Beyond Coding How Children Learn Human Values through Programming Marina Umaschi Bers
Today, schools are introducing STEM education and robotics to children in ever-lower grades. In Beyond Coding, Marina Umaschi Bers lays out a pedagogical roadmap for teaching code that encompasses the cultivation of character along with technical knowledge and skills. Presenting code as a universal language, she shows how chil- dren discover new ways of thinking, relating, and behaving through creative coding activities. Today's children will undoubtedly have the technical knowledge to change the world. But cultivating strength of character, socioeconomic maturity, and a moral compass alongside that knowledge, says Bers, is crucial.
Marina Umaschi Bers is Professor and Chair of the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Computer Science. She directs the interdisciplinary DevTech Research Group.
"A book that will take readers by surprise-in a good way. Bers places the teaching of coding and robotics in a tradition of relational psychology, ethics, character devel- opment, and religion. A provocative and timely argument." -Sherry Turkle, Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology, MIT; author of Reclaiming Conversation
"An outstanding and successful effort to return humanity to technology and to re- introduce it to education at an age when children have not yet been fully socialized through schooling." -Zvi Bekerman, Seymour Fox School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; coauthor of Psychologized Language in Education "Marina Bers presents a more humanistic view of coding, sharing personal stories that highlight how coding can be a playground not just for learning technical skills but also for social, emotional, moral, and ethical development." -Mitchel Resnick, Professor of Learning Research, MIT Media Lab; author of Life- long Kindergarten.