Computer Science lessons from around the world

Computer Science lessons from around the world

An opportunity to say thank you

With 2020 bringing a host of challenges to us all, World Teacher Day presented itself as an opportunity to pause and celebrate the hard work of Computer Science teachers around the world. Not only have they had to continue finding engaging ways to teach their students, but in a world where everything is done virtually, some extra creativity was required.

The challenge

We asked teachers at all levels of education to submit their most creative lesson plans for computer science. The key criteria we looked at was:

• Distance Learning: lesson is compatible with distance learning
• Accessibility: lesson plan was created to be inclusive and equitable for all students.
• Fun / Engagement Factor: We want to hear why this lesson is particularly fun for students!

The results

We were blown away by the creativity displayed by the educators in bringing Computer Science to life! From across the world, we saw educators that teach at different levels of education share their insights. From HTML, to algorithms, hardware and Git, you can get all sorts of inspiration from our winning submissions. Congratulations to Rahul, Shin Hwei, Juan Alberto, Shivangi and Kimberly!

You can check out the full lesson plans in TwilioQuest’s Awesome-CS repository on GitHub.

The GitHub Fixit Project

This 6-week lesson plan, aimed at higher-ed students, helps students boost their employability by contributing to well-known open source projects. The course covers core software engineering concepts including static analysis, coding standards, unit testing, and the very important skill of making pull requests.

Let's Dance! Unplugged Activity

Let’s dance is a lesson plan that aims to teach middle and high school students about algorithms and bugs through role-playing by having students select a popular TikTok dance and writing a list of instructions for the teacher/their peers to perform. By following the steps -- which inevitably will be missing some key instructions like which foot to start with -- the educator has the opportunity to talk them through the importance of being specific with their instructions, like a computer could follow, all while having fun.

Webby Creations

Using HTML and CSS, this lesson plan aims to bring website creation to life for high school students. By showing them how to easily create a website about a topic like their pets, students can learn key HTML principles before applying them to their own website creation in class and at home.

Build your computer

This intermediate activity teaches students about key hardware components of electronic devices. High school students use a computer building website to design a computer within a pre-set budget. This activity allows students to explore the capabilities and limitations of hardware as well as the importance of budgeting!

Picture Program

Similar to the Let’s Dance! Lesson plan, this activity teaches students the importance of sequences and clear instructions. The class is split into groups with each group assigning a “Programmer” and the rest acting as “robots”. The goal is for the programmer to accurately describe the steps required to draw an object. This activity is aimed at middle school students.

Thank you to all the educators who participated in the challenge!

TwilioQuest for Education

TwilioQuest is an educational video game designed to teach a new generation of developers how to change the world with code. Prepare your students for real-world programming by helping them configure a local development environment and introducing tools used by professional programmers around the world. From learning how to use their terminal, to coding in Python, JavaScript, and PHP, TwilioQuest will help your students develop practical engineering skills.