The Hechinger Report – Wes Dicken
“Teaching children how to harness technology to create, solve problems and collaborate is essential in early elementary education to introduce today’s youth to the goal-oriented skills they need to become the leaders of tomorrow. Students in kindergarten are at an ideal age to begin learning coding concepts because they are not afraid to try new things. They have grown up with technology from the earliest age, so they are comfortable with it. Students at this age are willing to tinker and explore because they aren’t typically afraid of failure. Getting students (even those in kindergarten) to think with an engineering and developing mindset sets them up to master future skills in an evolving, digital world. Coding helps develop this mindset by introducing framework to solve problems. Students are taught to identify the problem, execute a plan, and then evaluate it to see whether or not their plan worked. If it did not work, they can figure out why, and then go back and correct the problem.”(more)