Benefits of Coding
Integrating coding into the school day is one of the best ways to assure equality in computer science education. BrainPOP’s Creative Coding provides teachers and students with convenient and meaningful projects connected to curriculum.
Coding (computer programming) means telling a computer what to do in a language it can understand. Computer Science is the study of computation. Coding is a small part of Computer Science, but something all students can benefit learning to do.
Computational Thinking is the transferable part of Computer Science. It is composed of five fundamental skills that can be applied to any type of problem:
Decomposition – breaking a problem into smaller parts
Generalization – comparing this problem to other problems
Abstraction – deciding which details don’t matter
Pattern Recognition – deciding which parts repeat
Algorithm Design – solving all the problems of one type
What are the benefits of teaching kids to code?
- Normalizes computer programming
- Encourages kids to identify as programmers
- Instills computational thinking skills
- Promotes use of programming tools for self expression
What level of Computer Science is appropriate for each grade range?
Elementary (grades 3-5)
- Use block-based programming tools
- Exposure to computational thinking skills
- Understand that coding is about problem solving
Middle School (grades 6-8)
- Use text-based programming tools on the web
- Practice computational thinking skills
- Understand that coding is math
High School (grades 9-12)
- Use native-based programming tools
- Transfer computational thinking skills to new domains
- Offer dedicated computer science courses
