**Note – I am taking classes to earn my computer science endorsement. This was a discussion topic and I thought it would be worth sharing here on the blog.
Upon reading about the active learning model of creating lessons that get the students involved I the learning process, it seems like a logical and commonsense approach to teaching. Any educator that understands how to connect learning to students understands that it must involve the students in the process and creation of the learning process. The active learning model was something that I have not seen before as an actual model of four stages of trigger, activity, discussion, summary.
However, with that being said, I well know of other models that do something similar and better.
LEGO Education uses a similar model called the 4 C’s. The Four Cs process contains 4 phases which are:
Connect => Construct => Contemplate => Continue
Perhaps more widespread and effective is using a more detailed model, project based learning, that encompasses a 7 tier model of learning that does the same thing as the active learning model, but better. https://www.pblworks.org/what-is-pbl/gold-standard-project-design
PBL is an instructional framework to help create active learning and one that I hold near and dear to my philosophy of teaching.
Regardless of the model, what we can witness through teaching of our own, through the reading, or watching videos such as Ashley Gavin TED Talk or Mitch Resnick: Let’s teach kids to code is that kids are the ones in charge. Ashley discusses how her students are given an actual task to solve and complete that has meaning to them. Mitch provides the same stories with kids owning their own coding ideas and journey.
None of this is new or at least I hope it is not. The bigger questions are the ones such as
Why is no one taking CS?
I need to dive into this question more, but for the sake of this discussion, there is not enough exposure at lower levels to build confidence in students. We are not helping our youth to envision themselves as being capable of doing this problem solving, thinking, and expression. CS needs to be infused into all content areas and not just be a standalone 20-30 minute block once a week.
We need to stop teaching coding and computer science as a step-by-step approach that we see many curriculums offer. This helps teachers who don’t understand computer science, but does not help students in the long run. We lose engagement and wonder when we teach this way. There is a time and place for direct instruction, building foundational knowledge and all that must occur to reach higher levels of thought. However, it can’t be all we do. Just like we can’t just give a prompt and say good luck! You need to blend all the tools and elements of teaching in order for anything to actually make an impact in the learning process.
Second, we need to help students become owners of their learning. If they have something they are working on that matters to them, then they will learn the necessary coding or CS principles needed to achieve the goal.
Bottom line, for CS to work it has to be woven into the fabric of other disciplines until high school where those who are highly interested can take more specific courses on higher level skill sets.
You can’t do computer science for the sake of computer science. Apply it to other fields of interest and learning. And this is true for all subjects we teach. Isn’t it about time to be done with silo teaching?
Would active learning methods work for your students? Why or Why not?
Yes, but it all starts with the educator being comfortable enough to allow this learning to happen. In watching the video of Ashley, although she downplays her skills, I would assume she is rather smart and knows CS at a high level. It comes down to the confidence of educators and supporting them to build capacity to allow PBL and other methods of learning to take shape.
If we don’t step up and support educators to help them believe in themselves first along with curriculum supports to show them how CS can be infused into literacy, math, science, social studies, etc., then these efforts will not go very far.
And the same holds true for our students. We cannot force the kids to code just to code. Kids need to know why they are learning the code. This is true for any content. They have to have ownership. In the video with Mitch when he discussed the young man who wanted his game to keep score in Scratch (11:00) by needing to understand variables. The key here that is different from most classrooms is that they force kids to learn variables for the sake of learning variables. What I love to think about is a concept called “just in time learning”. We need to get our students invested in the learning and once we have that established they will naturally want to learn concepts to bring their ideas to life.
And I should also note that we can’t just teach coding. CS is so much more than coding.
While active learning teaching is important, it doesn’t matter how we teach CS until we understand the importance of how it aligns with everything else being taught in school. These conversations will be powerful because we will also discover that not everything we teach is needed either.
How to engage and become active on this topic
- I have created a Wakelet on Active Learning so if you have a resource that you would like to see added please reach out to me and I will add it to the resource collection.
- I have also created a Flipgrid on this topic and would love to hear your thoughts. Jump over to Flipgrid and let us know what you are thinking – https://flipgrid.com/3ff7457e
**As a sidenote, I had to laugh when Mitch discusses the Scratch video for his mother. We did something similar for my wife many years ago and thankfully it is still on YouTube. My kids made a birthday world for their mother several years ago and it really took me back in time.
Hazzan, O., Lapidot, T., & Ragonis, N. (2014). Guide to teaching computer science: An activity based approach (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Springer.
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