Coding and Game Development - Part 1 (Introduction)

This 8 week course is designed for students ages 7 to 12 who have no prior coding experience. Each week will consist of a one-hour live, online lesson and a few independent practice exercises to reinforce the concepts discussed in class.

Over the course of these 8 weeks, we will start with the basics — how to run your first line of code — and progress to writing functions and developing a game. Students will use JavaScript for all lessons, but concepts will be presented in a language-agnostic way. By the end of the course students should have the skills required to independently build a simple, personalized game.

But learning to code is so much more than just memorizing the syntax. In addition to discussing the fundamental concepts in a robust way, students will be encouraged to develop good thinking habits, like: precise communication, asking questions, running experiments to answer those questions, weighing tradeoffs, and clearly identifying unknowns. These skills, often introduced much later in life, will help students build a foundation for a lifetime of effective learning, thinking, and questioning.

I’ve put together a rough schedule for this class, but we may deviate from it slightly, depending on the challenges that students encounter and the problems that they’re most interested in.

Week 1: What is coding? What will you build?
- Discuss: What is coding? What can you do with coding? What will you learn in this course?
- Robot Instructions: Practice precise communication by telling a “robot” how to perform simple tasks
- Variables: What is a variable? How to make a new one
- Simple Data Types: Numbers and Strings
- Practice Exercises: Reading and writing robot instructions, Variables about you

Week 2: How to Read Code, Functions
- How to change and use variables
- How to read and simplify code like a computer
- What are Functions?
- Practice Exercises: Reading Code Like a Computer, Practice with Functions

Week 3: Boolean Logic
- Boolean Values: True or False
- Boolean Questions: ===, are these items equal? 
- What are If Statements?
- Practice Exercises: When to Use Boolean Values, Practice with If Statements

Week 4: Loops
- More Boolean Questions: >, <
- What are While Loops?
- Practice Exercises: Practice with Boolean Operators, Practice with While Loops

Week 5: Arrays
- What are Arrays? How can you use them?
- Guided Experimentation: Length, Push, Pop, Access-by-Index - What do these do? 
- Practice Exercises: Array Method Review. Practice with Arrays

Week 6: Combining Arrays and Loops
- Practice reading more complicated functions that use arrays and loops
- How could you use a loop to build up a long array of numbers?
- Time to plan and focus on game project
- Practice Exercises: Reading and Writing Functions

Week 7: Problem Solving Practice
- Apply the tools you’ve learned so far to open-ended problems and puzzles
- Time to work on game
- Practice Exercises: Reading and Writing Functions

Week 8: Review, Game Wrap Up, Next Steps
- Review of everything we’ve covered so far
- Time to work on game
- Next Steps: How to keep working on your game, Other classes, Review sheet