Anyone who has kids, who teaches, or has ever been around kids for any length of time knows that students LOVE learning from other students. A teacher is great, but nothing can compare to a teenage teaching assistant. I’ve been blessed this year to have Scotty Snetsinger in my classroom, and his presence with my students has been a blessing. From the encouraging high fives to the secret handshakes and silly smiles … Scotty has the heart of these kids, and for no reason other than who he is – they respect him.
Using this fortified relationship, I decided to ask my T.A. to do what he does best – COMPUTERS! While my fifth graders are very adept at using technology in the classroom, (creating their own websites, using new presentation applications, finding strong resources) there is something that I have been looking to try for some time, but never learned myself … CODING! I have never had the opportunity to learn how to code, but at the young age of only sixteen, Scotty was able to come in and teach it! Using a kid-friendly program called “programmingbasics.org” students were able to learn step-by-step actions that manipulated a cartoon figure online to do small tasks such as wave, jump, and dance.
Throughout the lesson, the intensity and complication of the tasks increased, and by the end, students were coding small plays (like a theater show) that their cartoons were able to act out. The delight in their faces when they saw what they were able to accomplish in such a short time was priceless, and the pride my teaching assistant felt at being able to help the students succeed with a 21st Century skill was unbeatable!
It is true what John G. Palfrey says, “The most important thing that schools can do is not to use technology in the curriculum more, but to use it more effectively.” Speaking as a fly-on-the-wall in fifth grade, I can say that fostering confidence and intelligence seems to be a great start to a healthy technology/student relationship. It is such a blessing to see growth in every facet of our students’ education.
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