This text is part of the special Private Education notebook
Have you ever wondered, among all the big and small technological objects that you use every day, which ones are programmed? The short answer is, a lot. Understanding how they work allows you to develop digital and creative skills, applicable in many areas of daily life… That’s why Kathleen Quesnel, a mathematics teacher at Collège Durocher in Saint-Lambert, wanted to implement computer programming courses for all students, from grade 1D at 5e secondary.
“Technology is part of our lives and it is taking up more and more space,” notes the 2nd grade teacher.e secondary.
A few years ago, Kathleen Quesnel became interested in the programming language. After taking training courses and attending conferences, she decided to teach some of its concepts in her groups. A few of her colleagues followed suit and others, without yet having the knowledge to apply it in class, are interested in it.
This is what pushed Mme Quesnel proposed to advance computer science learning for students at Durocher College by integrating programming into math classes. For two years, she was freed from 25% of her teaching duties to implement this plan and train her colleagues.
Training is one of the winning conditions for properly integrating computer programming into the school curriculum, according to experts who participated in days of reflection on the educational use of computer programming in 2021. These days, led by researcher Sylvie Barma, associate professor at the Faculty of Education (FSE) at Université Laval, were part of the Digital Action Plan in Education and Higher Education, launched by the government of Philippe Couillard in 2018.
“It’s so important in the 21st centurye century, to understand how our environment works, underlines Simon Duguay, who participated in the reflection project when he was a master’s student. There are more and more democratic issues that require [de mobiliser] digital skills.
Cybersecurity, disinformation, elections… so many subjects that require understanding what an algorithm is since the subjects that are presented to us or not on social networks depend on this algorithm, adds as an example the man who is now a lecturer at the FSE of Laval University.
An algorithm is a series of programmed operations, says Simon Duguay. Learning to create them through programming allows us to understand how they work, “and that gives us a better understanding of social networks, websites or search engines,” he continues.
Progressive learning
At Durocher College, Kathleen Quesnel has built a program that respects the progression of learning according to each school level. From 1D at 3e In secondary school, students use Scratch, a free online coding platform for children that uses block-based programming.
“It’s visual,” explains the teacher. “It’s easier to start programming, it prevents your program from not working because you forgot a comma.”
In 1D In secondary school, students have two programming periods in their mathematics classes. They learn the concept of “if…, then…” in order to design a program to guess which quadrilateral the user is thinking of. In 2e secondary, young people will see the chains of operations with the concept of variable in order, for example, to integrate algebra into it.
In 4e secondary, students use Excel and, in 5ethey become familiar with Python, one of the coding languages used by professional programmers.
Developing your creativity
In addition to helping develop digital skills, programming is a great tool for learning to solve problems and develop creativity.
“When you code, there are always problems,” summarizes Simon Duguay, who is also a teacher.
Teaching programming also creates motivation in some students, he adds. “It happened to me on several occasions, as a teacher, to see students who were not necessarily the best performers in more traditional disciplines, but when we got to robotics, they were the number ones in the class. They were excellent, exceeded expectations and were valued by themselves and by the teacher. Often, they are the ones who will help others.”
“That’s really one of the joys of teaching: seeing the light shine in a student’s eyes,” Kathleen Quesnel exclaims with a smile.
Learning programming can also encourage young people to move towards fields of study related to science, technology, engineering or mathematics, all of which are in high demand in Quebec.
Kathleen Quesnel now hopes that programming courses will develop a little more and that they will be added to the mandatory training in her school. As for Simon Duguay, he dreams of the day when these courses will be integrated into all schools in Quebec, from primary to secondary… but, for that to happen, a lot of training and support will be needed, he warns.
This content was produced by the Special Publications Team of Dutyrelevant to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part in it.