A program designed at CU-Boulder to teach kids to code using video games is being introduced into New York City public schools as part of an initiative to give every student access to computer science education.
Scalable Game Design is a program developed over two decades by computer science professor Alexander Repenning to spark an interest in coding among kids by allowing them to design and build their own video games. “The idea behind the program, which uses drag-and-drop programming tools, is to combat the widely held notion that computer programming is hard and boring,” says Repenning.
“In the context of creating their own games, students are not only incredibly excited but they also learn sophisticated concepts of math and science in ways that would be very difficult with traditional teaching approaches,” Repenning says.
The Scalable Game Design curriculum, built by CU-Boulder and funded by the National Science Foundation, is also frequently used in Colorado middle schools. Its popularity has begun to spread across the country and internationally. Now, Repenning and his team are partnering with the New York City Foundation for Computer Science Education, a nonprofit launched in 2013 to ensure that all of New York City’s 1.1 million public school students in 1,700 schools have access to computer science education.
“This is an amazing opportunity to reach a large number of students,” Repenning says. “There’s a great energy right now that people really want to take computer science education seriously, and we think this initiative has great potential.” The Scalable Game Design Curriculum encourages teachers to steer away from lecturing, and instead, allow students to explore on their own until they hit a roadblock and ask to learn the skill that will help them continue to progress.