Recently on the Rex Academy Podcast, Ms. Pōth reflected on her own experience in school with computer science. Her school received two basic computers and students had the opportunity to learn computer science. She recalled how excited the opportunity made her as a student. Today, in her classroom as a teacher, she provides her students in both her STEAM and language courses with opportunities to learn coding.
At first, Ms. Pōth started doing an hour of code activity for students. As she continued to explore computer science education, she started to wonder how she could incorporate computer science into her language classroom. Later, she started to learn the need for computer science education. In the past year, through her blogging and social media presence, she started to notice that the education community was expressing the need for computer science education. Ms. Pōth noted that students learning computer science are also learning skills beyond coding and virtual reality, for example. Computer science is also teaching students collaboration, communication, and creativity, which are all skills that students will use on a daily basis.
Ms. Pōth’s path to bringing computer science education into the classroom demonstrates that teachers can provide students with computer science skills in settings other than the traditional STEAM classroom. In her language classroom, she became dedicated to providing students with the same technologies and methods of instruction that teachers and curriculum in a STEAM classroom utilized. The result is providing students with additional exposure to computer science technologies and creating an engaging learning environment.
Rex Academy provides teachers and schools with the opportunity to continue to incorporate computer science education for all students. With a fully developed and designed curriculum, teachers are able to creatively include and implement computer science skills into their classroom in order to provide students with the opportunity to engage in skills that they will utilize on a daily basis both in school and in their future careers.