Overview

Student Summer Coding Camps serve two primary goals. The first is to provide teachers with high–quality professional learning experience where they immediately apply their new coding skills in a relaxed instructional environment, guided under the leadership of mentor teachers, in order to boost teacher confidence and morale. The second is to provide students with a fun week of learning that helps them learn code and coding concepts in relevant and authentic scenarios and to spark an interest to pursue coding in more formal school settings. 

To accomplish this task, Lamar University partners with participating school districts to create and facilitate a series of Student Summer Coding Camps.  

Educators who direct a Student Summer Coding Camp are successful in:

• Providing instruction to students on the operation of Apple devices (iPads, MacBooks)
• Providing instruction to students on the operation of Apple MacOS and iOS software (Keynote, Pages, Clips, and others)
• Delivering select lessons to students from the Everyone Can Create and Everyone Can Code curriculum.
• Leading hands-on activities with students using Swift Playgrounds, Sphero SPRK+, and other resources.
• Leading students through the Apple Student App Showcase which incorporates a challenge-based learning activity and utilizes design thinking, prototyping, and UI/UX design. 

To prepare for camps, Lamar University:

• Develops Summer Student Coding Camps marketing materials, emails, and social media messages that are provided to school districts for promotional use. 
• Facilitates online student registrations for each district and school. 
• Provides teachers with sample camp schedules and logistical considerations that are then adapted or extended by participating teachers.
• Conducts virtual meetings with educators leading the Summer Student Coding Camps the week prior to the beginning of their camps, after the first day of camp, and as needed during the week of camp.