Don’t get me wrong, being retired is the best job ever (with teaching a close second!) but I must say I feel very lucky to be able to stay active in the computing education community. Particularly, being the co-chair of the ACM Education Board and participating as a CSTA Board member has given me opportunities to keep learning and participating with people around the world.
I was invited to attend the ACM SIGCSE China conference in May, 2019 in Chengdu China https://www.acmturc.com/2019/en/SIGCSE.html(and yes, the panda bears were very cute). I was part of a panel which was titled Computer Education Research. Panelists included Junlin Lu (China), Juan Chen (China), Jane Prey (USA), Steve Cooper (USA), Andrew Luxton-Reilly (New Zealand), Brett Becker (Ireland), Bo Yang (China). While this may sound like a research discussion, we ended up talking about various scenarios for teaching computing in primary grades (aka K-12.) There were many opinions and ideas around the availability of resources, diversity and engagement. We discussed the different languages used, the various approaches, etc – takeaway #1: People from around the world ask the same kinds of questions we do on how to best teach their students.
What I enjoyed most were our conversations on how “easy” vs “challenging” the content should be and if programming/coding should be the principle deliverable from the class. Particularly interesting comments included: if it’s too easy, what are they learning?, how to keep students interested in doing something challenging?, how to challenge students and have them feel successful and rewarded for doing the hard work?, how to recognize when to push and when to hold back, how to have students add to their ability to solve problems? My takeway #2 is that our group (panelists and attendees) believe that computing in school should be fun, that fun does not mean easy, that fun should include moments of reflection and work, that work should be fun.
Takeaway #3: there are many smart and passionate people around the world working to answer these questions. I am very lucky my grandchildren will be taught by such people.
Happy New School Year!
