Crafting to Code: Applying Creative Pedagogy to Promote Inclusion and Access in Learning to Code

Introduction

This chapter describes a unique student-centered week-long camp offered by the Eureka Workshop of CodeVA, a nonprofit organization advocating for equity in computer science (CS) education as a social justice initiative. Eureka Workshop’s student programs, offered both after school and as summer camp sessions, are designed to engage students from underserved populations in learning CS through participation in culturally relevant activities that integrate components of the fine arts and crafting. This approach to teaching CS through arts-integrated activities is built on the premise that creative problem solving is the foundation of most CS concepts and computational thinking methods. Using arts and crafting as an entry point helps students to begin to identify CS skills as a valuable tool for creating original projects, thus inspiring interest in CS as a viable academic pursuit.

The five-day camp, called “Critter Code,” integrates crafting and coding through a series of strategically constructed lessons that foster students’ creativity and make learning to code more relatable—and fun. Each of these lessons is developed following the creative engineering design process that is critical to building the computational thinking skills needed in today’s workforce (Romano et al., 2017). The Critter

Code lessons provide step-by-step instructions for creating a stuffed animal out of found materials (the “Critter”), giving students the freedom to decide all of the design and character traits of their real or imaginary animal. Once the Critter has been created, digital photos are taken, and the images are scanned into a computer. Students are then introduced to block-based coding (the “code”) to create their own video game or story featuring their Critter. The camp is designed to lower traditional barriers to learning to code by supporting student agency in the creation of both the Critter and the game code, and by scaffolding tasks according to each student’s level of familiarity with CS skills and/or coding. The creative agency and autonomy fostered in this workshop allow students to make connections between their Critter and their coding activities that are personally and culturally meaningful.

The importance of offering engaging and accessible CS education cannot be overstated. The need for a computer-science-literate workforce (whether creating new technologies or supporting those efforts) is growing exponentially every year. By 2019, the total number of technology-based jobs reached approximately 12.1 million, as more industries recognized the need for employees skilled in technology creation (Computer Technology Industry Association [CompTIA], 2020). However, nationwide, hundreds of thousands of these well-paying technology jobs go unfilled due to a lack of qualified candidates. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CompTIA estimated that up to 700,000 information technology (IT) jobs went unfilled in 2017. Yet currently, only about 47% of high schools in the US offer dedicated CS classes. A significantly smaller percentage of these classes are offered in rural schools and schools with high numbers of students of color or students from economically disadvantaged households (Code.org Advocacy Coalition, Computer Science Teachers Association [CSTA], & ECEP Alliance, 2020).