Programming Academy

 

Overview

 

Chasewood’s Programming Academy is a STEM enrichment program where students learn to program and develop simple and applications. Using a creative educational approach that supports Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), this class is led by Chasewood Learning’s teacher-led instruction followed by fun, engaging and dynamic activities.

Academy Levels

 

The Programing Academy is a multi-level program where students are placed based on skill and experience. Each class encompasses a lesson for the current level followed by an application of what they’ve learned in the form of a computer program. Students can move up a level each time they take the class to take on more advanced concepts.

Chasewood Learning offers Programming instruction options based on age level and ability in Scratch and Python.

Programming with Scratch

Overview

 

Scratch is a computer programming environment created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) using the concept of Creative Computing, which supports the development of personal connections to computing, by drawing upon creativity, imagination, and interests.

 

With Scratch, students can program interactive media projects, such as stories, games, and animations. The activities encourage exploration of key computational thinking concepts (sequence, loops, parallelism, events, conditionals, operators, data) and key computational thinking practices (experimenting and iterating, testing and debugging, reusing and remixing, abstracting and modularizing).

Scratch uses a drag and drop method of of programming by connecting a series of instruction blocks that tell the computer what to do. Students program characters called "Sprites" to make their programs come alive.

Grade/Age Level

 

The course is suited for students in Grades 3 through 8, but can be extended to younger students having fundamental computer skills and assistance. Scratch Jr. can be offered to younger students as a transition to programming.

Programming with Python

Overview

 

Python is a widely used high-level programming language for general-purpose programming. Python reads like English, which takes a lot of syntax-learning stress off coding beginners.

Python handles a lot of complexity, so it is very beginner-friendly in that it allows beginners to focus on learning programming concepts and not have to worry about too much details. Python is ideal for desktop computer programing and web programing.

The course provides students the fundamentals and introduces them to advanced Python programing. Students will be introduced to coding using both Python 2.x and Python 3.x. Instruction is provided in Python Basics, Flow Control, Functions, Lists, Dictionaries and Structuring Data, Manipulating Strings, Regular Expressions, Reading and Writing Files, and more.

Grade/Age Level

 

The course is suited for students in Grades 4 and up. Students must having fundamental computer skills for this class.