What's One Thing You'd Change about Coding Education?

Imagine you have the incredible power to make a single change to the coding education system. What would it be? Whether you're a seasoned programmer or just starting out, we want to hear your thoughts. Join the conversation and share your ideas on the one thing you'd transform and the reasons behind it. Let's explore how we can make coding education even better together! 💻🚀

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Comments

[Jon Randy 🎖️]

By the time I was taught any programming in any kind of formal education setting (I was a teenager), I was already way ahead of the teacher in my programming skills and was actually correcting his mistakes. I'm not sure if things have gotten better in this respect (this was the early 90s), but judging by the knowledge I see from new, young developers who have learned in a 'school' setting - there still seems to be a problem - either with the teaching material (it's no good, or plain wrong in places), or the teachers themselves (cannot program, or only at a very basic level with no real understanding of the subject).

I think the above is probably one of the main things that needs addressing, but there are also a million problems with the tools and resources available today for learning to program outside of a formal setting, but there's a whole book's worth of material to say about that.

[Ryan Brown]

I would say not having it segmented into just for computers class, or just for it's own sake. Teach how to use it to solve the problems encountered in other domains.

[Ben Halpern]

I think it needs to be way more nimble. What you're learning today will apply to tomorrow but not directly. Everything needs to be put in the context of setting you up for continuous education.

[Ricardo Valencia]

• Make coding part of a more interactive activity, like robotics or something visual. I found math more approachable in the context of a more tangible application, like physics.
• Stop trying to make everyone a web developer. Most frameworks will be outdated very soon anyway.
• More diversity, particularly gender
• Teach skills like version control and debugging/unit testing alongside coding. We need more people able to properly test and manage a code base rather than another traveling salesman variant

[Taylor Zeller]

While I believe that formal education does have some value depending on the institution, I have seen a lot of instructors that either have theoretical knowledge about a subject with no real-world experience, or dated experience that is no longer as applicable to modern development. I understand that a lot of this is simply because there's more demand than there are teachers, but I just think bridging this gap would help immensely.

[Oscar]

Slightly faster paced classes. The faster paced part might just be for me, but I do think it shines a light on the... not so great way our education system works (at least in the US). There's a lot of handholding, and slowly working through every problem.

I'm not saying that we should take someone that's never programmed, and tell them to go through an massive programming assignment on their own. But having a lecture video that walks you through every assignment is also not a great idea (yep, that's happened in a 2nd year high school CS course!)

In short, a lot of programming is sitting down and struggling through a problem, and trying to really understand it, and I don't think that schools do that.

[S0bacc]

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[Lady Boss]

If I could change one thing about coding education, it would be to make it more affordable. Quality education should be within reach for everyone. I often explore options like write my essay online for cheap to bridge this price gap.

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[Stephen Dicks]

+1 to the testing and source control. Most programming courses (mine included) give you enough knowledge to program 'in the small' but that's not really a useful skill. You need to be able to program 'in the large', write tests, refactoring old code, document for the next developer, debug, create abstractions - all of which you an get away with in the small.

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[Rachel Fazio]

Happy to see the new header here already! My biggest want for a single change would be more diverse STEM classrooms.

[Soham]

For some reason a lot of schools make students write code on paper. Wouldn't it be better for students if they typed it on a computer? They would also get faster at typing...

[Hide Shidara]

I would change how it's taught and tested for. Projects projects projects matter more than anything else. I would argue that it's really the only way to learn how to code.