I often hear comments like those below when I talk about teaching programming in Kindergarten through 2nd grade.

“Kindergarten students can’t program. They aren’t reading.”

“How can they program when they can’t type yet?”

“Is it even age-appropriate to ask primary aged students to program?”

You would think these comments would be from people who do not work with students in these grades, but that is not always the case. Computer science and programming can be scary to teachers who have not been trained in what CS is and what it looks like for 5-8 year old students. 

One of the most common misconceptions I run into about programming in K-2 is that programming looks like this:

class HelloWorld 	
{ 
    public static void main(String args[]) 
    { 
        System.out.println("Hello, World"); 
    } 
}

Yes, that is programming but that kind of programming would not be age-appropriate for primary grades. Fortunately, programming does not look like that for 5-8 year olds.

Programming in K-2 is ….

Visual and block-based

Hands-on and not necessarily on a screen

All About Sequencing …
Sequencing is an important skill for students in all curricular areas. In reading, sequencing is the ability to recognize the beginning, middle, and end of a story along with being able to retell the events in the proper order. In math, sequencing is important for counting, pattern recognition, and the order in which computation should occur. In science, sequencing is important when conducting experiments and in social studies, sequencing helps students to understand the order of events. Learning to program reinforces the idea of sequencing since programs run in sequence and the order in which code is organized determines what happens in a program.

Cross-Curricular …
Programming in primary grades is often cross-curricular. There are so many ways students can use programming to show what they know across the curriculum. Here are just a few ideas:

• Use robots to:
  • Identify and spell words (sight words, word families, vocabulary)
  • Retell stories
  • Show math knowledge: for example, roll dice and have students add or subtract values and then program a robot to the correct answer
  • Navigate a map
  • Illustrate a lifecycle
• Write programs in ScratchJr (or in Scratch, if students are reading) to:
  • Tell an original story
  • Animate a lifecycle
  • Tell about an animal or an important person
  • Animate a word problem in math

Programming in K-2 is also collaborative and creative and teaches students to problem solve and persevere. So, yes, learning how to program is age-appropriate and beneficial for K-2 students and yes, they can do it!

I have always loved this quote by Seymour Papert: 

“You can’t think about thinking without thinking about thinking about something.”

It always leads me to wonder what students are thinking about their thinking as they are learning. Are they able to think about and grasp the concepts they are learning as they write a game in Scratch or program a step counter on a micro:bit or build and program a robot? Are they able to understand what they have learned and transfer it to a new programming environment? What can we do as teachers to help our students to think about their thinking so they can understand what they are learning? 

To make reflection a normal part of the process for my students, each student has a portfolio website for sharing and reflecting on the projects and activities they complete during their technology classes. My youngest students use Seesaw for sharing their work. Starting in 3rd grade, my students use Google Sites for their portfolios. This allows the students to not only think about their thinking and reflect on their current work but it lets them look back at their thinking in prior years, as well. 

I decided to use these types of portfolios for a few reasons:

• Reflecting on and documenting their work may help to meet computer science standards, including:
  • 1A-AP-15: Using correct terminology, describe steps taken and choices made during the iterative process of program development.
  • 1A-IC-17: Work respectfully and responsibly with others online.
  • 1B-AP-17: Describe choices made during program development using code comments, presentations, and demonstrations.
• Since the students are writing during their computer science classes, it may also help them to improve their writing skills and meet language arts standards as well – CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.2: Write informative / explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately …
• Their portfolio shows their growth over the years.

It can be difficult to get students to think about their work. To help, younger students are given sentence stems to complete or are asked to answer certain specific questions when they post their work. They will also often record their answers rather than typing in their answers like Natalie did when she was in 1st grade talking about Hello, Ruby lessons

Upper elementary and middle school students are still given questions and other guidance to help them focus on their thinking and learning but the amount of guidance decreases dependent on the grade level and ability of the student.

Check out a 7th grade girl’s reflections on working with micro:bits.

While I love using student websites or blogs as a vehicle for students to think about their thinking and reflect on their learning, it’s not always possible to do so. It also does increase the time required to finish an assignment or project. This got me thinking about other less time intensive ways for students to reflect on their learning and serendipitously this popped up on Twitter:

Ss doing @Scratch in Math class think they are getting out of learning because it is so much fun, so I made this https://t.co/gf7pAdpQGF from the @ScratchEd site to make their #ComputationalThinking visible to them. #CSK8

— Laurel Pollard (@MrsPollardprime) October 25, 2019

I love the idea of using a simple checklist document to help students reflect on what they are actually learning. This could easily be printed or turned into a Google Form and used as an exit ticket in the last few minutes of class. 

How are your students thinking about their thinking and reflecting on their learning?

I’m sure you’ve seen them. New headlines related to ethics and computer science seem to appear daily.

• Teaching Computer Science Is Great, But It’s Not Enough (Education Week 20 June 2017)
• This Is The A-Bomb Moment For Computer Science (Buzzfeed 22 Mar 2018)
• Computer science faces an ethics crisis. The Cambridge Analytica scandal proves it. (Boston Globe 22 Mar 2018)
• The everyday ethical challenges of self-driving cars (The Conversation 27 Mar 2018)
• Card Data Stolen From 5 Million Saks and Lord & Taylor Customers (New York Times 1 Apr 2018)

What does all this have to do with teaching computer science to 5-14 year-olds? Ethics should be integral to teaching computer science, regardless of the age of students.

“With great power comes great responsibility”

Our students are creating with computer science which gives them great power. We need to make sure that they also understand the great responsibility of that power. How can we do this? My first resource when I ask myself this question is the CSTA K–12 Computer Science Standards.

Ages 5-7
Yes, even our youngest students need to be aware of the ethics of computing. At this level, the focus is on ownership. Just as our students learn to protect their possessions and respect the property of others off-line, they need to learn to do this online, as well.

• 1A-NI-04 Explain what passwords are and why we use them, and use strong passwords to protect devices and information from unauthorized access.
• 1A-AP-13 Give attribution when using the ideas and creations of others while developing programs.
• 1A-IC-18 Keep login information private, and log off of devices appropriately.

Ages 8-11
As students mature, they are able to recognize and consider others’ viewpoints which provides opportunities to explore the ethics of computing more deeply. We can use current events, like some of those mentioned above, to bring ethical discussions into the classroom. Students create and often share computational artifacts at this level. They should think about the users who will use what they create and the impact it can have on those users.

• 1B-NI-05 Discuss real-world cybersecurity problems and how personal information can be protected.
• 1B-AP-14 Observe intellectual property rights and give appropriate attribution when creating or remixing programs.
• 1B-IC-19 Brainstorm ways to improve the accessibility and usability of technology products for the diverse needs and wants of users.
• 1B-IC-20 Seek diverse perspectives for the purpose of improving computational artifacts.
• 1B-IC-21 Use public domain or creative commons media, and refrain from copying or using material created by others without permission.

Ages 11-14
Students at this level can explore bigger ethical questions because they can better understand the perspective of others as well as the perspective of society. This lets them grapple with ethical questions like: Who is collecting data on them and what are they doing with it? What should the students do with data they are collecting through programs they have created? Are the technologies they are creating accessible by all?

• 2-IC-20 Compare tradeoffs associated with computing technologies that affect people’s everyday activities and career options.
• 2-IC-21 Discuss issues of bias and accessibility in the design of existing technologies.
• 2-IC-23 Describe tradeoffs between allowing information to be public and keeping information private and secure.

Interested in continuing discussions on teaching ethics in the computer science classroom? Join us on Twitter for #csk8 chat where ethics often enters into the discussion and check out #ethicalCS.