ISB Students Participate in Hour of Code | International School of Brooklyn

By Pat Hough, Technology Integration Director

Each year during Computer Science Education Week, ISB students participate in Hour of Code, a global movement designed to celebrate computer science and introduce students to the world of coding. During the recent Hour of Code at ISB, students in 3rd-5th Grade logged onto code.org and started working through a progression of coding puzzles. These activities help students develop their understanding of algorithms, nested loops, while loops, conditionals, and events. This course is crafted to build a strong foundation in basic coding concepts.

Problem-based learning is central to our curriculum here at ISB. During the Hour of Code, all students in 3rd-5th Grade are taught computational thinking skills that include:

Decomposition, which encourages students to break down a problem into more manageable steps.
Functions nested in loops and conditionals, in which students create complex algorithms that can be executed in a repeated manner for a finite or infinite amount of time or number of repetitions.
Transmission and sorting of data, which focuses on students’ designing and building a digital environment.

Learning to code allows our younger students to stretch their creative abilities and engage in meaningful learning experiences aligned with the transdisciplinary themes of the Programme of Inquiry. Within these themes, students are exposed to the process of coding, which promotes inquiry and investigation. We use the design thinking process in teaching coding, implementing coding lessons in which students can plan, identify needs, test, build, seek feedback, and iterate computational thinking skills learned over the course of direct instructional classes.