蜜桃影视

This article is one in a series at 蜜桃影视 that profiles the heroes, victories, success stories and random acts of kindness to be found at schools all across America. Read more of our recent inspiring profiles at The74million.org/series/inspiring.

First-graders can鈥檛 do this.

That was teacher Tiffany Hogg鈥檚 first thought when her principal told the staff at Fredericksburg Elementary in southeastern Pennsylvania that the school would be participating in a one-day聽 teaching students how to code.

The thought didn鈥檛 last long. As Hogg walked around her classroom, helping 6- and 7-year-olds make animated characters dance across their screens, she noticed that some of her lowest-performing students were excelling. One boy, who could read only a few dozen words, looked up at her and said, 鈥淢rs. Hogg, I can finally do this 鈥� I鈥檓 good at something!鈥�

鈥淚t just broke my heart,鈥� she said. 鈥淗e was almost giving up on himself, and when I saw that reaction from him, I thought, 鈥業 really need to look into this more.鈥欌��

So Hogg drove almost two hours to New Jersey for a professional development session hosted by Code.org, where she learned more about coding and robotics. Then she set up a DonorsChoose.org fundraising account to buy robots from to teach coding and programming.

The robots have become so popular among her students that she now has a collection of seven, integrates them across content areas, and has started an afterschool program to teach coding to students in other grades.

Teachers ask to borrow Hogg鈥檚 robots, and students beg their parents to buy them robots for Christmas.

鈥淚t made them want to learn,鈥� she said.

The excitement and energy pulsing through the school is, perhaps inadvertently, addressing an all too common problem in STEM:

鈥淲e all know about the huge diversity issues in the tech world,鈥� said Pat Yongpradit, chief academic officer at Code.org. 鈥淕etting kids exposed early, both boys, girls, different ethnicities, what that shows them is they can do this from a young age, so that the stereotypes that 鈥榯hey don鈥檛 belong鈥� or 鈥榯hey can鈥檛 do this鈥� don鈥檛 make sense to them.鈥�

Exposing young children to STEM skills like coding is to help break down accessibility barriers. Gender stereotypes can steer girls away from STEM subjects, even though they have as great an interest in the topic as their male peers in elementary school. Perhaps that鈥檚 why women are projected to hold only 1 in 5 computing jobs by 2025, according to a from Accenture and Girls Who Code.

In Hogg鈥檚 home state of Pennsylvania, the Department of Education has been pushing to incorporate computer science throughout all grade levels. In July 2016, Act 86 allowed computer science to count as a graduation credit in math or science. 鈥淥nce that took root, we knew we had to take a hard look at what teachers were teaching,鈥� said Judd Pittman, special assistant to state Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera for STEM. 鈥淲e were pretty clear that the K-5 space is a really important place to focus.鈥�

Teacher training is the biggest hurdle, Pittman said, so Pennsylvania has offered 1,000 trainings on Code.org tools that focus on integrating coding across subject areas. To train early learners, these tools have pre-reader features, like audio and illustrated instructions, so students don鈥檛 have to be able to read to practice skills like sequences, looping, and algorithms.

Cost is also a hurdle, especially for tech tools like robots. A pair of Wonder Workshop robots costs $200, while accessories and curriculum materials can quickly the price. For Hogg, DonorsChoose.org, along with contributions from her mother and stepfather, helped cover the cost of her seven robots. Wonder Workshop now covers 10 percent of DonorsChoose.org robot purchases for any teacher with a project that .

Filling a STEM workforce is certainly a priority behind many education initiatives 鈥� Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf wants to increase the number of enrolled computer science majors to 10,000 by . The state predicts 71 percent of new jobs will require computer science skills.

But while educators support encouraging more students toward these jobs, this isn鈥檛 necessarily the primary goal behind teaching students to code. Hogg sees her students developing perseverance, collaboration, exposure to new vocabulary words, and exploration through play. She鈥檚 watched them write stories about the robots, solve math problems tracking how many baskets a robot can shoot, and even helped a student shy about public speaking program a bot to help verbalize part of her presentation.

Perhaps the best measure of success is the noise that radiates from Hogg鈥檚 classroom. People, she said, have commented to her about the volume, but she sees it as an indicator of student involvement.

鈥淭hey are collaborating and working together and having fun when learning,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 will take that loudness every day of the week if I have my kids all engaged at the same time working on something together.鈥�

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