There is a massive shift underway in education: more and more resources and courses are available online to learn nearly every subject. Access to all this knowledge makes it an incredible time to be a student! One natural question you might ask – will this shift lessen the need for teachers, coaches, tutors, and mentors?
Code.org recently posted an article With education moving online, do we even need teachers anymore?… YES! that looks at their Hour of Code data to quantify the value of a teacher leading the students through the workshop. They found kids go farther when they have a teacher.
This isn’t surprising. The teacher can re-explain concepts, answer any questions that come up, and offer encouragement. The data clearly reflects this for kids 9 and up. This graph also reinforces the Breakout Mentors approach that most kids are able to start advancing their coding skills around ages 9 or 10. They can make some progress younger, but the value of having someone to push them along and teach new things is diminished.
With so many excellent options for learning to code, it can be extremely confusing. There are a dozen popular programming languages with tutorials, summer camps, books, and online courses for each. It takes a knowledgeable teacher or mentor to look at each student’s current abilities and interests to provide the best learning path. What we see from kids that don’t have a coding mentor is that they hop around from language to language and platform to platform without pushing ahead into more advanced personal projects.
Breakout Mentors takes a people first approach to learning to code. Each student is unique and there shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all way to learn to code. Contact us to learn how our one-on-one programming mentors can help.
