LYNNFIELD — Huckleberry Hill and Summer Street Elementary Schools both held their annual Hour of Code events on Monday, bringing computer science students from Lynnfield High School to teach K-4 students the basics of coding.
LHS Computer Science teacher Audrey Coats brought 28 of her AP Computer Science Principals and AP Computer Science A students to Huckleberry Hill in the morning and then to Summer Street in the afternoon, where they used the activities available on educational website Code.org.
For the youngest, pre-reading learners, the fundamentals of programming are taught through simple yet engaging games.
In Ms. Scott’s kindergarten class at Summer Street, students played “CodeMonkey Jr.”, where a cute monkey character is directed towards treasure by programming its path with arrow blocks.
Activities for the students get more technical and detailed as they get older, with courses promoting exploration with themes from popular brands like Minecraft and Disney’s Frozen.
“The kids look forward to it, the teachers look forward to it every year, and we’re also seeing a huge jump in their coding abilities, since we’ve been here,” said Digital Learning Coordinator for LPS Heather Koleszar. “The fourth graders are pretty much independent. We say, ‘It’s Hour of Coding,’ and they say, ‘Oh, great. We can go pick our code and get started.’”
Every classroom breaks the students up into partner groups, an important aspect for encouraging teamwork and learning the value of finding a solution as a group.
Collaboration is one of the four C’s that Koleszar says the schools want to encourage in their students. The other three are communication, creativity, and critical thinking.
The Hour of Code program has fostered these foundational skills while giving the children a space to flex their young computational and algorithmic thinking since being integrated into LPS by Coats and Head of the LPS Technology Department Rochelle Cooper about eight years ago.
One exciting effect of the program’s longevity is the full-circle moment of the high school computer science students who once enjoyed the Hour of Code activities as students themselves. Now they are taking the mantle of the teacher.
“At the beginning of the year, I said, ‘has anyone ever coded before?’ and a couple raised a hand. They said, ‘Well, when we were in elementary school, some big kids came and showed us,’ and I said, ‘That was us!’” Coats recalled.
Being a guide for the young learners is something she believes is an important step on the high school students journey to learn new computer science concepts in class, as it imbues them with a newfound confidence.
“When they come down here, they are impressed by how much they know and can share… It definitely adds to their skills,” she said. “And I think it’s also that sense of always sharing with your community. It’s such an important concept when they now know something that most of the population doesn’t know. You should be willing to share with your parents or your grandparents or younger siblings.”
Other students also got the chance to participate in the Hour of Code event, like the ninth-graders in Coats’ technology class who went through the Code.org games and vetted what they thought were the best for each age group.
The event is a testament to the growth of the LPS computer science program, which has grown to five courses all taught by Coats, with more specified classes like cybersecurity being added in recent years.
She hopes to add College Board’s “Career Kickstarter” program for cybersecurity this summer, which puts students on the path to gaining industry certifications so they don’t necessarily have to go to college for a career in computer science.
Overall, Coats finds that the computer science classes aren’t all filled with students who are set on a life in the industry. Instead, there’s often a group of students who see computer science as an opportunity to get skills that are useful for any career.
For that reason, the Hour of Code is important because it extends beyond just practicing programming skills and fostering interest in computer science.
“For the younger kids, it’s giving them a direction in computer science that they can take definitely in high school, if not middle school. This is step one,” Coats said. “I think for the older students, it’s a lot of speaking skills and presentation skills and having confidence in yourself and the soft skills that are so important, even in the computer science industry.”
