Dear Coding Space Families,
Thank you so much for being a part of our cherished community. We wake up excited every day to continue our mission to develop independent, creative, and confident young thinkers through learning to code, deepen our connections to all of our amazing students and families, and find new ways to make our classrooms thrive.
To that end, we’ve made some changes this year.
In the fall, we began asking ourselves hard questions about the ingredients of an optimal learning environment and how to best foster joyful, safe, and engaging spaces that celebrate our differences and change our perspectives on what is possible.
We looked first at our physical environment. We’ve added a variety of seating options, breakout areas, and sensory furniture and will continue to invest our time and energy here. In providing more choices and trusting our students to tell us what works best for them, we are empowering them to take control of their own learning space.
In addition to transforming our physical environment, we’re revitalizing our class format by making it more communicative and interactive. As we began sharing progress reports with you in the fall, we reflected on the importance of social and emotional health to cognitive development: We are better learners if we are in an environment that makes us feel connected, safe, and cared for. We’ve also realized how important it is to share all of this with you, our families, and partner with you in reaching your child’s full potential.
This semester we are making two changes towards achieving these aims:
We’re excited for what we believe will be the best semester yet at The Coding Space and to partner with our students as well as you, our families, to cultivate a learning environment where all of our students feel a sense of belonging, safety to take risks, ownership of how they will learn, and confidence to tackle any challenges they face. Thanks for your continued trust and support.
Sincerely,
Maddy Carter
Director of Curriculum & Operations
Scott Levenson
Managing Partner
Thank you so much for being a part of our cherished community. We wake up excited every day to continue our mission to develop independent, creative, and confident young thinkers through learning to code, deepen our connections to all of our amazing students and families, and find new ways to make our classrooms thrive.
To that end, we’ve made some changes this year.
In the fall, we began asking ourselves hard questions about the ingredients of an optimal learning environment and how to best foster joyful, safe, and engaging spaces that celebrate our differences and change our perspectives on what is possible.
We looked first at our physical environment. We’ve added a variety of seating options, breakout areas, and sensory furniture and will continue to invest our time and energy here. In providing more choices and trusting our students to tell us what works best for them, we are empowering them to take control of their own learning space.
In addition to transforming our physical environment, we’re revitalizing our class format by making it more communicative and interactive. As we began sharing progress reports with you in the fall, we reflected on the importance of social and emotional health to cognitive development: We are better learners if we are in an environment that makes us feel connected, safe, and cared for. We’ve also realized how important it is to share all of this with you, our families, and partner with you in reaching your child’s full potential.
This semester we are making two changes towards achieving these aims:
- Every student will receive a Coding Space notebook on their first day of class. Our intention in using them is: 1) to give our students a place to take notes and reflect on the obstacles they face and achievements to celebrate; 2) to provide our teachers ample opportunities to document progress, give feedback, and recommend projects to work on at home; and 3) to better involve you, our families, in the conversation. We will be asking students to bring their notebooks home, share them with you, and bring them back into class. We envision these as passports that they can keep with them along their coding journey, reminding them of where they’ve come from and building a sense of wonder about where they’ll go next.
- We will be introducing a formal beginning, middle, and end to our class structure. Instead of getting right to work on computers, we’ll use the first few minutes of class to check in with each student to see how they’re doing and set expectations for the day. How are they feeling? What will they work on? What challenge are they excited to try today? Midway through coding time, each class will participate in a brief STEM-related group activity that will allow them to reinvigorate their focus, connect with their classmates, and stretch their brains in new and different ways. We will close each class by asking students to share their struggles, achievements, and aspirations and reflect on them in their notebooks.
We’re excited for what we believe will be the best semester yet at The Coding Space and to partner with our students as well as you, our families, to cultivate a learning environment where all of our students feel a sense of belonging, safety to take risks, ownership of how they will learn, and confidence to tackle any challenges they face. Thanks for your continued trust and support.
Sincerely,
Maddy Carter
Director of Curriculum & Operations
Scott Levenson
Managing Partner