What do an opera singer in San Francisco, a chef in Australia and a political scientist in Singapore all have in common? They’re all learners at Codecademy, an interactive online platform that teaches people from all walks of life — and on all seven continents — to code.
“I’ve had days where I’ve talked to someone in Chile, and then someone in Poland and then someone in Southeast Asia,” said Sarah Page, a senior product designer. “We do user research and usability sessions — there’s a lot of opportunities to connect with learners and hear their stories about how Codecademy has impacted them and opened the doors to new careers, which is incredibly meaningful and cool.”
Online learning is more relevant than ever in 2021, but that doesn’t make it easy. It takes a combination of innovative technology, content-rich curriculum and interactive pedagogy to effectively engage online learners and help them achieve the skills and confidence they need to begin a new vocation.
That’s why Codecademy’s success with millions of learners around the globe is so intriguing. What exactly is Codecademy doing — in both pedagogical and curricular terms — that successfully engages so many people in such a wide variety of cultures and contexts?
To take a deep dive into what makes online learning at Codecademy so unique, Built In NYC sat down with Senior Curriculum Manager Zoe Bachman, Senior Product Designer Sarah Page and Product Manager Daniel O’Duffy. What we discovered not only revealed the ingenuity and passion behind Codecademy’s business model and workforce, but also the intricate manner in which human beings can best grow and learn.
Zoe, you used to be an art teacher — what brought you to Codecademy?
Bachman: Something that drew me to Codecademy was that it had long been known as a place that makes teaching accessible. I was an art teacher for many years, and I wanted to learn how to code so I could teach my students how to code. But there really weren’t many opportunities to learn programming outside of community college courses or books. And then a friend told me about Codecademy. He said, look, there’s a bunch of different free courses here, you can learn HTML and you can have students learn HTML.
Years later, when I was applying for this job, I was really excited, because tech is oftentimes known as a place that is still working towards being more diverse and becoming a place that isn't just siloed in Silicon Valley. So I think a huge part of Codecademy’s mission is that it attracts a lot of people — to Sarah’s point, around the world — that learn how to code in a way that is fun, accessible and engaging.
I think a huge part of Codecademy’s mission is that it attracts a lot of people that learn how to code in a way that is fun, accessible and engaging.”
Let’s talk about learner engagement. Codecademy has a reputation for using a hands-on approach, but how do you create that approach in an entirely digital setting?
Bachman: We have a very robust online learning environment, which is where most of our content lives. And what’s unique about the learning environment at Codecademy as opposed to some other places that teach programming online — particularly through video — is that at Codecademy you’re not simply watching someone code and then replicating that code on your own. You’re being guided through writing your own programs and then actually having those programs evaluated in real time.
We could tell a learner, OK, you’re learning Python now. We want you to write a print statement, which is one of the first things people do when they’re first learning a language. We then have the learners try to write the statement, “hello world.” It sounds simple, but these beginning lessons are where the first errors come in.
Page: To add to that, another important factor is that the feedback our learners get is automatic. It’s really satisfying for them to see right away what their mistake might be and to get an opportunity to correct it. This creates learning experiences that are universal.
How does this learning experience translate to the real world?
O’Duffy: We have projects that map to the types of things that learners could experience later on as a professional developer. So a learner will be forced to make their own decisions to solve a particular problem on our platform, and without realizing it they are also experiencing something that would occur later in a day-to-day job. I think that that’s a cool little Easter egg that our learners probably don't even know about at the time.
Another very important aspect of reaching an objective with coding is that it’s not just a solo activity. In the real world, developers work with each other. So at Codecademy, we facilitate learners meeting one another — especially those who started the program at a similar time and have a similar objective. We give them instructions woven into their overall experience, connecting with others in ways that simulates what real-world developers do on the job, like pair programming and code review. This is something that is pretty rare to see in an educational program.
How do you achieve this level of synergy and realism in your lessons?
O’Duffy: I’d say that for the Learner Experience Team — which all three of us are a part of — our roadmap is built based on certain pedagogical principles in particular, one of them being Bloom’s taxonomy. We want to get people from having received a fact to being able to create something using that fact. We want the training wheels to come off.
Bachman: I was reading this popular learning science book called “Make It Stick.” And one of the points was that the best way to present material when you’re teaching it is in the form factor that you would actually experience it. The classic example is that learning soccer via video isn’t going to be as instructive as actually hitting the ball yourself. What’s great about our platform is that it immediately brings a learner into that simulated environment where they can say, “I’m doing this myself, right now and in the ideal conditions.” This is what the Learner Experience Team, through our collaborative environment, is trying to create.
The best way to present material when you’re teaching it is in the form factor that you would actually experience it.”
What’s a specific example of a time Codecademy’s collaborative environment came in handy?
Bachman: Last year, we were looking at how to get people job ready, and we heard feedback that our learners wanted a bigger project that walked them through a pretty significant achievement, like building an e-commerce app. And so we had this idea of the “Portfolio Project,” which would be the creation of that significant achievement. This was an experience of listening to feedback, and the implementation for the Portfolio Project required extensive cross-collaborative efforts.
O’Duffy: Something that’s pretty interesting about the cross-collaborative and cross-functional nature of our team — particularly with learner experience — is how much the engineering team can and should provide input. In part, this is because our engineers have achieved the thing that our learners want to achieve themselves. So it’s about having our engineers as thought partners in what we design, and that’s pretty cool.
Do you often hear success stories from learners at Codecademy?
Page: Absolutely. I talked to this guy a couple of weeks ago who was really proud of his accomplishments. He went from chef to developer in a year during the pandemic, and it was so cool to hear his story. He was really excited and very proud, and he used Codecademy to get there.
Bachman: As you can tell, we’re all extremely passionate about the work that we do, because we really care about the learners that we serve. So it’s incredible, as Sarah was saying, when learners tell us that they have this new job and we helped change their life in a really material way. It’s just awesome to see people who really align around that mission. We’re excited to be at work every day and really eager to collaborate with one another.
