Hadi PartoviVerified account

There are tools or activities that limit students to a single coding approach. If so, we should let them use multiple tools, and help them learn that CS is more than coding.

At @codeorg our curriculum mixes puzzles, open-ended sandboxes, non-coding widgets, short videos, unplugged lessons, etc, with a balance of student-guided and teacher-guided activities.

2 datapoints on the benefit of including puzzles to engage students in a variety of CS activities:

1) Pre/post testing shows: 1 hour of puzzle-based coding => significant improvement in student attitudes and self-efficacy re CS, esp among high school girls. https://code.org/files/HourOfCodeImpactStudy_Jan2017.pdf …

2) Students have created 56M projects on @codeorg, applying skills learned via puzzles to open sandboxes (logo-style art, block-based games, javascript apps)

.@hadip I'm guessing you all have data about the % of classrooms you're in that meaningfully use the sandboxes/widgets? It'd be good to know. Not to prove whether @codeorg is good/bad, but to see whether that initial motivation goes further (for students AND teachers)...

Thanks for the response @hadip . But just to be clear “created” != “meaningfully use” (or maybe it does, who knows!?). This is a case where a peer reviewed publication, or open sourced data and methods would be EXTREMELY important to contextualize and validate that claim.