In the previous series, our Founder Mr Yong Ning Foo shared with us how our award-winning, MIT-inspired coding curriculum was thoughtfully created.

Today, in the second part of this Hear From Our Founder series, we sit down with Yong Ning and his two children and inspirations – Audrey and Mitchell, ages 9 and 7 respectively – who are students of Coding Lab themselves! Hear all about their experiences and get the answers to the most commonly asked questions about our curriculum.

It’s exciting to hear how the Coding Lab curriculum all came together at the start! Now that your children are old enough to join Coding Lab as students, would you say that you’ve successfully introduced your favourite subjects to them in a fun way?

Yong Ning: Audrey is now 9 years old and Michell is 7 years old, and they have been attending our Coding Lab preschool and Scratch classes. With the curriculum that we built, we devised the Coding Lab Way of teaching which was also inspired by my time at MIT.

Having a good curriculum is important; but I believe that having a good teacher can make all the difference in engaging your child the right way, and set the tone for their journey in technology. That is why I carefully select tutors who not only have the requisite technical skills, but who most importantly embody our passion to teach, love engaging and educating children. They form a team of nurturing and inspiring educators that I envision and am comfortable for my own children to learn from.

Audrey: I started with Scratch 1 and 2 when I was in Primary 1 and am now learning Cognitive Artificial Intelligence with my brother. I like coding because it’s fun and it also teaches me how to do different things. I can make my drawings come to life. For example, I can draw a unicorn and make it walk! 

Mitchell: I like coding because I can do a lot of stuff! It’s exciting and fun. I learnt how to move characters, to make the computer recognise the car number plate just by showing it more car number plates.

Audrey: I also learnt facial, speech and text recognition, such as making the computer recognise my face or my hair colour. It also guesses how old I am, and today I learnt to say something and the computer tells me whether the pronunciation is correct. 

Wow, it sounds like Audrey and Mitchell both really enjoy learning to code! I have a question that we always ask all of our featured students – what difficulties do you face when learning to code and how do you overcome them?

Mitchell: It is difficult sometimes because of typing the words and sometimes there are very long sentences! 

Audrey: He (Mitchell) always asks me to type it for him! For me, sometimes I have no idea what to draw or how to put the blocks together. I’ll try harder and do different combinations to get it to do what I want. 

Yong Ning: It’s interesting that Mitchell and Audrey brought these up! We always consider the curriculum’s suitability before creating and rolling it out. For example, our Scratch curriculum is adjusted to children Ages 7 to 9 who are still learning to type and spell.

This is the same for all the other age groups, especially our Junior Coders Programme where preschoolers ages 5 to 6 are still working on their spelling and fine motor skills (not the best at using the mouse or at typing yet). That’s why we incorporate kinaesthetic activities and use touchscreen tablets for this age group.

“Simply jump in and code. … The amazing thing about Coding is that it can be applied to practically everything.“

What is a common question that you get about the Coding Lab curriculum?

Yong Ning: Many parents enquire why their children spend so many hours learning a programming language, particularly Scratch (for Ages 7 to 9), when they should be moving on to other programming languages.

It’s not about how many programming languages one knows, but about the concept behind it. We focus on the true understanding of the codes and class material, as opposed to simply memorising or copying. Our students gain a critical understanding of Computational Thinking, which is applicable across all domains regardless of the programming language used, so they are able to quickly pick up any coding language in the future. 

This is why we spend so much time expanding our Scratch curriculum in the Young Computer Scientists programme, which has so many exciting research areas for students to go beyond the surface learn all about Music, animations in Movie Magic, Physics, Biology and Mathematical concepts such as geometry. Our students have come in top for many local and global competitions, and placed 1st in the National IMDA Code:Xtreme Competition (where Scratch was the software used). Such results are not by chance; this is due to our rigorous and carefully researched curriculum.

In fact, Scratch actually looks deceivingly easy. It has what is called “low floor, wide walls and high ceiling” and is a principle that guides MIT Media Lab in its design of the Scratch programming language. It allows newbies to get started easily (low floor), engage all kids from different backgrounds and interests to explore multiple pathways (wide walls) and create increasingly complex projects over time (high ceiling).

Scratch is also being taught as Harvard University’s introductory course in computer science. The platform gives students with no prior programming experience an introduction to the fundamentals of programming, as well as prepares them for the subsequent courses, which is what we strive to do here at Coding Lab.

Did you know? “Low floor, wide walls and high ceiling” is a phrase Mitchel Resnick credits to his mentor Seymour Papert (yes, our latest room Papert at the King Albert Park campus is named after him). Papert quoted this phrase as a way for technology to be effective.

 

“It’s not about how many programming languages one knows, but about the concept behind it. We focus on the true understanding of the codes and class material, as opposed to simply memorising or copying.”

Fun Fact! Our coding curriculum spans hundreds of teaching hours. For example, the roadmap for just Ages 7 to 9 has more than 150 teaching hours! 

How has the Coding Lab curriculum evolved?

Yong Ning: Technology is fast-changing, so we also ensure that our curriculum stays relevant to the times by constantly revising it and adding new courses. I am especially proud of our S200 Advanced Electives, which initially started out as a vision for our students to broaden their horizons and apply their knowledge in a new area of interest. This included learning more about Unity, C++, SQL, HTML, Django and more.

Such curriculum refreshers are not just for teenagers. The Cognitive Artificial Intelligence course that my children just attended is another example of one of our newer courses that debuted in 2022, as well as the most recent Minecraft: Code Your World course.

“You’ll have to think. Even if coding is hard, you can’t give up!”

There is no better subject to teach online than coding and it made me think about our students’ learning experiences and how we were truly nurturing future leaders in technology in more ways than one. We were one of the first to leverage online conferencing tools at our Japan-Singapore Competition training in early 2019. This helped us ensure a smooth transition during the period of Covid, where we had to move our classes online.

Today, we continue to offer online coding classes and it is always a pleasant surprise to hear that students from countries all over the world have joined in.

I’m sure it hasn’t been easy to build such a huge curriculum in the short few years. What’s in store for the future of Coding Lab’s curriculum, perhaps another 10 years down the road?

Yong Ning: Given the rapid pace of development in Coding and Technology, it is difficult for me to predict in detail our curriculum 10 years into the future.

However, there are a few constants in our curriculum. Firstly, our curriculum will continue to focus on equipping our students with Computational Thinking Skills which is highly transferable across domains and time. Secondly, our curriculum would have evolved with technological improvement to equip our students with knowledge of the latest technology and at the same time, utilise the latest technology to provide our students with the best learning experience. Finally, our curriculum will continue to be taught by passionate teachers, using the latest pedagogy to inspire and nurture our students to become future leaders in technology. 

Lastly, I have one last question: What advice do you have for kids who want to learn to code?

Audrey: You will have to think. Even if it’s hard, you can’t give up!

Yong Ning: Simply jump in and code. Be brave in experimenting and use it to create games, projects and contents which you are passionate about. The amazing thing about Coding is that it can be applied to practically everything. Applying Coding to a subject (context) which you love makes learning (Coding) much more fun, meaningful and purposeful. And at the same time, you will also develop new insights on the subject (context) through the application of Computational Thinking and further advance your understanding of the subject. 

Thank you to Mr Yong Ning Foo and his two children Audrey and Mitchell for taking the time to share with us about the Coding Lab curriculum! We love to hear the different experiences with the award-winning curriculum and we are so excited for what’s to come in the future.

At Coding Lab, we nurture future leaders in technology and we believe that everyone should learn to code. That includes your children. We invite you to experience our MIT-inspired, award-winning coding curriculum and the Coding Lab Way of teaching. View our classes here!

Coding Lab is honoured to have been recognised with numerous awards: 

• Parents’ World – 4-Time Best Coding Curriculum 2016/17-2019/20 
• Singapore’s Child Enrichment Awards 2018 – Best Coding Curriculum
• Little Magazine – School of the Year (Computer Science) 2017 
• Young Parents’ Magazine – voted Best Coding Programme. 

Our Coding Lab students have won medals at the MIT App Inventor Global Summit in USA, clinching numerous prizes, emerged as Best Coders at the Microsoft Minecraft Cup in Japan, and entered the school of their choice via the Direct School Admissions (DSA) exercise. We are proud to share that our students have achieved medals in the annual National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI), which is highly recognised for admissions to top universities. 

Read Coding Lab’s first-ever blog: I’d like to teach the world to code

Resilience and Reflection: A Chat with our Founders, Yong Ning Foo and Candice Wang

(Written by Cheryl Tang)

Best-in-class Curriculum for Coding

We are honoured to be the winner of multiple awards.

Thank You for your support.

Hop on board the Coding Lab train! Click here to get our monthly newsletters straight to your inbox.

A Peek Into Our Course: Advanced Computer Scientists (P21S) – Broad-Based Exposure to STEM Topics

Should my child DSA (Coding)? Coding Lab’s P300 Portfolio Preparation Programme for DSA

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Coding Lab Student Feature: Aarhan Salujah, 13, St Joseph’s Institution

Coding Lab Educator Feature: Ryan Wong

Fun Techtivities in August!

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Here at Coding Lab, we often talk about our MIT-inspired and award-winning coding curriculum for children and teenagers Ages 5-18. But have you ever wondered what it takes to craft and create such a best-in-class curriculum that would challenge and engage kids at the right level? How do we make decisions about the curriculum and what are some frequently asked questions?

As a full scholarship recipient from the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a former Regional Director in a US multinational company, with experience in a technology startup in Silicon Valley, Mr Yong Ning Foo shares with us why he chose to enter the education industry and the process of creating the award-winning Coding Lab curriculum.

Hi Mr Yong Ning, can you share with us your inspiration for starting Coding Lab?

Yong Ning: I founded Coding Lab out of a desire to prepare my two children and their peers for the technological future. Just like how English and Math are important, I firmly believe that technology is going to play a huge role in my kids’ lives and I wanted to equip our future leaders with the best skills to create meaningful changes and innovative solutions in the world. In a way, I also wanted to introduce my favourite subject to them through fun! 

By the time I was satisfied with the curriculum I had come up with to teach my own kids to code, I already knew that I had found my purpose and was determined to do my part to teach the world to code.

It’s interesting that you wanted to teach your own children to code! How did it progress to become teaching thousands to code through Coding Lab?

Yong Ning: The journey all began when I was researching how I could teach my children to code to prepare them for the future. I was excited to utilise my strengths (in computers, coding and logical thinking) to develop an engaging and effective curriculum. With programmes like Scratch, kids can now learn to code at a young age, comparable to teaching them Science or the piano and I was excited to curate a magical curriculum that is age-appropriate and which would gift them essential computational thinking skills for life.

At the same time, I was coaching a few team members at work on automating their analytical work and I realised that the world would really be more efficient if everyone knew how to code. This was back in 2015, and after listening to a TED talk by Mitchel Resnick (one of the developers of Scratch) on the way to work, the spark was ignited.

Back then, my daughter Audrey was 2 years old and learning to walk and talk while my son Mitchell was just a newborn (his name was partially inspired by Mitchel Resnick – coincidentally it was one of the names we were considering – watching the TED Talk of him just helped us to decide and confirm on the name). By the time I was satisfied with the curriculum I had come up with to teach my own kids to code, I already knew that I had found my purpose and was determined to do my part to teach the world to code. 

Can you share with us more about your process of creating the Coding Lab curriculum?

Yong Ning: The initial research I did was almost like writing a thesis! I also considered my own personal experiences and I wanted to create something that would excite others the same way. I remember when I got my first computer when I was 15, where I built my own websites and tinkered with my home router. I loved computers and programming so much that I went on to pursue a Masters in Computational Engineering at MIT.

Of course, the Coding Lab curriculum wasn’t based solely on my own personal experiences. I gathered a global team of curriculum developers and technology advisors who are experts in the field to embark on this journey with me. Many of them work in companies such as Microsoft, Credit Suisse and LinkedIn. Tapping into everyone’s expertise, we designed the Coding Lab curriculum. 

We made decisions based on scientific evidence such as incorporating the inquiry-based learning that I experienced at MIT for our curious young minds. We also wanted children to learn effectively while having fun, so this meant getting hands-on. All the way through to 18 years old, our curriculum emphasises on Mathematics, and weaves in other topics, such as Biology and Physics, or hands-on elements that cover hardware add-ons and robotics, such as Photon, mBot, and Micro:bit. The programming that they learn ensures real-world relevance so that our students will be future-ready and able to develop top-notch solutions for companies or their community.

It has been a while since the first iterations of the Coding Lab curriculum, and we have now grown to a progressive roadmap of coding classes for ages 5 to 18. Many of the considerations used in the process of creating it, still hold today as we continue to innovate. 

“I believe that having a good teacher can make all the difference in engaging your child the right way, and set the tone for their journey in technology.”

What challenges did you face with creating the Coding Lab curriculum?

Yong Ning: One challenge that comes to mind is the fact that even within a particular age group (Eg. Ages 10-12), we may come across huge differing abilities. How then, do we keep all students in a class of 8 engaged? We’ve therefore tailored our curriculum to accomodate learners of different abilities. We also train our tutors to apply differentiated teaching in tandem with our curriculum map. This ensures that the faster learners are challenged whilst at the same time allowing the core concepts to be taught and reinforced for the rest of the students.

How did you decide on teaching Scratch for Ages 7 to 9, MIT App Inventor for Ages 10 to 12, and Python for Ages 10 to 18?

Yong Ning: Aside from all the research, we also looked at competitions for those age groups and used this information to identify the coding languages that would be most suitable for that age group. We aimed to set them up for success in a conducive learning environment and to see our students thriving and emerging as winners was a great encouragement.

For example, we sent a team of our students – Aaron, Adam, Anthony and Joshua – to compete in the global MIT App Inventor Summit all the way to my alma mater in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. They ended up winning the top 3 awards and did Singapore proud!

Sarah Go is another student who comes fondly to my mind. When she joined us in 2017, she was a complete beginner to coding. After 6 months, she took part in the National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI) and obtained the Honourable Mention. This is not an easy feat even for seasoned coders – and especially since she had just started coding. Fueled by her passion for coding, she then paid it forward by becoming one of our volunteer tutors. She is now on a 4-year scholarship reading Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas. It is rewarding to see her grow in aptitude and attitude, and pursue a degree in Computer Engineering after her time with us at Coding Lab. 

“It was Coding Lab that sparked my interest in coding. I took my first steps in Python, a programming language, and fell in love with coding. I faced a steep learning curve, but I enjoyed every minute of it!”
– Sarah Go, 20 years old

Thank you Mr Yong Ning Foo for taking the time to share with us about the MIT-inspired curriculum! Look out for Part II of this blog series, where Yong Ning’s children, Audrey and Mitchell, share with us their experiences as students of Coding Lab.

We nurture future leaders in technology and we believe that everyone should learn to code. That includes your children. We invite you to experience our MIT-inspired, award-winning coding curriculum and the Coding Lab Way of teaching. View our classes here!

Coding Lab is honoured to have been recognised with numerous awards: 

• Parents’ World – 4-Time Best Coding Curriculum 2016/17-2019/20 
• Singapore’s Child Enrichment Awards 2018 – Best Coding Curriculum
• Little Magazine – School of the Year (Computer Science) 2017 
• Young Parents’ Magazine – voted Best Coding Programme. 

Our Coding Lab students have won medals at the MIT App Inventor Global Summit in USA, clinching numerous prizes, emerged as Best Coders at the Microsoft Minecraft Cup in Japan, and entered the school of their choice via the Direct School Admissions (DSA) exercise. We are proud to share that our students have achieved medals in the annual National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI), which is highly recognised for admissions to top universities. 

Read Coding Lab’s first-ever blog: I’d like to teach the world to code

Resilience and Reflection: A Chat with our Founders, Yong Ning Foo and Candice Wang

(Written by Cheryl Tang)

Best-in-class Curriculum for Coding

We are honoured to be the winner of multiple awards.

Thank You for your support.

Hop on board the Coding Lab train! Click here to get our monthly newsletters straight to your inbox.

A Peek Into Our Course: Advanced Computer Scientists (P21S) – Broad-Based Exposure to STEM Topics

Should my child DSA (Coding)? Coding Lab’s P300 Portfolio Preparation Programme for DSA

View Our Classes

Coding Lab Student Feature: Aarhan Salujah, 13, St Joseph’s Institution

Coding Lab Educator Feature: Ryan Wong

Fun Techtivities in August!

Congratulations to our 7 winners at the Hwa Chong Infocomm Challenge 2022!

All About NFTs, Simplified

Join our LIVE online classes!

Ages 5-6 | Ages 7-9 | Ages 10-12 | Ages 13-18

Call us at +65 6977 9641
Email us at [email protected]
Chat with us via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger

We’re proud to announce that 7 of our Coding Lab students have achieved 3 Platinum Awards (the highest honour) and 4 Gold Awards (the second highest honour)!

The annual Hwa Chong Info-communications Challenge (HCIC) aims to ignite the interest of primary school students in the field of info-communications, as well as to recognise young talents in the areas of programming, coding and robotics. This year, the competition was held on the afternoon of 26 May 2022, with Primary 6 participants from Singapore and the equivalent of Primary 5 or 6 students from overseas centres.

Presenting to you Coding Lab’s 7 Award Winners at the HCIC:

Platinum Awards

Aidan Sin, 12
Ahmad Dzuizz Annajib, 12
Isaac Khong, 12

Gold Awards

Fu Yu Zhong, 12
Nicholas Lam, 12
Tan Zheng Kai, 12
Evan Chua, 12

Congratulations to our students! The competition comprised 2 sections that tested them on programming logic, robotics knowledge and Python programming language. We are proud that they have excelled and we celebrate their achievements! We look forward to seeing what else they will code and achieve.

Our students – Aidan, Isaac, Yu Zhong, Nicholas, Zheng Kai and Evan – all started coding with us (most for the first time ever!) in our P200 series from as young as 9 years old, and we are thrilled to see their efforts and coding abilities being recognised. Evan started from Scratch and we are so proud to see him grow in his skills and to achieve an award. We are also happy to have Dzuizz joining our National Olympiad in Informatics class in July to continue his exciting learning journey in programming!

You may recall Isaac Khong, one of our students who won Social Impact Award and Judges’ Choice (Most Innovative) in our International Coding Showcases (SG-JP) held in 2020 and 2021.

Read Isaac Khong’s blog feature with his sister Alicia here and catch his video interview too!

Whilst we celebrate our students’ success in this arena, we recognise that competitive programming is merely a subset of the full scope of programming. Many of our students have achieved success in wider aspects; whether it’s creating a Stock Rating Algorithm, a Real-Time Carpark Tracker, a prize-winning app or attaining an overseas scholarship to read Computer Science at University, we’re here to support our students every step of the way.

Interested to find out more? Check out the Python Programming and Elective courses we offer for Secondary school and Junior College students.

Read: 1st Position in the Hwa Chong Infocomm Challenge 2019, Ang Jun Ray

Also Read: Congratulations to our 8 Medallists in NOI 2022 Qualification Contest!

(Written by Cheryl Tang)

Best-in-class Curriculum for Coding

We are honoured to be the winner of multiple awards.

Thank You for your support.

Hop on board the Coding Lab train! Click here to get our monthly newsletters straight to your inbox.

A Peek Into Our Course: Advanced Computer Scientists (P21S) – Broad-Based Exposure to STEM Topics

Should my child DSA (Coding)? Coding Lab’s P300 Portfolio Preparation Programme for DSA

View Our Classes

Coding Lab Student Feature: Aarhan Salujah, 13, St Joseph’s Institution

Coding Lab Educator Feature: Ryan Wong

Fun Techtivities in August!

Congratulations to our 7 winners at the Hwa Chong Infocomm Challenge 2022!

All About NFTs, Simplified

Join our LIVE online classes!

Ages 5-6 | Ages 7-9 | Ages 10-12 | Ages 13-18

Call us at +65 6977 9641
Email us at [email protected]
Chat with us via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger