A child who spends endless hours playing games like Angry Birds on his or her smartphone could be spending those hours creating their own games and preparing for a future career through MindStride’s “Think Like a Computer Scientist” series, now offered at the MACC.
Instructor Dan Mailman previously taught the classes in Chattanooga at Art120, a nonprofit organization focused on funding arts education. The organization’s building on Main Street recently burned down, so he is bringing his computer programming classes to Signal Mountain.
Directed at ages 12 and older, the classes are separated into three-week sessions, with classes held Mondays from 4-6 p.m. He said the way he teaches programming is unique in that he teaches students to look at the big picture and solve an entire problem before they learn the basics – in other words, to think like a computer scientist.
“At the end, they will really understand thoroughly and well how a computer program works,” he said. “It’s an easy, gradual introduction to really complicated stuff.”
Someone who takes all of the classes offered at MACC would walk away with essentially the same skills as a college sophomore majoring in computer science, said Mailman.