Submitted by Kevin Jones on the 2017 winter session program in New Zealand sponsored by the Department of Computer and Information Sciences…
As a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, I know very well that programming during a hackathon (12-24 hours) can become extremely exhausting from my experience at Delhack. However, that doesn’t seem so bad after spending 12 hours trying to keep 8-10 year olds to stay on task for their programming projects. The Nelson coding challenge that our group helped organize and mentor was a roller coaster ride. My team was paired with one of the youngest groups and this really tested my ability to teach computer science concepts. I have never had to work with such a young group for so long, but because of this, I learned a lot about teaching and working with young kids in general. I was very surprised by how much attention I had to give for the kids to understand basic concepts and keep on task. There were points at which I struggled to maintain my interest due to how long I was engaged, but I realized how distracted they would become when I became disinterested and worn down. Although this day really challenged me, I definitely don’t feel swayed away from one day teaching computer science.
In the end, this day turned out to be a very rewarding process. Despite how tired I might have been, helping turn a major meltdown for one of my group members into pure joy at what he could accomplish was an amazing feeling. I was also astounded at the projects some student groups were able to create in such a short time! The games the kids made were original, fun and displayed topics illuminating a multitude of social problems from recycling to world hunger to depression. It would have been very hard to be disappointed at the end of the day after seeing the huge strides these students made in programming. One of the biggest realizations I had was how important one-on-one experience is for teaching younger students. I can now appreciate how teachers can keep a large group of young students in line when it was difficult for me to keep three focused.
(Sadly I can’t post any pictures of the event, but I can show more beautiful landscapes!)
