Spring Coding
Boys Latin Charter Students working to solve a coding assignment
This past spring school year, we returned to Boys Latin to teach another group of remarkable young men web development with the additional support of a new partner in Microsoft TEALS.
The Spring 2023 school semester marked an extraordinary milestone for Black Tech Philly as it was the pilot for our first full-semester coding cohort, and we couldn't have been more thrilled to present this course to one of our first partner schools, Boys Latin Charter High School. This cohort was a unique and exciting challenge for us as, before this course, we had never done a course longer than eight weeks, so we had to consider many things to present a rich, fun, and educational experience for our partners at Boys Latin.
One thing we wanted to do right away was establish accountability with our partners at Boys Latin. A typical Spring semester can run from January to May- which, for a full-time engineer, can become a second job. Fortunately, I and the co-founder of the program, Ryan Small, were up to the challenge. We knew from the start that availability was the best ability, and part of our assurance of delivery was to deliver ourselves four days a week to lead the class.
Next, we needed to craft our courses to be more robust. Before this cohort, courses were designed to function as workshops, introducing and teaching technical concepts to our learners and engaging them with hands-on activities, which we believe allows learners to explore and understand concepts more deeply. The most challenging part of this experience was preparing and modifying our pre-existing curriculum to extend it to last for almost twice the amount of time. Fortunately for us, Along with this being our first full semester cohort, we also had the fantastic opportunity to establish sponsorship with Microsoft TEALs, a philanthropic division of Microsoft that provides computer science coursework to schools K-12. We leveraged their Intro to Python coursework and molded it to fit our needs.
I wonder what they just discovered?
From January until our last class in May 2023, we taught 20 students deeply interested in computer science and technology Introductory Python. This was a stellar experience. It was outstanding to watch the students learn the concepts and ultimately express themselves technologically with their final projects. I’m immensely grateful and want to personally thank the faculty and students of Boys Latin and Microsoft TEALs for the opportunity and support throughout the semester. Black Tech Philly and I look forward to presenting more educational course options in the coming school year and beyond.
To wrap up, I’d like to share two personal takeaways from our Spring Cohort.
Educators are amazing (PAY THEM!)
My admiration and respect for educators grew more profound through teaching an entire semester of software development. Teachers are so important to our society and, more specifically, the development of our youth. Going into the building at 8 am, knowing that the educators and faculty were probably there an hour or earlier, energized to take on the day, regardless of the weather conditions, is the epitome of resilience and dedication. Just as equally admirable was watching the faculty's rapport and dynamics with the students. Seeing the genuine interactions of laughter, concern, disapproval, and appreciation between the faculty and students, specifically between the STEM coordinator, Zachary Paris, and the students in our cohort, was phenomenal and nothing short of inspiring.
Student Technological Expression is one of the most beautiful things.
Keeping learners engaged and motivated has always been a critical point of emphasis for our program. Finding the right formula was only exacerbated with this past cohort, but going through it gave us valuable insights. One exciting thing to see was watching the students learn and execute the concepts over time. I think what helped was spending more time on specific technological concepts and developing focused mini-projects that gave the students more opportunities to practice. Also, structuring our course in a way typical of the student's experience in school seems to have had a positive effect on the students.
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