NewTechKids is organizing a special five-week teacher training pilot program which will prepare primary school teachers to introduce computer science and coding concepts to students in groups 1-8 (ages 4-12). The program will be taught in the context of 21st century skills related to critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, creativity and collaboration. The program takes place from May 11 - June 8, 2016 in Amsterdam. NewTechKids is partnering with the Amsterdam Municipal Library (Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam) to host the
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NewTechKids is happy to be featured in the January edition of PrimaOnderwijs, one of the Netherlands's leading magazines on education trends servicing school directors and teachers. The feature article focuses on our teacher training programs and how we prepare teachers to teach computer science, programming and technological literacy in the context of 21st century skills development: problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and communication. The article outlines NewTechKids' pedagogy, teaching approaches, classroom management strategies and our use
Read moreNewTechKids is proud to share our report of the EU Code Week 2015 teacher training pilot program we organised in September and October 2015. We partnered with TomTom, the Dutch technology company, to launch a pilot program aimed at creating a scaling model for technology education in primary schools. Specifically, this model engaged both primary school teachers and students around computational thinking and coding. NewTechKids trained 75 primary school teachers from schools in Amsterdam and
Read moreParents are often shocked when we tell them that during our programs, we teach core technology, programming and computer science concepts through pen and paper exercises, role-play games, and design and prototyping activities using simple materials such as cardboard boxes and blocks. Others wonder why, in an era of computers and gadgets, apps and programming languages made especially for kids, we teach many no tech lessons. We’ve developed our pedagogy and teaching approaches based on the
Read moreNewTechKids achieved a major milestone last week. Over the course of five training sessions, we trained 75 primary school teachers in Amsterdam and Delft to teach our 'intro to coding' lesson to students aged 4-8 during EU Code Week 2015 (October 10-18). Our lesson doesn't focus on technical coding skills. Instead, we focus on exposing young kids to concepts such as coding, commands, algorithms and automation. It was so encouraging to see teachers from Dutch and international
Read moreNewTechKids is happy to announce an academic research partnership with Leiden University. Under the partnership, NewTechKids' programs will become a platform where quality control research will be conducted on our pedagogy, teaching approaches, curricula and lesson plans. Tessa Slim, a Master's of Education student at the University, will conduct the research to assess whether NewTechKids' technology, programming and computer science programs for primary school aged children help kids improve their higher order thinking and problem-solving
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