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Why Elementary and High School Students Should Learn Computer Programming

The document discusses three main arguments for integrating computer programming into elementary and secondary school curricula: 1) Meeting the growing needs of the job market as jobs requiring technology skills increase, 2) Promoting social equity by providing access to well-paying tech jobs and increasing diversity in the field, and 3) Developing students' cognitive and problem-solving skills through computational thinking. While research has shown potential benefits, more studies are still needed to fully understand the impact on students. A challenge will be providing adequate training to teachers to successfully teach these new concepts.

Uploaded by

Ardy Bellosillo
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© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
76 views

Why Elementary and High School Students Should Learn Computer Programming

The document discusses three main arguments for integrating computer programming into elementary and secondary school curricula: 1) Meeting the growing needs of the job market as jobs requiring technology skills increase, 2) Promoting social equity by providing access to well-paying tech jobs and increasing diversity in the field, and 3) Developing students' cognitive and problem-solving skills through computational thinking. While research has shown potential benefits, more studies are still needed to fully understand the impact on students. A challenge will be providing adequate training to teachers to successfully teach these new concepts.

Uploaded by

Ardy Bellosillo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Why elementary and high school

students should learn computer


programming
Ontario recently announced a partial reform of its elementary and secondary
school curricula to include mandatory learning on coding, as of September
2022.

As researchers with combined expertise in teaching computer programming


and curriculum development, it’s clear to us that this curricula is about
computer programming, despite the fact that the province only uses the term
“coding.” Coding is a most basic aspect of learning programming.

Ontario’s decision is in line with those taken by Nova Scotia and British
Columbia, which were the first and only Canadian provinces to make learning
computer programming compulsory at the primary and secondary levels in
2015 and 2016 respectively.

In the rest of the world, many governments have also made this change, such
as Estonia as early as 2012, the United Kingdom in 2014, and South Korea in
2017.

But what are the arguments put forward to motivate the integration of
computer science, and more specifically computer programming, into the
school curriculum of students? Research highlights three main arguments on
this subject that will be discussed in this article.

The lead author of this story, Hugo, is a researcher at the UNESCO Chair in
Curriculum Development and a lecturer in the Department of Didactics in
Educational Technology. His thesis project in educational sciences at
Université du Québec à Montréal focuses on the impact of learning computer
programming on young learners.

Meeting the growing needs of the job market


The evolution of the global job market represents one of the motivations at the
heart of the integration of programming in school curricula. This motivation,
widely promoted by policy-makers, is essentially linked to the need to train
more people with programming skills. Indeed, technological knowledge,
particularly in the high-tech sector, has been driving economic growth in
North America and elsewhere in the world for over 20 years. A growing
number of jobs require a deep understanding of technology.

A growing number of jobs require a deep understanding of technology knowledge. (Shutterstock)

This number of jobs is actually expected to increase in the coming years


considering that data science, artificial intelligence and decentralization
technologies (such as blockchain technology, on which cryptocurrencies are
based) are becoming increasingly dominant areas of the economic sector.
Teaching coding from an early age could thus be a way to facilitate countries’
immersion and performance in the digital economy.

Some studies also argue that exposing students to computer programming


early in the school curriculum could have a positive impact on the identity
they develop with respect to this field, considering that there are many
stereotypes associated with it (mainly that “computer science is only for
boys”). In this respect, arguments that go beyond the economic benefits can be
evoked.

Promoting social equity


According to several authors, greater exposure to computer science by
teaching young people how to program could also help promote greater social
equity in terms of representation and access to technological professions.

On the one hand, computer science skills can indeed provide access to well-
paying jobs, which could help provide greater financial stability for
marginalized groups who have not had the opportunity to accumulate wealth
in recent generations. On the other hand, the increased participation of people
from under-represented groups in computing (women, Indigenous people,
Black people) could also promote diversity in the field, and ultimately result in
an increase in the total number of workers.

In addition, there is a related argument that greater diversity within the


workforce would lead to better products, accessible to a greater portion of
consumers in the marketplace. Too much homogeneity among workers leads
to the design of products and services that cater to a relatively narrow
spectrum of individuals and problems, which may reinforce some inequalities.

Researchers advancing this equity argument argue that if early and intentional
steps are not taken to foster greater diversity, this could result in a “digital
gap” or an opportunity difference between dominant and marginalized
groups, much more pronounced in the coming years. All youth learning to
program could in this sense represent a measure to decrease this gap and
promote greater social equity, which is in line with United Nations’ Goal 4
about inclusivity and equality in education.
Greater diversity in the tech community would help narrow the opportunity gap between dominant and marginalized
groups. (Shutterstock)

Developing learners’ cognitive skills


Finally, the most commonly mentioned argument concerns the role
programming would play in developing computational thinking in
learners. Defined and popularized in 2006, the concept of computational
thinking refers to the skills of “problem solving, system design, and
understanding human behaviour based on the fundamental concepts of
computer science.”

Several authors argue that the development of such computational thinking


would be beneficial for the learners, as it would allow them to develop high-
level reasoning skills that can be transferred to other learning, such as
problem solving, creativity and abstraction.

For these reasons, computational thinking is often embedded within new


programming curricula, such as in England’s curriculum, where it is stated
that “high quality computer science education equips students to use
computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world.”

The introduction of programming into the school curriculum could therefore


have a benefit for all students, even those who are not destined for a
technological career, as they could benefit from computational thinking in
their daily lives in a more cross-curricular way.

It is important to note, however, that these beneficial effects for the learner,
although widely discussed and increasingly documented, still need to be
shown through more research involving comparative and longitudinal aspects.
Hugo’s thesis project examines this perspective.

In sum, it appears that Ontario’s decision-makers have seen the potential


triple benefit of youth learning computer coding for the future. However, the
major challenge now facing the Ontario government is the lack of sufficiently
qualified teachers to adequately introduce this complex discipline to students.

Adequate staff training will be a key requirement for successful integration, as


demonstrated by a 2014 report about computer programming integration in
the U.K. One potential solution could be to integrate programming into the
initial university training of future teachers.

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