The Important Language Our Kids Aren't Learning
With the “Internet of Things” extending from home appliances to door locks to fitness trackers, it seems like code is everywhere except where we need it most: our classrooms.
Despite the explosive growth in computer science fields, our schools aren’t producing enough graduates to fill the jobs available. According to the College Board, out of the 2 million students who took an Advanced Placement exam in 2012, only 26,000 of them (1.2 percent) took the Computer Science A test.
Budget cuts are no excuse for shirking computer science instruction. Sites like Codecademy, Code.org, and Khan Academy offer coding instruction online, for free.
At DonorsChoose.org, we’ve worked with all three of these organizations to incentivize teachers to help their students learn to code, with a special focus on girls. Remember those 26,000 students who took the AP Computer Science A test? Fewer than 5,000 of them (18.7 percent) were young women. No surprise, then, that less than 1 percent of women entering college intend to major in computer science.
In conjunction with Google’s Made with Code initiative, we’ve partnered with Codecademy and Khan Academy to reward teachers who recruit girls to learn to code. What exactly is the reward? Funding credits to apply toward projects on DonorsChoose.org, in which the teacher might request laptops, or robotics kits, or any resource that will enrich the classroom. To date, more than 2,500 girls have completed a coding course, and nearly $400,000 in classroom funding credits have been unlocked as a result.
Sam Goodman, a high school physics teacher in Chicago, shared with us how she used the program to start an after-school coding club: “I put up flyers around the school and within a few hours I had students whom I'd never met before asking me about it. There is a great demand for this sort of club, because many students are very interested in technology, but don't have their own resources to explore that interest.”
There are thousands more Ms. Goodmans, and millions of students in their classrooms. Let’s help them learn to code.
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Charles Best is founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org, a crowd funding non-profit that makes it easy to support classrooms in need.
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Senior Educational Consultant
10 年Great analysis and recommendations.
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10 年That's right
ACCOUNTS OFFICER at Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
10 年The Important Language Our Kids are learing is very good and not for surprise
Former principal at Colegio Beato CMR, English and Technology Teacher
10 年Coding should be part of the curriculum at all levels! Almost everything is tech-related these days and there will be a strong demand for programmers. We as responsible educators should prepare students to cope in this challenging and interesting field.