Reflection 3.1 - Why Teach Programming?

Overview

Previously we have addressed:

So what?   Why? ...   The idea is to explicate our thinking about teaching programming—to consciously examine each of our contexts of teaching and learning programming. We have looked at the skills involved from the perspectives of both learner and teacher. We have attempted to bring out the ideas/beliefs that guide what we do as teachers—making them explicit so we can work to have our beliefs and our teaching behavior be in agreement.

The next step is to examine more of the context of teaching and learning programming—why it should be taught, relationships between our understanding of programming and approaches to teaching, and some possible curricular organizations available to use when teaching programming. 

 

Why Programming?

Everything that is part of K12 education should have a reason for its inclusion in the education students are expected to receive. Thus, we should be able to defend our teaching of programming to all students in our public schools. So I ask you...

Why might we argue that programming should be part of K12 education for all students?

 

I am not asking you to produce a formal written deliverable for this question. As soon as I do that some of you will panic about your ability to fill a page or two of an "essay" and you will start to Google this and consider what other people say. In some ways, reading what the "experts" say isn't a bad thing. But on the other hand, I really want you to see if YOU feel like you have an opinion on this yet. So I am very serious when I ask you to consider this question carefully. Jot down any notes/ideas/thoughts you have.

Our discussion on Monday will be about this exact question.  I want you to come to class prepared to have that discussion.