Starting a coding education program in your school or district is equally exciting and challenging. If it's new to educators and district leaders, it can also be overwhelming. There are many ways to go about it, however, and many different technologies that could help. The importance of providing students with the opportunity to learn key computer science skills is often the top priority. We also know how vital these skills may turn out to be for a large number of them. As the workforce continues to trend towards STEM and computer science, empowering students to learn these skills early and perfect them often can lead to a whole lot of opportunities for them in the future.
Why Coding Education is Important
They may not go on to become programmers or computer science professionals, but coding education can tremendously help kids regardless. Even if they're not explicitly creating code as part of their career, they can still utilize the same thought process. This way of analytical thinking helps so many of today's most innovative professionals come up with those game-changing ideas. And, this type of one-step-ahead thinking is a skill students can learn while coding. Especially for young children, coding experiences can help them learn to think in new ways. Why is this? Coding is a new language after all. In learning a new language, students are learning a new way to communicate and create logical expressions that help them better understand their world.
Building creativity and math skills.
Also, in coding, students are constantly challenged with finding solutions. This helps them build creativity, trial-and-error, and perseverance skills as they problem solve. Even when students make a mistake while coding, they learn what doesn't work at the very least. Having the courage to try new ideas can also lead to further creativity boosts as time goes on. Besides creative development, coding also helps students develop math skills. When creating programs, even those represented by graphical elements or in the Blockly language, students can start to visualize key concepts. They'll start to make connections between math and coding and apply that creativity as well. We tend to forget, but that 'M' in STEM is also important and coding experiences can help students better prepare.
More ways coding prepares today's students.
Another area in which coding experiences can help young students is in writing. You may not immediately guess how close this connection is, but when they're coding, students are also learning how to organize their thoughts. They see that they must present them in a logical order without getting too far ahead of themselves—something that's also important in good writing. Finally, coding helps students develop confidence in their problem-solving methods. It helps them see that there can be more than one right way of solving a problem. It also gives them the chance to improve on their original attempts and refine them based on what they learned. This truly contributes to coding education going beyond STEM and helps illustrate its value for today's students.
Boosting Soft Skills Through Coding Education
Of course, coding is one of the most in-demand skills of our time. It's not the only in-demand skill, however, especially in an era in which so much focus (and rightfully so) is placed on soft skills. But, the great part about teaching coding is that students often develop those key soft skills at the same time. When we think of soft skills, we typically tend to think of things like communication, collaboration, teamwork, and problem solving. All of these are very much tied to the coding experiences students can have in the classroom. Group coding challenges require students to collaborate with peers. In order to collaborate, they need to communicate clearly. When communicating and collaborating, they're working as part of a team and, one way or another, finding a way to solve the problems in front of them.
Working on learning from failure.
Aside from problem solving, coding also helps students develop resilience. It's fairly rare that programmers, including students, get the exact results they want on the first try. Those initial attempts are very valuable learning opportunities, however, and help students see that failure is not bad. At the same time, knowing what works and what doesn't allows students to constantly be monitoring their code and looking for ways to improve it. Thinking a couple steps ahead helps them recognize and address shortcomings before they become irreversible problems. When coding in the classroom, students often start with a vague idea and apply their creativity to make it effective—showing how their soft skills develop along the way.
Developing confidence through coding.
Going in a bit of a different direction, coding also helps students learn to see that they don't need to fear technology. Beyond that, it can also help them see that they don't need to fear subjects like math, either. Coding is arguably a more in-depth version of math and helps students learn to visualize, analyze, and organize data. When they see that they're very much capable of this, their confidence can skyrocket. In turn, they can start to use that confidence in math exploration and other subjects in the curriculum. Essentially, coding helps give students confidence, a soft skill that goes a long way in the 21st century.
Coding Skills and the Emerging Workforce
It's been true for years now and there's no sign of things letting up. The number of unfilled STEM jobs remains in the millions and, as the world gets more advanced, may only grow. According to research, over 70 percent of STEM jobs are in the computer science field. At the same time, only eight percent of graduates earning a STEM degree have earned it in computer science. That, of course, presents a problem, particularly for members of the computer science industry who need talent. It also presents a problem for graduates, who may realize too late that they could have potentially had their pick of computer science jobs. It starts, however, with introducing them to coding education and the possibilities it creates early in life.
Building a CS Background.
The amount of unfilled coding jobs is staggering, but the responsibilities programmers have are also intriguing. As they start to develop coding skills, students of all ages improve their chances of an exciting career. Since programmers are in such high demand, building computer science skills can be very advantageous. With a background in programming, students will also have a better time accessing their own creativity, persistence, and communication skills whenever they need them in order to solve problems. Since there is such a gap when it comes to the number of computer science graduates and the number of computer science jobs, the odds can certainly be in their favor if students choose to pursue coding. They need the skills and the foundation, however, in order to start on that path.
The right skills to succeed.
Just think about how much we now use technology in our lives. From games and maps to productivity and other apps, these tools need to be developed. New apps are being added to libraries every day and more programmers are needed to make them better and more user-friendly. Especially for students who have grown up in the technological innovation age, they might more readily know what they want from a mobile app. Learning coding skills and techniques in school can help students better understand the world and how computer science fits in. It can also help them excel in the future workforce with a genuine understanding of the role coding can play.
21st Century Education Includes Coding Education
Educators around the world work tirelessly to provide their students with a '21st century education.' This phrase means different things to different educators, students, and parents. It also varies depending on the resources teachers have available to them. As time has gone on, however, it's become fairly clear that the literacy of the 21st century is coding and, as such, coding education should absolutely be a cornerstone of the 21st century education experience. Whether students go on to pursue computer science or not, each of them should have the opportunity to learn the skills. Like with all innovative educational initiatives, however, it can come down to access, infrastructure, and money.
Learning computational thinking skills.
Another one of the most relevant skills students can learn through coding is computational thinking. This process involves solving problems in the same manner as a computer scientist. By breaking the problem down into manageable parts, students are able to better understand the essence of the problem, apply logic to designing a solution, assess patterns, and draw conclusions about the best way to solve it. When they're creating programs—no matter how simplified they are—students are often making use of computational thinking. It's similar to thinking one step ahead and computational thinking, in particular, is a very valuable 21st century skill that can certainly come as a byproduct of coding education.
Equipping students with the skills they need.
Since students are exposed to so much technology, it's hard not to create 21st century opportunities that allow them to explore the skills needed to excel in a tech-driven world. We know that coding skills are at the top of that list and more computer science professionals are needed. So many jobs today require that applicants have some sort of coding skills—even if it's not the main focus of the job. If someone is applying for a new job and sees that in the description, they might shy away and believe they're not qualified because of that one requirement. One way to alleviate that is early introduction to coding education. If educators can teach students the top 21st century skills, it can help address this pervasive gap. We know what the data says and it's imperative to provide as many opportunities as possible.
Coding as a Fundamental Literacy
We've made our position on coding education clear over the years, even advocating for as much CS education as possible at conferences, in presentations, and through the messaging we put out online. At the same time, however, we know that, realistically, it's tough to deliver coding experiences to every single student. Heck, not every single student likely even wants to participate in coding education. The top reason it's so important, however, is that it's such a huge part of today's world. But, beyond that, learning to code in school opens up a whole lot more than the development of computer science skills and opportunities. Coding is a literacy of both the present and the future and, though maybe not for everyone, those who want to explore it should have the chance.
Comparing coding to writing.
In an interview with the Edutopia team a few years back, MIT professor, Mitch Resnick, shared his thoughts on the role of coding education in the K-12 landscape. We bring this up because some of the things he said stuck with us and seemingly remain just as relevant some four years later. He made a good point about coding education being in every school in an ideal world. Though it's not for every student, it's become such a critical literacy. He made the comparison to teaching writing and how we teach every single child to write. This is because knowing how to write enables us to communicate. The comparison between writing and coding is not that far off. When we think about it, coding allows computer scientists to communicate with machines and drastically maximize their efficiency as they solve new and more complex problems.
Why should students learn coding?
At first glance, the answer to this question may seem obvious. Like so many other 21st century education questions, however, there are infinite branches extending from that tree. Sure, coding skills increase the chances of students moving into a strong STEM career. It also, however, allows them to learn those crucial skills while simultaneously absorbing other key components of learning. In coding, they're always working on new projects—and they often become passionate about their processes and achievements. Coding also allows them to collaborate and, in many instances, have fun while coding in games. Combining projects, passion, peers, and play, as Resnick says, is a great viewpoint of coding education. It's the perfect starting point and can inspire students to seek out coding opportunities moving forward.
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