Educational reform is one of the largest social issues of our day. In the midst of changing standards for students, technology has revolutionized the way students consume educational content.
As college students studying computer science, many Blueprint members are direct stakeholders in this intersection between tech and education innovation. Read on to learn more about two of our members’ perspectives about where the field is going!
Andy Qin
1. How do you think coding education can be better delivered at scale in secondary education?
My take is that we should focus our energy on making really great MOOCs (massive open online courses) on platforms like edX and Coursera. This means not only having both great lecture material, but also having interactive exercises. Khan Academy is a great example of an online learning tool that makes engaging and interactive content, which is especially useful when learning coding.
MOOCs are better than your traditional brick-and-mortar experience for learning coding skills because they can be replayed, and you only need a laptop to experience them. This makes it so much more accessible to people, especially high school students, than classes that are only offered in certain schools with limited enrollment capacity.
2. Would you weigh more importance on learning in a traditional classroom setting or in alternatives like student-taught classes or camps? Why?
As of now, finding high school teachers with proper CS certifications is extremely rare. In order to meet demand for instructors, I think communities will have to get people who aren’t teachers by trade to teach.
It seems like student-taught classes and more intensive after-school or summer camps may be necessary. Of course, building those types of resources with no existing foundation in place is difficult, but that’s where online resources can serve as examples of what to create.
Sam Lau
1. Do you think MOOCs and other software learning platforms will eventually lead to changes in how college education is delivered or will replace classroom environments altogether?
Recently, we’ve really seen how software, and the internet in particular, has practical implications for the classroom. For example, Khan Academy became famous for its videos; their idea was simple, but they started a wider conversation about the purpose of the classroom:
Does a teacher have to always stand at the front of the classroom and lecture? What if the classroom was centered around student interaction?
The excitement about the potential of MOOCs was quickly moderated by the fact that they catered mostly to people who already had a strong education.
The general consensus now is that MOOCs will not replace the traditional classroom environment because they do not properly emulate some critical pieces of the classroom. In fact, online education platforms (MOOCs especially) helped us recognize that it is not the knowledge or act of teaching in and of itself that makes for an effective classroom, but rather the human interactions.
In any case, educational technology is a space that is just beginning to develop maturity, and I’m excited to see what kinds of developments and directions we’ll head towards in the upcoming years.
2. How involved do you think most students are in their own learning? How do you think the current classroom system can be improved?
I deeply believe that all people, students included, have a desire to learn. This is backed up by research in psychology, child development, and cognitive science across different ages, cultures, and communities.
The question then becomes not how to give students an innate desire to learn but to make the classroom relevant to each student, to show and sometimes even remind students that yes, learning is one of the greatest joys in this life. This is much easier said than done.
To give one small person’s point of view, I’m personally very much into the idea of discovery. I’ve found my motivation to learn and teach from my own journey of finding out more about the subjects that interested me in school. I hope that future classrooms can give students space to explore, to turn learning into an adventure rather than setting boundaries.
Thanks for reading!
If you liked what you just read, be on the lookout from a future blog post from us about our semi-annual speaker panel, Bridging Tech and Social Good. We’ll be delving even further into how technology can revolutionize learning with key insights from Hack the Hood and Khan Academy representatives!
