Young Thinkers for the 21st Century

The purpose of the Young Thinkers for the 21st Century Project is to help students attain 21st Century Competencies through the promotion of the Joy of Learning and Entrepreneurial Dare and encouraging innovation in the mind of students. These competencies are essential learning dispositions that we would like to instill in our students to help them to prepare for more opportunities in the new digital age.

The team, comprising staff from West Grove Primary School (WGPS) and Pioneer Primary School (PPS), conceptualized this collaboration after the W3 ICT Support Group met to organise the Computational Thinking through Coding Workshop in July 2018. The two schools met up to discuss the possibilities of tapping on digital technology to spark the joy of learning in students and yet promote thinking skills. Brainstorming of ideas was done and the two schools customised coding training based on the needs of their students and ensured alignment to their schools’ Strategic Thrusts. This year, the programmes were further refined to allow the coding to align with learning in the various subject areas where appropriate.

WGPS’s Young Thinkers enrichment programme employs a three-prong approach, consisting of a THINK curriculum from the 21st CC Framework, a Smart Physical Set-up Space (We-Hub) and a New Cyber Wellness Curriculum. The coding activities for the Young Thinkers enrichment programme happen during Friday recesses for all levels. All students have opportunities to tinker with Makey Makey coding sets; learn to code with blocks using Scratch 2.0; learn to code an app with Bitsbox; and to take part in activities to explore coding with Micro:bit controllers and Parrot Drones. Additionally, the programme continues during the InfoComm Club sessions for the duration of the project. During and after some of the activities, students are provided with guided reflection forms or activity charts to make their thinking visible and to document the work done by the students.

For PPPS, the spin off from Makey Makey at cluster activity for Pri 4 students last year training had led the school to roll out Microbits training for all Pri 3 students this year. The learning of coding has helped students to develop computational thinking skills as well as problem-solving skills. The students will be able to make use of these skills in their Mathematics learning as well as other subject areas. The project will be scaled up through the school ALP 21CC Project Work so that students could be nurtured to be confident and proficient in their thinking and communication skills.