Don't Teach Coding : Until You Read This Book

The definitive resource for understanding what coding is, designed for educators and parents Even though the vast majority of teachers, parents, and students understand the importance of computer science in the 21 st century, many struggle to find appropriate educational resources. Don't Teach Coding: Until You Read This Book fills a gap in current knowledge by explaining exactly what coding is and addressing why and how to teach the subject. Providing a historically grounded, philosophically sensitive description of computer coding, this book helps readers understand the best practices for teaching computer science to their students and their children. The authors, experts in teaching computer sciences to students of all ages, offer practical insights on whether coding is a field for everyone, as opposed to a field reserved for specialists. This innovative book provides an overview of recent scientific research on how the brain learns coding, and features practical exercises that strengthen coding skills. Clear, straightforward chapters discuss a broad range of questions using principles of computer science, such as why we should teach students to code and is coding a science, engineering, technology, mathematics, or language? Helping readers understand the principles and issues of coding education, this book: Helps those with no previous background in computer science education understand the questions and debates within the field Explores the history of computer science education and its influence on the present Views teaching practices through a computational lens Addresses why many schools fail to teach computer science adequately Explains contemporary issues in computer science such as the language wars and trends that equate coding with essential life skills like reading and writing Don't Teach Coding: Until You Read This Book is a valuable resource for K-12 educators in computer science education and parents wishing to understand the field to help chart their children’s education path. "Don't Teach Coding: Until You Read This Book offers educators and parents a historically grounded and philosophically sensitive description of what coding is and tackles tough questions of whether coding is a field for everyone or a field just for specialists. Foster and Handley see the need for addressing the actual question of "how to teach coding" and demonstrate to the reader that they already do know how to code--or at least can understand it better than they might think. In this book, you can read an overview of recent scientific results on how the mind learns coding and partake in concrete exercises that will strengthen your coding skills. Dive in to a series of discussions of topics that are familiar to any adult reader and learn about the incredible breadth of topics that can be discussed using computers science principles. Subject areas will include : history of computer science education, the language wars, answers to "why should people teach to code?", things that don't seem related to coding at first glance" -- Provided by publisher