How and Why to Teach Computer Science to Children K-12
January 14, 2025
SOUTH 331C
Classroom Leaders
The desire to teach computing to children is laudable and essential. Best of all, there is a half-century legacy of classroom practice on which one can seek wisdom and inspiration. A new generation of educators may benefit from an understanding of Logo, its implementation, philosophy, and best teaching practices. This workshop is intended to provide an overview of the past fifty-five years of Logo development, provide hands-on experiences via mini projects, discuss the powerful ideas behind the design of Logo, suggest a range of projects, and look to the future. Implicit in these activities is a project-approach to teaching computer science to children that benefits the teaching of other disciplines and democratizes computing by making it accessible to all children, not just those who choose computer science as a vocational path. The ideas are generalizable to any programming environment and may be assisted by emerging AI software. This workshop recognizes that we stand on the shoulders of giants and the foundation for our current work is an evolutionary precedent of powerful ideas. This message offers a critical reminder and guidepost for veteran constructionists and welcomes new members to the community of practice while raising our expectations for developing computational fluency.
Session Type
Workshops (2 hrs)
Topic
Computer Science (coding/computational thinking)
Level
PK-12
Curriculum Area
Computer Science (Coding/Robotics/etc.)