Pre-university Programming Instruction
Stephen K. Reed · 2025
In the early 1960s, John Kemeny, a mathematics professor at Dartmouth, designed an easy-to-learn programming language called BASIC for use in high schools and college campuses. Another early project occurred in the late 1960s when a team at MIT evaluated their Logo programming language with fifth and seventh graders. In his 1980 book Mindstorms , Seymour Papert conjectured that much of what was then considered as too formal or too mathematical would be learned more easily when children grow up in the computer-rich world of the near future. His conjecture helped to inspire the perspective that computational thinking is a fundamental skill that should be added to the curriculum to enhance every child’s analytical ability. There are a variety of instructional tools – such as robots, computer languages, and games – for introducing young students to computational thinking through programmng. Learning programming has been particularly effective in improving reasoning, problem solving, creative thinking, and spatial skills so courses that require these skills should benefit the most from a programming course.