A Collaborative Course for Learning How to Teach Summer Java Coding Camps
Kelvin Sung, Karen Gourd, Ann P. McMahon, Kulsoom Mansoor, Riley Gaggero · 2018
Summer coding or programming camps are popular. With sufficient organization, offering these camps at higher education institutions can facilitate outreach objectives including engaging underrepresented groups. However, the challenges involved in organizing and offering a camp are many, including: recruitment of instructors and campers, camp management, finances, and curriculum development. We addressed these challenges by engaging a non-profit summer camp provider, Pacific Science Center (PSC), to handle camp logistics; and offered a new course for students with backgrounds in computer science (CS) or education (ED) to learn to teach Java programming and develop a curriculum appropriate for middle school aged campers. The university students then worked as paid summer camp instructors. Three professors, one each from CS, ED, and the Office of Research, co-planned and co-facilitated the course. Reflecting a hands-on and collaborative learning philosophy of PSC camps, the course grouped students into multidisciplinary teams and challenged the teams to learn by collaboratively developing and practice teaching the content. By the end of the course, we had classroom-ready instructors with technical knowledge in both programming and learning theories and a customized curriculum ready for use. This paper details our project, including results from the summer camps. With all developed materials freely available. Interested institutions can either adapt the curriculum or offer a similar course.