Partnership Trains Teachers to Introduce Coding in Pre-K

(TNS) — Soon, a Head Start site in Williamsburg-James City County will have a tablet as one of its preschool play areas. But the 4- and 5-year-olds won’t just be sitting in front of it watching cartoons. They’ll be coding — connecting blocks, adding music, choosing motions — and then watching their work unfold as a story onscreen.

The program is a result of a $135,000 grant from the Scratch Foundation that partners Hampton University and the DevTech Research Group at Boston College for a two-year collaboration to develop the ScratchJr software, train educators and pilot the program this year. Teachers completed the training at Hampton in August.

Elaine Atherton, head of programs for the Scratch Foundation, said part of their work is bringing together nonprofits, schools, universities and other groups so they can collaborate in developing coding resources for “communities that are usually underrepresented from a lot of coding education.”

Atherton said the developers call the curriculum “Coding As Another Language” and see it as no different than learning phonics or developing number sense.

“Learning computer science is a new literacy for the 21st century,” she said. And though people often refer to today’s children as “digital native,” coding is still a learned skill.

“Yes, they have more exposure and access than any other generation to technology,” Atherton said. “But it is not intuitive that all of these children know how to use technology in a way that helps them think critically, problem solve, develop other computational thinking skills.”

Kimberly Thomas-Cain, also with Scratch Foundation, said the program allows students to “peek under the hood” and understand that things on the screen are not magic — they are created by someone.

For DeShea’ Simon, a professor in Hampton University’s management information systems department, helping young students learn these skills was part of the program’s appeal. Simon is heading the professional development piece and worked with training teachers. She and her team will support the teachers throughout the year and observe how students use the platform — where they get stuck, if they collaborate with other children while using it, how engaged they are.

“I would like these young people to be able to walk into public schools and know what a coding class is, and not to be afraid of that type of class when they hear it’s being offered.”

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