As our awareness of the importance of computer coding skills grows, many educators believe that coding should be taught as a foundational discipline for young learners. At the same time, American schools have struggled to incorporate computer coding education into their curricula, especially in pre-secondary grades. One barrier to the widespread implementation of coding instruction has been a lack of accessible teaching tools that are pedagogically sound and effective for a diverse population. In this session, we’ll get to observe a master teacher who brings a multiple-intelligences approach to the pedagogy of coding. Inside the fishbowl, students will have their first encounter with Python, the most popular computer language in the world today. They will learn to interact with the language while writing (and hacking!) several short pieces of code. Outside the fishbowl, observers will develop the contours of a unique pedagogical framework that incorporates hands-on exploration, physical movement and even some ad-libbed drama into coding instruction. Come ready to have your assumptions about computer programming turned sideways…then upside down.
