ASCD Annual Conference

National and international calls to teach computer science to every child K-12 are laudable and in serious danger of being the most spectacular failure in the history of overhyped, and ultimately failed, educational innovations. Such an eventuality should be avoided since learning to program is a critical aspect of agency over an increasingly complex and technologically sophisticated world. Despite unprecedented access to computational tools, very few students engage in any computing. This workshop intends to begin addressing this deficit through activities modeling sound pedagogical practices for teaching programming across grades and the curriculum. It will argue that computing is essential for computational thinking, problem solving, math education, school reform and project-based learning that extend beyond rhetoric or vocabulary acquisition. We will think about how to teach programming as a consequence of actual programming experiences and lend a critical eye to the curricular curricula proposed by governments around the world.