Teaching an hour of code to high school students during their lunch hour
About a year ago I taught an HTML/CSS tutorial for MKE Hour of Code. As I sat in front of the classroom and presented some of the websites I had worked on over the past few years, the students’ expressions were attentive and polite but not exactly lighting up. Although my introduction was necessary, and an opportunity for them to eat their lunch, what happened next was much more important.
NEWaukee and the MKE Tech Hub Coalition invite area companies and tech professionals to participate in a regional challenge of teaching an hour of code to local students during Computer Science Week. My friend Gisela Ortega is the gBETA Project Manager at gener8tor and her company was participating in this initiative. When Gisela asked me if I would like to volunteer, I immediately said yes. It would be my first time teaching code to students and I learned it would be for Carmen High School of Science and Technology.
I initially thought “they’ll only be interested if we code a video game or something super exciting.” Then I took a step back and asked what the coding experience of this class was. The teacher, who was hosting, explained that this wasn’t a class, it was a group of students who individually signed up to attend during their lunch hour, and most did not have any coding experience.
During their lunch hour? The ultimate motivation for me to deliver my best!
No one wants to watch a PowerPoint presentation, they want to be hands on. For the tutorial, I created a simple “about me” page on Codepen, a free code editor website. The page included common HTML elements: a heading, an image, a paragraph and a link. I demonstrated how to change color and font with CSS, and how to update image and link attributes. Each student had their own school-provided laptop, so after my demo they opened my templated version and began inputting their own content, hands busy and eyes illuminated.
Once the first student raised their hand and asked “Miss, can you help me with this?” I stepped from the front of the classroom to behind their screen and my eyes lit up too. As Gisela and I traveled to students’ desks answering questions, we could see unique pages popping up across the room. Funky fonts on bright backgrounds with Shrek, Squidward and other handpicked images looking back at me. Many students made modifications to the bonus JavaScript text change event I placed at the bottom of the page as well. The students learned quickly and showed pride in their creations.
What I knew from the beginning became clearer than ever, this was about the students, not me. I didn’t need the most elaborate lesson or 20 years experience. Me being there was simply an opportunity for them to begin coding. However, teaching them did remind me of how far I’d come and their enthusiasm reignited why I had started in the first place.
As Computer Science Week approaches (December 7–13, 2020) I encourage you to participate in MKE Hour of Code. All coding backgrounds are valuable, even if you are learning along with your students. Although teaching may look a lot different this year in COVID time, I know our tech community members are masters of thinking outside the box and will continue to make this event something students and teachers alike remember fondly.
