Coding 5K Challenge
San Jose Public Library, Calif.
Innovation Synopsis
As part of San Jose Public Library’s commitment to increasing quality STEM programming for Silicon Valley students, the Coding 5K Challenge pilot increases access to coding focused programs, deepens the quality of the programming through assessment tools and expert volunteers and increases capacity to serve 5,000 unduplicated students by the year 2020.
Challenge/Opportunity
Coding experiences expose students to new learning opportunities, and build skills that reinforce academic success creativity, risk-taking and collaboration. With more than 270,000 K-12 students in San José, SJPL is committed to providing even more opportunities for coding experience to students across the city, especially in historically underrepresented neighborhoods.
Key Elements of Innovation
For the pilot iteration of the Coding 5K Challenge, SJPL piloted the new curriculum in five branches, while continuing existing programming at other sites. In partnership with local school districts through the City-led School/City Collaborative, a coding champion at each pilot branch was trained on the curriculum, and gave ongoing feedback to the Education Initiatives Manager. Each branch chose one to three courses of varying grade levels, length of study and coding language focus to pilot.
Achieved Outcomes
One-hundred fifty students participated in the Coding 5K pilot courses, exploring programming languages like Scratch, Java and Python. Tech professionals served as volunteer instructors for these courses, allowing students access to industry mentorship. SJPL is currently synthesizing the learning from this pilot, and expansion to five new sites is planned. The library is also partnering with Moreland School District to run Coding 5K courses during their afterschool programs at eight schools in September!
