Peace Wapiti School Division board members tried their hand at coding as part of an effort to understand what kinds of tools are being utilized in classrooms after some recent updates to the computer science curriculum for grades one to three students.
Jeannine Younger, an Education Technologist for the PWPSD says the implementation of coding has been an integral part of the new computer science program, and teaching board members alongside the students bridges the gap between the administration and the schools themselves.
“[We’re] making sure that the board understands what we’re trying to do as far as our role in education,” she says.
According to Younger, teachers can borrow robotics kits for up to three weeks in their classrooms, and even some more approachable tools such as board games that embrace the collaboration and creativity that come alongside coding.
“It’s kind of like teaching kids how to create a recipe, and following a recipe,” she says. “Coding is much more than just coding, it’s learning how to sequence, learning how to use some computational thinking, it exposes students to some creativity within their engineering and technology, it has them problem-solving and utilizing critical thinking.”
The updated science curriculum has been implemented in a number of schools across the PWSD, and Younger says the program has proven to be a success so far.
