Analyzing Coding Pedagogy
With computer programs making their presence felt in every domain, Computer Science education has become an integral part of every profession and there’s no stepping back!
Computer Science has always been one of the most sought after fields in Engineering in India and it is no surprise that India has the fastest growing software developer base in the world. However, it is not adopted as a core subject in most Indian schools, and hence, has not reached a critical portion of the masses. With the popularization of online courses, there seems to be a ray of hope for more people interested in learning computer science. However, there’s a long way to go to increase its awareness and quality of teaching.
In this conversation with a Computer Science professor from UT Dallas, we analyze the importance of teaching coding, the various tools available and some initiatives that aid these.
How different is the coding environment in the US compared to that in India?
“The problems faced by students with respect to coding in India are faculty issues and starting with difficult languages like C, C++ right away. The problem of difficulty of starting with C++ initially remains in the US as well. This is the problem to which I presented a common solution for and is gaining momentum. One key difference between the coding environments in the two countries is that, in the US, when a student joins CS in college for Bachelors, chances are that they would’ve already done coding, unlike in India. Because of this, they are already well equipped to take the courses. When somebody is new to programming languages like C, C++, they struggle and coming from a background in coding just makes it easy.”
You talked about how people who are not in CS branches can use coding. How essential is it for someone to learn coding?
“There are 2 kinds of jobs in the world — those that require lot of coding (what we do in CS) and those with limited coding (somebody in engineering writing a small script).”
“ Hence, basic coding is inevitable. Even though all might not need advanced Object-Oriented coding and the like, everybody needs to know basic loops and if statements, which are fundamental concepts that would be covered in a First Course in Programming. In India, we have many students from other branches going for a career in software. If one wants to do core development positions, few algorithms won’t hurt at all.”
How young should students be when they can start having coding integrated into their curriculum?
“In the US, we tried introducing coding in the curriculum across all age groups all the way till kindergarten and found that Scratch, which has a simple interface, can be handled by kids from 3rd grade upwards. Some kids below that age can probably do tutorials from platforms like code.org Hour of Code but the effectiveness depends on the level of children. For students from 6th to 8th grade, more complex 3-D software like Alice are introduced. These milestones are just pointers for introducing the tools. Students may do at their own pace later where they could do Scratch in 3rd grade, Alice in 4th grade, JavaScript in 5th grade and Java in 6th grade, for instance.”
At the other end of the spectrum, for the older people, how would you approach this problem of introducing coding to them?
“For older people the problems to be addressed are different. One of the big differences which makes them worse than 3rd graders is that they might not even have used a computer. A typical 3rd grader today would have used an Android phone to play games and operated a computer too. They are savvy and they learn quickly, which is a good thing about the young. The older people, however, get scared quickly and have less patience. Depending on the crowd, there is a need to divide them into people who use computer on their job (not necessarily for coding), and people who haven’t touched a computer. If people who have never touched a computer are made to use Alice, they’ll be lost. Hence, a filter is required before getting into the actual teaching of coding.”
There are studies that suggest that edutainment can improve as well as studies that suggest the contrary. How effective do you think edutainment can be and do you think they can be integrated into the school curriculum?
“In the US, there are schools that use GameMaker and Minecraft. Edutainment is also like food. Even if it’s great, it must be taken in limited quantities. I think playing games to learn has a limited value. On the other hand is game building, where even building a simple game has great scope for leaning. In GameMaker there are initial basic drag and drop tasks for kids to learn and later dive deep into scripting and other advanced tasks. I feel that’s a wonderful way to learn coding.”
What is your opinion on games that are built specifically to help teach coding?
“If the intention of the game was to teach coding since the beginning, then, the chances are that the game is good. Sometimes in the marketplace what happens is that some games are built for playing and fun initially, but later introduce a twist and claim that it helps to improve coding. Minecraft is a good example of this. A lot of people including my kid are crazy about it. Their strategy is that kids are already very well into their game and they might as well make it relevant to the classroom. Also, tools like Alice for example, are for basic concepts of coding. Later, the students should move on to platforms like KhanAcademy and get hands-on experience. The final goal is to be proficient in industry languages like C++, Java, Python and enjoy the process.”
“You said that you had been to other colleges and talked about this. Can you tell us more about your CS outreach in India?”
“My CS Outreach in India started with the faculty talks on various topics. I don’t come up with the topics, but rather talk about what the target audience want. I do give the master list of topics since I can’t talk on everything especially those not in my areas of expertise. I also do whole day workshops on KhanAcademy which gives a hands-on experience. We also do advanced workshops using our Masters’ students in summer where we do a one-week bootcamp in several colleges on Alice and JavaScript to introduce coding in a fun way so that when they get into C, they’ll survive and not memorize. Our goal really serves the students well if they stop memorizing and make them really think. If students learn coding properly and enjoy their experience in their first year itself, then there’s nothing to stop them beyond that and that’s what we’re going to do in our outreaches. Several colleges have shown interest in the programme for their incoming CS and IT students and in some colleges, for all their students.”
This interview was originally taken by Arvindmani Satyanarayan.
