Cranston's Erika McEnery teaches kids to code at Moses Brown

Twelve second graders sat in a semicircle on the rug. Holding their work in their laps, they waited for their turn to go to the board and share their projects with the rest of the class. One boy fidgeted, then got up and handed his work to his teacher. “Erika, could you take this?” he asks. “It’s too tempting.” A seven-year-old, distracted by schoolwork? Learning is irresistible when it’s on an iPad.

Moses Brown School’s lower school technology teacher Erika McEnery developed a coding curriculum for the fifth grade. “Coding is the art of creating anything from computer games to iPad apps,” she explains. “When kids learn to code, they learn to achieve goals that seem overwhelming by breaking problems down to manageable parts. Coding teaches storytelling, critical thinking and problem-solving skills.”

Erika’s project was supported by Code.org’s professional development workshops and tools, blending online, self-guided and even “unplugged” activities that require no computer at all. In addition, she and her students explored iPad programming apps. With iPads, the second graders learned programming with Scratch Jr. Step by step, they created short pieces of animation, building the code required to design, color and move characters and elements.

Of necessity, Erika’s curriculum is constantly evolving. “That’s what I find most rewarding and most challenging about my job,” she says. “Every year I try new curriculum, software or technology,” Erika says. “I’m not afraid to fail, whether it’s in front of my students or my colleagues. In the fifteen years I’ve been at MB, you’ll often hear me tell a student: ‘I don’t know, let’s find out.’”

Erika’s students plunged into 2014’s pilot Hour of Code projects with enthusiasm. Last winter, after tackling more Hour of Code projects, they began Erika’s new curriculum. “In project-based learning, fifth grade students created programming tutorials that will teach first and second graders programming.” The work proved irresistible for older and younger students alike.