Yes, even very your students can learn to code. Check out scratch. This is a free program that was created by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT. It allows children to code by dragging and dropping blocks. It's a great introduction to programming for younger students.
This week students K-12 are encouraged to participate in an Hour of Code. This will be an hour in which students throughout the United States engage in programming.
Why should we do this? The obvious answer is that coding is a 21st Century skill. It is certain that there will be a wide variety of jobs that require computer coding skills in the future. There is a more important reason for this. Computer coding is a new way of thinking about and understanding our world. Teachers find that student's math and reading comprehension skills improve because coding gives students a deep sense of the logic that underlies communication. It is a great creative outlet. It also builds confidence. Coding is not that hard, but because of its "brainiac" aura, students take great pride in being able to actually write a line of code. Parents also enjoy having bragging rights.
Instruction in computer coding can begin as early as kindergarten. You do not have to be a computer whiz yourself in order to teach elementary programming lessons. You don't even have to have access to computers. There are a wide variety of free and easy materials to help you teach programming to your students.
On conventional multiple choice tests, there is only one right answer for students to choose. Typical test skills instruction focuses on helping students to eliminate incorrect answers and select the one correct answer. These strategies can be helpful.
However, the new Common Core aligned tests will contain some questions that have two or more correct answers for the students to select. To do well on these tests, your students will need to read the questions carefully. They may be explicitly asked to select two or three answers, or they may be told to select all of the correct answers. Make sure that your students practice multiple choice tests that have a mixture of one answer and multiple answer questions so that they don't fall into the habit of expecting each question to have only one right answer.
