Teachers’ perception and attitudes towards their role in project-based coding instruction – A case study
K.Pallaskallio, Master’s degree in Education Entrepreneurship, Oulu University of Applied Sciences. To be published on March 31, 2021
During the past decade, an increasing number of countries globally have introduced objectives for coding and digital skills in their national basic education curricula. Developing computational thinking – the thinking model exercised for coding activities – starts already during primary grades in many countries. Most countries do not regard coding as a separate, single focus of the curriculum but rather presume that teaching of coding skills entails the development of overall digital literacy, ICT literacy and the 21st century skills.
Effective coding education requires changes in teacher training
This in turn means that all teachers, no matter which subject they teach, should be able to teach their subject in conjunction with coding and technology.
Code School Finland helps educators to include coding, robotics and AI into their school curricula. Consequently, we train and guide teachers all over the world in using project-based learning methods for coding instruction.
Teaching confidence growth achieved through a change in perception
Related to a recent Code School Finland training program where participants from Malaysia and Hungary took part in our online course 21st Century Coding Pedagogy, I did a study about how attending our course would change the participants’ perceptions and attitudes towards their own role as a coding teacher. The results of this study show that participants gained confidence in teaching coding and their belief in their own coding content knowledge level increased, resulting in them feeling better equipped to teach coding.
That is a promising outcome achieved by attending a short online self-study course. The success factors may include the “learning-by-doing” approach of the online course with in-built digital self-reflection, as based on previous research and Code School Finland’s pedagogical expertise in the field.
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The 21st Century Coding Pedagogy online course used in this Case Study is available for purchase via our webshop.
