4 predictions for computer science education in 2022
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty districts throughout the nation have seen an inflow of funding for pupil units, web entry, and quite a lot of edtech instruments. While fairness of entry remains to be a problem in many communities, this new funding has superior a novel alternative for colleges to create pathways to computer science education, overcoming among the challenges that made it inaccessible to many college students in the previous.
When mixed with many states’ adopting new computer science requirements, the pandemic has the potential to speed up Okay-12 computer science education throughout the nation. Some colleges will discover it troublesome to suit new computer science into an already busy each day schedule.
But there’s a repair! Educators throughout the nation are engaged on curriculum to combine computer science into core content material areas, assuaging the issue of the place to suit a brand new computer science course into the busy faculty day. Computer science education can be getting used as a device for gauging social emotional studying. When computing units change into obtainable to all college students, it turns into equally necessary for districts to have a plan for the forms of programming environments and platforms college students will use as they construct CS expertise throughout the grades. Computer science is shortly turning into one other device, just like the pencil and paper, that college students use to specific themselves and to show mastery of content material in distinctive methods. Here’s the place I see these developments going in the brand new 12 months.
Computer science education will probably be built-in into the core curriculum.
The transfer towards 1:1 computer systems for college students has been underway for years, however the pandemic significantly accelerated the pattern. Since the college closures that occurred in spring of 2020, many faculty districts haven’t solely offered college students with units, but in addition hotspots and different instruments to connect with the web from house.
Giving each pupil a computer has streamlined the method for offering computer science classes as a result of there’s no have to schedule time in the college’s solely computer lab or to take a look at units from a shared computer cart. This sensible change has made it simpler to include computer science classes into core topics taught throughout the day, like math and language arts.
Bryan Flaig is an education marketing consultant specializing in makerspaces and STEM curriculum. He might be reached at flaig.tutor@gmail.com.