History of K-12 Interest in Coding

We can only speculate about why this particular topic falls in and out of favor with those who determine the curriculum. We offer some of our ideas here, but also encourage you to use your own experiences to reflect on this issue.

Factors possibly responsible for the decline in programming courses and experiences:

1. Evaluation procedures have focused on a narrower set of knowledge and skills than schools attempt to develop or could attempt to develop. As the perceived consequences of differences in student performance on this restricted set of content areas has increased, time and other resources were diverted from lower to higher priority areas. Programming was not regarded as a priority skill and class time became concentrated in other areas.
2. In order to gain wide acceptance and encourage reluctant educators and administrators to have students use technology in classrooms, advocates of technology integration argued “it is not about the technology, it is about the learning.” Perhaps you have heard someone use this phrase. To encourage tutor and tool applications in classrooms, it seemed productive to assure teachers they would have minimal responsibility for tutee (programming) activities. While educators have made efforts to acquaint students with new skills that rely on digital technology and to address social issues related to the application of these skills, these new commitments may have seemed sufficient and diverted attention from more traditional topics in computer science.

We rely on arguments made in recent proposals for a stronger commitment to K-12 programming experiences to identify factors for renewed interest (Grover & Pea, 2013; Martinez & Stager, 2013; Wang, 2006). These arguments include:

1. Programming has been linked to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Advocates have found success promoting STEM topics as contributing to national productivity and also as an area of relatively poor K-12 performance when the performance of U.S. students is compared to that demonstrated by students from other countries. While the “T” has not typically implied programming skills, promoters argue that programming is essential to STEM.
2. Technology plays such a central role in so many areas of life, promoters argue that knowledge of how technology works should be considered a 21st century skill and essential for success in many vocations.
3. Advocates of project based learning have found new opportunities by associating their educational vision with the popularity of the “maker movement.” Electronics, creating objects with 3-D printers, robotics and game design offer potential as “learn by doing” educational projects and programming is often essential to these activities.
4. Computer scientists have gained traction in promoting “computational thinking”. The argument that programming activity develops thinking capabilities was part of the initial interest in teaching programming and learning to think like a programmer has surfaced again as a unique way to develop higher order thinking skills.

The concerns and recommendations of those promoting programming experiences and courses may impact you. Whether you would be asked to address computational thinking standards or not, the curriculum of schools represents a closed system. Proposed changes must compete for resources with existing practices. The concerns and recommendations to be addressed include the following:

1. Very few states allow a programming course to count toward math or science graduation requirements. Unless programming courses “count”, these courses will be given a lower priority.
2. Few females take advanced placement computer science courses when such opportunities are available. This disparity limits future academic and vocational opportunities.
3. The standards developed by computer science professional organizations seldom appear among the standards used to guide the K-12 curriculum.
4. States do not establish expectations for the certification of secondary teachers offering computer science courses. Without certification guidelines, the capabilities of those offering existing programming courses are likely to be variable and suspect.

In summary, those focused on the inclusion of programming, recommend the inclusion of programming knowledge and skills in the standards for all levels, programming courses on the secondary level that count toward math and/or science graduation requirements, and certification requirements for those who would teach programming courses.

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