Getting Started with Computer Science in Elementary

Edited from https://youtu.be/gjpbCy9hSes

What have I gotten myself into?!?!

As an elementary school teacher, you might quickly start to wonder why you ever started down the path of bringing computer science to your young’uns. To prevent this concern from setting in, I’ve got three questions that you can ask yourself to make sure that you’re creating the experience that’s right for your students.

1) Assess Your CS Comfort Level

A lack of previous computer science experience does not doom you to a CS-free classroom. In fact, as a novice, your computer science journey can be just as exciting and empowering as it is for your students. It’s perfectly alright to learn along with your class and search for answers together, you just need to be honest with yourself to avoid disappointment with overall speed or depth of content progress. Take on a Lead Learner attitude and you just might inspire your kids to feel confident in their learning abilities, as well.

If, on the other hand, you consider yourself very well-versed in this subject, you might be in the most dangerous category yet. In my time training teachers and facilitators, I’ve found that some of the worst classroom experiences came from “experts”. Generally, this happens because teachers want to dive in too fast, too soon, robbing students of exploration opportunities. It’s SUPER important to keep introductory CS activities light, and not to overload lessons with details. While you might feel that you’re exposing students to “authentic” opportunities, those details have a way of obscuring the big picture. Focus on keeping lessons fun and helping students to believe that they can do this!

2) Is Screentime Okay?

Over the last five years, a wealth of “unplugged” lessons have popped up from some of the best curriculum designers in the nation. This means that it’s more than possible, perhaps desirable, to give students the basics without ever sitting them down at a computer. Many of these lessons take only a small amount of prep and do quite a good job introducing vocabulary and situational context. Before you begin, it’s worth taking a look at the unplugged activities provided by CS Unplugged, Code.org, and Barefoot Computing.

If you find that you are comfortable putting students on devices, there are even more options. CodeSpark, Scratch, Tynker, Code.org, Lightbot and SpriteBox are all great early experiences!

3) How Much Time Do You Have?

You don’t need dedicated technology time once every week to make an impact on elementary students. You can set students up for memorable experiences starting with a couple of hours of exposure. Just be realistic about results. If your main goal is to get students to believe that they’re capable of learning computer science concepts (which is a great goal) then a couple of well-planned hours will do it.

There are also an increasing number of districts that do have dedicated computer time (up to several times a week). It’s important that these classes weave many different types of activities into their sessions to prevent platform boredom. Let students get curious, leave them wondering what’s next. Feel free to mix unplugged, online, and video lessons from different sets of curriculum…as long as the lessons all feel connected.

If your end goal is to host a “perfect” computer science class, then there are certainly many, many more questions that you could ask. The idea that I’m trying to get across with this article is that the CS exposure you provide doesn’t have to be “perfect” to benefit your students in the future. All you need to do is commit to teaching outside of your comfort zone, present your students the opportunity to encounter a couple of concepts that pave the way for greater learning, and keep the environment light and fresh. If you’re willing to do those things, then you can be proud of the part that you’re playing in growing confident creators.