To help colleagues at the elementary level get the ball rolling on their own computer science programs, a pair of educators from Loudoun County Public Schools, Va., articulated a five-year plan for attendees at the Future of Education Technology Conference in Orlando this week.
“Kids in Gen Alpha have access to education and information on a level that is just so far surpassed what any of us in the room ever had, so they have the tools available for them to become really great critical thinkers and problem solvers, so it’s really our job to give them some of those pathways in order to get them there,” Russ Staggs, the district’s instructional facilitator for technology, told attendees Sunday.
Principal Andrew Stevens of Arcola Elementary School recommended that in the first year of setting up an elementary computer science program, the focus should be on communicating why the subject matters for kids at that level, but most of all on building relationships with partners who could support the idea. He stressed the importance of finding at least one person who will help the school take the next step with computer science, and maybe they’re not even a teacher — it could be a parent, support staff, or anyone who could put a bug in someone’s ear and get things moving.
“If you don’t have that relationship and you don’t know people well enough, then you’re not going to be able to challenge [teachers]. You’re not going to be able to question how to get them further,” he said. “You’re not going to be able to get that person who’s set in their ways to do something different.”
Staggs agreed, adding that the first the first and second years in his district were about “why,” but also a lot of play and experimentation with tech tools and lesson ideas for finding computer science principles in existing lessons. He said it could be something as simple as teaching young students to follow step-by-step processes to make origami animals.
Once teachers had ideas about what they enjoyed and wanted to pursue, program organizers in Staggs’ district sat down with him, the designated computer science facilitator, to get it down on paper.
Staggs said year two was when they developed a tech team and started to build a repository of lesson ideas, giving teachers something specific to take back to their classrooms.
“We really looked at those first two years as playtime,” he said. “Those were the times when we really got to do some cool things with people that were definitely embedded in the curriculum, but maybe they didn’t know it. That, I think, is where we had a lot of our buy-in, like ‘Oh this really is cool, the kids are enjoying it.’”
Year three, Stevens said, involved setting district expectations for teachers, starting to build a database, establishing fundamental lessons for grades K-5, holding monthly collaborative learning sessions, showcasing computer science for parents, and filling out a tech team with representatives from every grade level who can help lead the charge, including a liaison from district leadership.
He stressed that school principals can’t lead everything themselves, so they may need to invest some trust and support in staff members who, through coaching and modeling, can get other teachers to follow their direction.
Stevens said year four entailed letting the full tech team take the lead on setting curriculum, formalizing new computer science standards, integrating computer science into K-5 lessons, and having classroom showcases to demonstrate what kids were learning.
By year five, he said, “the training wheels were off,” the program was up and running, and the district was planning for the future: emerging tech in education, evolving curriculum standards, preparing for AI and machine learning, balancing screen time with hands-on learning, and envisioning what computer science education might look like in five to 10 years.
Stevens said it’s not difficult to see if a school is on the right track, and the indicator isn’t standardized test scores.
“Student engagement is the No. 1 thing that shows whether or not you’re successful at integrating computer science into your schools,” he said. “Is it easy to see? Yes, it is easy to see, because they are super excited when they get to do something related to technology, and they’re learning, and they’re problem-solving, and they’re being creative, and they’re engaged. They’re communicating with their friends. That is what success looks like in implementing computer science.”
