Hi, so I recently started a CS Club in my high school and we’ve had around 3-4 meetings so far, I was wondering if anyone was any advice or activities that we can do in the club that can keep the interest of the members high, so far we have 30-ish members( a lot of them just came during our last meeting because we finally sent out a flyer to the students). Basically, everyone in the club doesn’t have experience with CS so I would have to teach them from scratch.
Do you have any ideas to help me make the club interesting and reduce churn?
DO you also have any tips to help me when it comes to teaching/leading the club?(The sponsor is a math teacher, and he doesn’t have much experience with CS)
So far I have shown them the Netflix video “Explained: Coding” and introduced them to www.repl.it but they haven’t actually started to code yet.
code . org
(they don’t let me put links for some reason)
is a good start, or you can do some logic problem solving because that’s what CS is all about.
I’m taking AP CSP and my school decided to use python as an official language for the class. Me even with some minimum coding experience in middle school still suffer in python language. So for people with no experience, those languages used in the industry will kill their interest. Start small then you can try different language.
To be a leader you have to interact with your club members, it will make them feel valued and interaction also help people to understand better. I wouldn’t give them like a video longer than 15 mins because I think that’s not want the members are here for, communication is really important among us human beings.
Will first emphasize the previous poster’s assertion that interaction is key to both leadership and a successful club experience.
As for ideas, maybe you can send a poll to the members and ask what they want to do? Why they were interested in the club, what do they hope the experience will bring for them, etc. Perhaps the responses will better inform your decisions.
I agree with the previous poster’s response. You could use a pre-existing website to guide your teaching of CS, but you will also want to do fun activities related that will build the skills behind the concepts. I think to mitigate the dullness of a language in the industry, you could try a block-based learning approach. Think Scratch or the aforementioned code . org. That introduces the principles in a way that is easy to digest for beginners.
If you have any projects related to CS, that would probably be cool to show your club members as a first point of connection. Games or apps usually garner interest in high schoolers.
For those who haven’t coded yet, a fun thing to do is to have them define the steps in making a Peanut Butter (or something non allergenic) and Jelly sandwich.
This activity will introduce students to several computer science concepts. Students will learn the necessity for thoroughness while programming and will be introduced to the often strange results of literalism. The overarching theme being introduced is that computers do what they are told and nothing more. The ability to read between the lines and determine what was meant rather than what was said is a skill computers lack.
Additionally, students are introduced to the concept of debugging through iterative attempts to program a computer to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Break the club into a few small groups. Have each group write down the steps. When they are done, you follow the instructions to the word. If they didn’t tell you to open the bread bag, you spread jelly all over the bag. If they never tell you to put any items down, then you are holding everything while desperately trying to do the tasks.
It is quite hilarious.
Then have each group try again. Have someone from a group follow another groups instructions for each group.
Have the groups work together to have a final solution that you then attempt.