Waverley Elementary School

Coding and Computer Science Clubs

What's the purpose?

Essentially, I am hoping to encourage students to consider Computer Science as a course of study. Over the next few years, there will be more open IT jobs than new graduates to fill them. Many of the students in my Title I school would not normally think of Computer Science as something that is available -- or doable -- for them, but there are many, many capable students. My goal with these clubs is to make the idea of "Computer Science" familiar and accessible, and hope that some of these students will go on to dabble in it later in high school and, hopefully, college. Besides, it's fun!

What's in a name?

When I started this club in the Winter of 2016, many students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade had already participated in Hour of Code. Some, like those in my classroom and others, continued to enjoy coding exercises weekly. Thus, I felt that including "Coding" in the title was important so that these students would recognize some of what they'd be doing. However, because Computer Science is not just programming (or, "coding"), I also wanted to reflect the bigger picture. Thus, on a very 3rd, 4th and 5th grade level, we did cover topics such as what computers are, the history of computers, how the internet works and just a tiny bit of what binary is.


The Original Coding and Computer Science Club

The original Waverley Coding and Computer Science Club ran for 12 weeks in the Winter/Spring of 2016. Although I originally planned to accept only 15 students, over 50 submitted interest forms. I was able to recruit other teachers to help with crowd control, and finally accepted 30 students. These 3rd, 4th and 5th graders used Scratch to learn basic programming contructs, experimented with mobil app development using MIT App Inventor and created very basic web pages. Because the students do not have access to youtube at school, I created training videos and then put together the original site for them (see above link). It was a very simple site, but it did the trick! (This Spring, I'll be offering the same club to 4th and 5th graders who did not get into the original 30.) 		Coding and Computer Science Club II

Students who were in the Original Coding and Computer Science Club are being invited back for "round 2". I created the sample page (see link above) to give them a preview of what they would be doing and walk through the progression of what I wanted to teach them. (Note that the page is not responsive as it was created as a way to walk through what THEY would learn, which is very basic.)
Plans are in the works for an additional club this Spring! In addition to the original Coding and Computer Science Club, I will either have a basic coding club for 3rd graders or an advanced coding club for 4th and 5th graders.

Copyright © 2016, Mary Bainter Bishop All Rights Reserved