Next year, we are "implementing computer science" in the district in accordance with a Michigan law taking effect.
I have thoughts. I need to think those thoughts through and then maybe write a blog post.
Discussion
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My annoyance isn't that we're offering courses (I teach the class) - we should.
What we SHOULDN'T do is distill an entire system of thinking and working into "implementing." It is much more than using words like "algorithm" and "debug" with children in the room, but that's how it's being presented to staff as a whole. I have problems with THAT mindset.
@brianb I’m a software engineer, not a teacher, but have a lot of ed folks in the family so talk about it a lot. I think these “everyone needs to learn to code” pushes for mandatory CS classes are misguided. A lot of it seems to be fueled by tech jobs paying well, but that doesn’t justify curriculum decisions. I think the courses should be available for the students that want them, but the average student would be better off improving reasoning skills in math and other classes
@brokenintuition Yeah, Michigan is requiring a course offered, so we have a web dev elective students can take.
This is a wider push based on a grant we received. It's really just having teachers work vocab into lessons, which is silly, but doable. I'm just cranky and wish there was a little more of a targeted approach.
@brianb the vocab approach is interesting. I definitely understand your frustration
@brokenintuition I'm sure there's more coming. All they've hinted at so far is how to work comp sci terms into our daily language. It's easy for me in the chemistry class because we use processes to solve problems all the time. We've also got variables we substitute, problem solving, and expected results. It's a little harder for ELA and history teachers to see the connections, so I think that's why this broad approach was chosen for now.
I've used "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist" for complete beginners in high school. Once we started drawing turtles (chapter 3) , they "got it".