Please write a blog post about your current understanding of the concept of developmentally appropriate pedagogy within your field of study/expertise.
Developmentally appropriate pedagogy is creating content to suit different levels of skill and age. I will go through what computer science I could use in order to make computer science accessible to all the different age groups.
Elementary: During this age, I can use a combination of two different websites, Code.org and Scratch.mit.edu, to teach young kids how to make games in a structured way. There are different lessons that I can use that allow the kids to follow how to code more directly. These two websites also use block based code which you can drag and drop to let kids learn the basics without a lot of text. There are also options to allow kids to interact with these blocks even if they don’t know how to read where there’s a use of symbols. This will also incorporate a level of play within the content because these websites incorporate games into coding. These age groups need more concrete ideas in order to grasp the concepts being taught, thus making the block code a great tool!
Middle: This age group is starting to process information differently and more abstractly, therefore incorporating some level of block code with higher language and closer to the “real” deal will be of use to middle schoolers. There is a website called MIT App Inventor that does exactly this. It has block code in a more advanced format, and the user can also toggle to text. This also incorporates a real life aspect (making and producing apps) into the classroom, which is important for middle schoolers to see, learn, and do.
High: This age group is the time when teachers in computer science should start to incorporate and wean off of block code. High schoolers are able to grasp abstract concepts, especially when combined with concrete ways of showing information (i.e., pictures for memory concepts, relating ideas back to physical objects, relating to certain games which use these concepts). A great way to do this is to start teaching them the basics of a programming language. My sophomore placement has kids starting out learning a language called Pascal. Pascal is easier to read and understand because of the lack of symbols. It uses text to explain why things are the way they are and allows kids to make mistakes when they capitalize something wrong or miss some syntax. This is language is great for a beginning class who know nothing about the topic to really understand the why behind the symbols when they move onto other languages.
