then, there is some evidence that the real benefit is quieter classrooms rather than smaller classes. For brighter kids, the smaller classes often reduce performance, because they are more likely to be compelled to follow along with the class, rather than read ahead. So please tell us, where is the evidence that educators are using what has been "proven to work"?
I didn't say all educators and scientists were using what was proven to work, I said they should lead with what was proven to work. Some educators and scientists are doing that.
My major sources of information that has proven reliable over the years are:
(1) Science magazine. They regularly publish evidence-based reviews of what works in science education and education generally. I subscribe and most of it is paywalled, unfortunately.
One of the things that works in science is organizing students into study groups. That may seem obvious but most teachers don't do that and a lot of students aren't in study groups. Science had two special issues on minorities in education and they published the research on what works and doesn't work in science education.
They also reported on the studies of preschool, which does seem to work, although it has to be done carefully. One thing that doesn't work is teaching kids to read (which George W Bush thought was the purpose of preschool). The benefit of preschool seems to be teaching kids how to socialize, so that when they do learn to read they won't be discipline problems. By the time kids are in Kindergarten and first grade, most of the damage has already been done.
Science also examined high-stakes testing, and everyone agreed that the tests in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top were not validated and so they're not showing student progress the way they're supposed to. For one thing, they're only valid for large populations, not for individual teachers. It's like firing teachers by throwing dice.
(2) Diane Ravitch, who used to be assistant secretary of education in both the GHW Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration. She used to write op-eds on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the WSJ loved her, because she was a conservative and came out for high standards, high-stakes testing, against unions, etc.
Then she said that after she reviewed the data, the evidence didn't support NCLB and RTTT. She said the one factor that was most strongly associated with academic achievement was family income. So if you want to judge teachers by their results, you should bring everybody up to the starting line and increase their income.
Second, she said, high-stakes testing didn't work. It didn't reflect the teacher's teaching ability. It merely reflected the student's family income.
Third, she said, charter schools didn't work. When the data came in, they were doing worse, on the whole, than the matched public schools and unionized schools they were intended to replace.
Fourth, she said, community scho
Actually, judging from the proportion of people who can't do it (even among those who claim they can), being able to write computer programs does make me special. But you could say the same for wiring a light switch or installing a faucet. Most people have no technical skill at all.
Yeah. And as astonishing as it may sound, "journalist", "writer", "photo reporter", "editor", "typesetter", "lector" and "printer" used to be different people instead of one.
Time changes. Automatism does away with jobs, either eliminating them or offering enough automatism that it can be handled by someone who doesn't have 3+ years of training in it.
Works in all kinds of trades.
We're still far from when bricklayers may design houses because static has become trivial.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.