5 ways to make it easier for adults to learn to code.

If you want adults to learn to code, stop serving pizza.

That's just one of the lessons Kathryn Parsons, cofounder and co-CEO of global coding education provider Decoded, learned while helping people make the leap into programming. 

Not everyone will learn to code as an obsessed teenager in their bedroom. Some will need to learn digital skills as part of a change mid-career, while others may be managers fed up with not knowing what their developers do all day.

Speaking with Mashable Australia at the CeBIT technology conference in Sydney Monday, Parsons shared some of the tactics her company, which famously claims to teach coding in one day, uses to help people overcome their fears and get started with digital skills.

1. Put a human face on it

The media have made Sergey Brin and the rest of the current Silicon Valley founder crop into demi-gods, so it's no wonder coding seems imposing to outsiders. To help people begin the learning process, it's important to pull back the curtains and make it clear the Internet was created by humans, Parsons said. 

If you want to put coding on a human level, she suggested starting by answering these questions for students: "Who are the human beings who created this stuff? What does code actually look like? How can I use [code], contribute, collaborate, and become part of the community of the web?"

2. Build a community

At Decoded, learning to code is always a team activity. 

"It's not a lonely place," she said. "The smallest groups we do it with are 10 people. The largest group we've ever taught in one experience was 5,000 people. Talk about communal coding."

If people feel there is a world of coders and coding they can join, it might feel more welcoming. "There is this global community of coders, this open source community, collaborating and creating together," she said. "That's a really profound thing for a lot of people, because they just don't work in environments like that."

3. Make learning creative

While online learning has promise, it still suffers from incredibly high churn rates, Parsons said, with many dropping out halfway through the teaching process.

Students might find it easier to stick with coding if they think of it as a creative skill set. They should ask themselves, "How can I use the languages of the web to create the ideas that I've had in my head?" Parson said. "Creating and crafting those ideas without the tools? You can't do it."

That idea has informed the company's approach to teaching, added Chris Monk, Decoded's head in the Asia-Pacific. "We don't start with 'this is a variable and this is how it works.' We say, 'we're going to build an app.' We start with that creativity and then go on a journey, and I think that's the key to learning," he said.

"It's a mindset, Parsons added. "Convincing people that it's relevant, that it's something creative, that it's something anyone can do."

4. Don't teach, guide

Parsons said she aims to have Decoded's class facilitators act as guides rather than strict teachers.

The idea of guidance plays out in how they interact with students. "They never lean over anyone to correct their code," she explained. "That's incredibly disempowering."

Rather, students are encouraged to focus on problem solving. "It's kneeling down next to somebody, and not saying 'you're missing a semicolon on line 27' and just sticking it in," Monk added. "It's saying 'let's look again at that bit of code that's between line 24 to 30, and see if you can spot what's in there.'"

5. Think about the space. And the snacks

Decoded considers the physical environment important in the learning experience. "Generally, the space will be incredibly large," Parson said. "A real feeling of space and light. Why do we teach people in little dingy rooms?"

All the food is brainfood. "Coder food. Not pizza," she said. It could be lentils or a vegan lunch, but the aim is to keep your mind ticking over.

Best of all? "No quiche," Monk said, referring to the dull pastry that has been served at every tech event ever.