As an educator and visionary leader, Elizabeth Tweedale has spent her career creating opportunities for children to be both successful and future-ready. Several years ago, Tweedale launched Cypher Coding, a series of fun and engaging coding camps and clubs for school children aged 5-12. The program, led by Tweedale and a hand-selected team of some of the top computer science and coding instructors in the UK, was an instant success, revealing – and responding to – a growing need for tech classes designed exclusively for children.
Now, Tweedale is bringing her groundbreaking program to the United States, launching Coco Coders to fill the gap that many students experience when it comes to computer science education. It is a personal mission for Tweedale and her team – a way to elevate the quality of education in the United States by giving young students the tools they will need to compete for jobs in an evolving digital landscape. In essence, Coco Coders is empowering children to build their own futures.
“When we look at the job market and the shortage of technologically proficient professionals to fill those jobs, right now we see a lot of employers that are trying to upskill their existing staff,” Tweedale explains. “But if we take a step back and look at what is missing in our education system, there is a need for education to transform to meet those demands.”
While American education has traditionally wisely emphasized literacy and numeracy, Tweedale stresses the importance of including computer science as a foundational skill.
“At Coco Coders, we like to say that we are not trying to create a world full of little computer scientists and coders,” Tweedale says. “But when we all attended school, we all learned our times tables without becoming mathematicians; we learned to read and write without becoming authors. Computer science and coding are fundamentals that should be injected into our education system.”
While it may sound like an audacious claim – a dramatic transformation to a system that has been historically slow to change – Elizabeth Tweedale has the rare combination of experience and passion for making it seem possible. She also has the success record to prove it can be done.
After founding a successful AI company, GoSpace AI, Tweedale shifted her focus to teaching computer science and coding to children. In addition to leading Cypher – one of the leading coding schools in the United Kingdom – Tweedale is the author of several coding books for children. She and her team have spent years developing and testing their curriculum, which makes Coco Coders not simply another EdTech platform for children – it is a program that is backed by some of the leading minds in both technology and education.
Students meet once per week for one-hour online sessions, grouped together in cohorts that are intentionally limited to only a few children. This allows the instructors to maximize their learning time and gives the children the opportunity to not only develop their computer science skills but to form meaningful relationships with their online classmates. Tweedale and her team have discovered that this model provides the greatest learning outcomes for their students.
“We have taught over 12,000 students, and we can say wholeheartedly that for children learning this subject, the most effective strategy is the little-and-often approach,” Tweedale says. “Students can make big leaps in understanding during our summer camps, but the rigor of meeting once a week throughout the year, with some homework or challenges in between those meetings, really sets the foundation for their learning and success.”
With Coco Coders now available throughout the United States, parents who want to prepare their children for the future have a successful, affordable program at their fingertips. When it comes to education, technology, and the future of work, this is welcome news indeed.
To learn more about Elizabeth Tweedale and Coco Coders, visit www.cococoders.com.
