Think Creative - Issue 1

Dispatches

updates from around our world

St. Lucia teachers Celina Fessal (left) and Claudius Athil (far right) , go over a coding and robotics exercise with Jason Wilks, Knowledge Management and Learning Specialist for the Community, Family, and Youth Resilience project, during a teacher training workshop.

Coding in the Caribbean

St. Lucia // Community, Family and Youth Resilience

“Students will only be fit for the workplace if they have skills that they can apply in the emerging digital world. Coding is one of the most critical skills that will ensure that stu- dents can participate as producers and creators in the 21 st century economy,” says Germain An- thony, Curriculum Specialist for the St. Lucia Department of Education, Innovation, Gender Relations and Sustainable Development. Simmons Jules, a teacher at Grande Riv- iere Secondary School, says learning to code will not only allow the students to gain techni- cal know-how, but life skills that they can apply elsewhere. “Generally coding is a skill which increases the thinking process and helps with cognition. A

course of this nature will help students at the lower spectrum, especially in areas of critical thinking and problem solving,” Jules says. And coding is a new concept for many teachers, who had their own lessons over the summer. “The coding and robotics course is very hands- on. At the core of the course is problem solving, and it challenges us as teachers and trainers to focus on logical thinking, following instruc- tions, and forces one to be innovative,” says Claudius Athil, a teacher at Beanfield Second- ary School. Students will have the chance to show off their newfound skills at the end of the year, when the course culminates in a nationwide “hackathon” competition. n

Students in the Caribbean country of St. Lucia are trying their hand at coding and robotics through a pilot program in four secondary schools. The Community, Family and Youth Resilience project, funded by the U.S. Agency for Inter- national Development, is providing schools with computers and kits to build Lego robots students can program. The project is training seven teachers and two volunteers, who will incorporate coding into regular classes like physics and comput- er science as well as start after-school clubs, reaching up to 240 students. The goal? Get them prepped for success in a tech-driven world.

Photo by Kelli Coombs

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