In today’s digital age, technology is being introduced into our children’s classrooms more and more with every passing year. So far, it has proved hugely beneficial to incorporate technology within schools, by helping to reduce teachers’ workload, while simultaneously improving children’s engagement levels, within the classroom.
As technology is almost certainly the future of the world we live in today, it only makes sense to educate our children in computer science, familiarising them with new technologies from a young age.
In this article, we explore the benefits that computer science lessons can have on children’s education.
Teamwork
One of the biggest benefits of teaching children computer science lessons is that it can give children the opportunity to collaborate with fellow classmates, allowing them to work together as a team to reach the goal that the teacher has set. This enables children to discuss their ideas and listen to one another, whilst trying to reach the correct answers. Recent studies reveal that 34% of teachers believe that computer science lessons improve a child’s ability to work in a team. Listening skills and teamwork are important transferable skills that your child can take into adult life going forwards.
Problem-Solving
Problem-solving is a fundamental skill that children must harness, and computer science lessons are the perfect way to tap into this. Instead of just sitting at a desk trying to solve problems individually, computer science lessons allow the experience is completely brought to life with computer science lessons, allowing children to do learn collaboratively, in a fun and engaging way. At the same time this gives children the chance to recognise and harness problem-solving skills, helping to prepare them for the future.
Making Mathematics Fun
For many children who struggle with numbers, coding could shine a new light on mathematics that suddenly transforms this subject into something enjoyable, by injecting a dose of fun activity into it. Richard Curtin, Co-Founder and SVP at OKdo reveals, “We’ve long believed that computer science education gives kids more than just the obvious IT skills – it’s also helping children to improve their confidence in teamwork, problem-solving, communication and much more. “It’s also clearly very effective at improving mathematics skills – 81% of the maths teachers we spoke to say they’ve seen first-hand that coding in particular helps numerical competence too.
Creativity
Many of us hear the word “coding” and assume something heavily technical that is very numbers-driven, leaving little room for creativity – but this isn’t the case! There’s lots of scope for creativity within different areas of coding. For example, designing web pages, choosing colour schemes and fonts, adding different shapes and functions to a landing page – there’s endless room for customisation.
