Coding Club: a K-12 good practice for a STEM learning community

Abstract

STEM learning communities provide a structure for social interactions among students, their peers and STEM professionals that benefit students to acquire computational literacy and persistence in science disciplines. Focusing on STEM skills development at secondary education level, a female Computer Science teacher at the 7th public Junior High school of Athens Greece, founded the voluntary Coding Club “GreekCodersK12”. This K-12 education initiative ran for 4 years (2015-2019), formed a learning community based on creativity, innovation and digital skills enhancement and collaborated with researchers, professionals, scientists who contributed voluntarily in the Club’s projects. This paper presents the experiences gained and the lessons learned during this four-year period and throws light on the role of a potential Coding Club founder. The results of this learning path, indicate that a Coding Club is an inclusive after-school programme that can function as an umbrella for innovative activities like programming, educational robotics, STEM, STEAM and ESTEAM (Entrepreneurship – Science – Technology – Engineering – Art – Mathematics).