How Wonder Workshop’s new release will make coding an everyday activity in classrooms

It’s no secret that coding is a fundamental and essential skill for children growing up in the 21st century. States in the U.S. have recognized that need, and now 33 states in the US have made funding for Computer Science a priority in their budgets.

And yet, when you look at elementary school classrooms, coding is often sidelined — and with due cause. Teachers have a full plate meeting the needs of students and districts for what must be taught. Teachers in the U.S. spend far more time in active instruction than teachers in most other countries. How should they make time for coding in a packed schedule?

I want to share a story that helps illustrate a possible path forward. This story comes from the immigration of the Parsi Zoroastrians from Persia to India. According to legend, when the visitors met the local ruler, he presented them with a glass of milk that was full to the brim, indicating that their land could not accommodate more people. The Parsi head priest responded by adding sugar to the milk, demonstrating how they will enrich the community without displacing anyone.

This was the quest Wonder Workshop set on — how do we enrich the classroom with Computer Science education, without displacing what’s already being taught?

This week, Wonder Workshop released a suite of coding activities that teachers can use to supplement math lessons in grades 3–5. Aligned to common core and state standards, the activities give teachers the opportunity to introduce, and effectively teach Computer Science, while bolstering Math. We’ve enriched the classroom with coding activities, without displacing what’s already being taught.

One could be skeptical and ask if the coding lessons truly enhance Math learning, or are they a forced fit? Will they help meet the dual learning goal of learning to code while learning math?

Let’s take a deeper dive into one 4th grade math activity: identifying factors using multiplication and division.

This math activity uses 4 coding challenges with a common narrative, where the robot is searching for “Oscar,” and every quest requires students to identify the correct factors in order to code correctly. The code required to succeed in the final quest requires an authentic understanding of factors as well as mastery of basic coding techniques like functions and object detection. Students get the chance to show what they know with factor pairs and related math skills. The outcome is that not only are children challenged with an exercise that helps them improve their coding skills, they are also given the opportunity to put their math skills to use in a real-world way inside of an imaginative story world.

We’ve built these lessons to make it as easy as possible for teachers to find what they need and assign it to students seamlessly. Teachers can search for lessons by grade-level and topic in the online Class Connect portal and they can assign the lessons to their classes, or selected students in a class.

Students can then access the activities directly on their devices. The app provides scaffolding to support students through the coding challenges. Students don’t need physical robots, although they can code these activities with the Dash robots. They also have access to an in-app virtual Dash robot where they can watch how their code moves it around in its rich, 3D environment

All of the code that students write is then accessible to their teacher inside of the Class Connect dashboard. The dashboard tracks progress, gives students feedback on how they are doing and reports back to the teacher with solution sets. Teachers can also see how many attempts a student made and how much time they spent on each activity.

I invite you to test the activities with a free trial of Class Connect. We’d love to hear what you think. Did we add sugar to the milk? Let us know what you think of each activity you assign by using the star rating.

Additionally, let us know how we can support you further in your quest to bring Computer Science to your classroom.