Programming Is Heading Back To School

the agent man writes "Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder are exploring what it takes to systematically get programming back to public schools. They have created a game-design-based curriculum, called Scalable Game Design, using the AgentSheets computational thinking tool. Annual summer institutes train middle school teachers from around the USA to teach their students computational thinking through game design and computational science simulations. What's truly unique about this is that it is not an after-school program; it takes place during regular school courses. Entire school districts are participating with measurable impacts, increasing the participation of women in high school CS courses from 2% six years ago to 38-59% now. Educators would like to be able to ask students, 'Now that you can make Space Invaders, can you also make a science simulation?' To explore this difficult question of transfer, the researchers devised new mechanisms to compute computational thinking. They analyze every game submitted by students to extract computational thinking patterns and to see if students can transfer these skills to creating science simulations."

To ask the question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?

Programming should be a college-level course, for those who want to go into the field. If a high school wants to offer an AP class, swell. But I just don't see the need to waste nonprofessionals' time by teaching them perishable skills they will not use.

I simply can't explain why an average student needs to know this. Whatever they're taught, unlike English or math, will be obsolete inside a decade. I'd be thrilled if Mom knew that USB ports were pretty much interchangeable (thank you USB 2.0, 3.0, and high-power USB for wrecking that bit of simplicity, BTW). But she's scared to death that if she plugs something in wrong, hardware damage will result (thank you APC for making your "data port" [read: USB] connector the same as Ethernet instead of a USB B jack like God intended). And we're supposed to teach people like this programming? And expect it to stick? Give me a break.

Re:To ask the question:

[Toksyuryel]

Everyone should learn how to program, because knowing how to program gives you total power over your computer. You can only say you truly control your computer when you can use programming to make it do anything you want it to do; otherwise you are at the mercy of software vendors that seek to take that control away from you.

Re:To ask the question:

[Hatta]

Learning to program isn't just about learning the language. It's about conceptualizing and problem solving. Those aren't perishable skills.

Catering to the neo-serfs are they ?

[Ex-MislTech]

I taught myself BASIC at 13, and Assembler at 14.

I wanted to do it, but little else so college didn't work for me,
so I dropped out.

Later I saw that ti would shift to countries that can pay their
coders less, and US firms went for it a great deal and or
brought them to the US via one of the 73 different Visas.

So while I am glad to see them do something for those
with this desire, it came about 3 decades late for me.

Good Luck to all the neo-serfs under the new world order.

Re:To ask the question:

[Microlith]

I lose nothing by having someone else build a house to my specifications. Architects don't tell me how I can use my building afterwards, either.

I lose a lot when a company comes along and says I can only do X, Y, and Z with something I bought, especially when they have a vested interest in restricting me.

Re:To ask the question:

[icannotthinkofaname]

Everyone should learn how to program, because knowing how to program gives you total power over your computer.

Well, that's a stupid reason to learn programming. Do you also only think as far ahead as the next fiscal quarter? Do you only have plans to do work tomorrow, with no clue as to what your assignment in two days might be? Are you looking further ahead into the future of your living space than just next month's rent/mortgage payment? Or is programming the only thing about which you think in such small and short terms?

Sure, power over a set of hardware is a nice immediate benefit of learning computer programming. But computer programming is so much more than that. Anyone can throw a python script together. Anyone can leak memory like crazy in C. But to wield that control over hardware in a way that accomplishes a useful purpose requires a good deal of ingenuity and (occasionally) a touch of magic.

Teaching school-age children computer programming necessarily also entails teaching them to think differently. It teaches them to break a task down into its constituent steps. It teaches them to know exactly what they are doing and to know that they know exactly what they are doing. These are life skills that are useful to very nearly anybody, even if they don't use it to control their own hardware. The ones who want to learn it will learn to think as they must, and even the ones who memorize it for the exam will have to retain some of the skills that are necessary to write a program that does nothing more than start, do an arithmetic operation, and exit. The ones who do not learn this will simply fail the class.

This ideal is why programming should be taught in schools. There is so much more benefit than just bending a few digital logic gates to your will.

Re:To ask the question:

[RobDude]

I hear this argument a lot. X isn't just about X, it's about all this other stuff that it sorta kinda addresses too.

I think the question really needs to become, 'Does X teach other important stuff *better* than all of these other things we could cover?' I'm sure there are Shop teachers that would argue building a bird house or fixing a car teaches problem solving.

You can learn a lot playing Monopoly or Checkers or Chess or Dungeons and Dragons or watching TV or studying math or programming or working in a factory. I'm not sure that programming really does a better job of teaching 'problem solving' than many other things. Procedural programming, particularly at an introductory level, doesn't seem like it would do a good job. Algorithmic programming, sure, but to get to that point you need to cover the basics and then, most of the time, I think you could have the same educational experience focusing on the problem and math to solve it.