Unpacking Various Entry Points into Innovative Teaching with Jorge Valenzuela

In this interview with Jorge Valenzuela, we discuss the importance of engineering in STEM, situating computational thinking within a problem, getting started with computational thinking and computer science, project-based learning, incorporating social and emotional learning (SEL) in the classroom, Jorge’s approach to professional development, and much more.

Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each episode of this podcast is either a
solo episode where i unpack some
scholarship in relation to computer
science education or an episode where i
interview a guest or multiple guests
in this week's interview i'm speaking
with george valenzuela and in our
conversation we discussed the importance
of engineering and stem situating
computational thinking within a problem
getting started with computational
thinking and computer science
project-based learning incorporating
social and emotional learning sel in the
classroom and george's approach to
professional development and so much
more there are many different books and
podcasts and other resources that are
mentioned throughout this episode and
you can find those easily by going to
jared o'leary.com
and clicking on the podcast tab or by
clicking the link in the app that you're
listening to this on it'll take you
directly to the show notes in addition
there are hundreds if not thousands of
free computer science resources on my
website including a link to boot up
pd.org which is the nonprofit that i
create free curriculum for and with all
that being said we will now begin this
introduction by george hey i'm george
valenzuela i'm an education coach author
and advocate based in virginia i travel
all over the country now virtually of
course all over the world and i get to
coach educators in several heavy lifts
some of the initiatives are stem
computer science equity and seo
project-based learning but i do that
through instructional design and through
teaching practices so if you were to
write a story about your life what would
the title of the chapters be so one of
the things that i'm working on now is
figuring out
what people need
as a podcaster i
have a show producer and so our show
producer is very much in tune with the
research and what audiences want and so
what i'm learning is that we can't be
pretentious or we shouldn't be
pretentious if we are then the audience
will eat us up eventually and second we
have to hit on their pain points and so
what i would do is i would write a book
where i would share my personal insights
on things that i know
playing other people and so the
introduction would just you know
basically be my why
or writing this book two
what i've seen is that folks really need
to get a handle on emotions and being
able to loop into their
current emotions
especially the ones that really trouble
them and so i say chapter one would be
all about emotional intelligence helping
people with their personal but also
their social competence because we
really need both
chapter two would be about finding your
passion i think that
with most of the people i've seen or
that i've met
is that you're struggling to find
happiness and to find joy
and so i think that if you
focus on things that you enjoy doing
then you'll be happy right and so if you
find that one thing that you really love
the most
and become an expert at that thing
then not right away
but eventually other people will seek
you out on that expertise
there's a book named outliers by malcolm
gladwell and he basically
tells stories about folks that are at
the top of their field or were at the
top of their field like steve jobs
bill gates michael jordan michael
jackson people like this and so he's
basically saying that they all have the
that they spend three hours a day
their craft and so if you become an
expert
at your passion then you'll be able to
flip that into a purpose by helping
other people and so that is chapter
three i'm not sure exactly what the
other chapters would be at this point
but i just think that that would be a
helpful thing for
educators it provides a framework and
some steps yeah i like that one of the
things that i'd recommend for like high
school students when i used to teach
that is they would ask well i don't
really know what i want to do in life
and my recommendation at the time was
well what are you passionate about how
can you find a way to support yourself
through that passion whatever it may be
if you're really interested in making
music awesome there are many ways that
you can make money doing music not just
as a performer maybe you also enjoy
writing maybe you could write about
people who perform and you could become
a journalist and travel the world doing
that like there's many different unique
things you can do
when you look at your passion from
different perspectives and whatnot yeah
that's true man yeah i think that a lot
of people if they focus on their passion
and flipping it into a purpose and
helping other people i think that they
would eliminate
a lot of their sadness what comes to
mind when you think of what an engaging
learning experience might look like or
sound like well initially i would have
to say pbl but that's you know because
of my own experiences right
project-based learning really offers
educators a framework when done right
for
defining the student experience
intellectual challenge and
accomplishment collaboration reflection
working with others public products
these are things that
a young person or really any person
would need in order to get the most out
of learning
and so i don't think that
we can really do that if we have a
textbook in a lecture if we're reading
books only alone i think that learning
experiences have to be well designed and
once they're well designed adjustments
can be made therein i'm wondering what
experiences in education led you to
answer that particular way because i
also agree but i'm curious like do we
align with some of our experiences or do
we diverge et cetera oh no no so i used
to be a curriculum specialist in a
formal life and so what that means is
that i was responsible for
i'd say about 40 teachers
i was responsible for their curriculum
or how it's taught pd
conferences everything
you name it and so
when i became a curriculum specialist i
was 33 years old and i was pretty naive
i thought that every
teacher understood exactly how to teach
them how to plan it how to facilitate it
and really how to seek out resources
and so i was wrong about that and i
found out that i was wrong when our
school district decided to use
understanding by design
ubd
as a template for lesson planning and so
that's backward design planning and
i
was realizing that what i was reading on
the lesson plans on some of the teachers
really
wasn't stem
but really
wasn't
understandable
in the beginning
and so i said okay let me write my own
lesson plan and as i was writing it i
realized that i didn't fully understand
what was going on myself
meaning at the time i didn't understand
what scaffolding was
what learning goals how to write
learning goals i should say
and so
i started to seek out my other
counterparts in other counties in
virginia and so i reached out to
virginia beach and i met with a few of
the specialists we had skype back then
that was a few years ago almost a decade
ago actually
and that's when they said to us that if
you want to do experiential learning
learning by doing and also with
reflection for metacognition then you
need an instructional approach stem
is just
i wouldn't call that a framework i
forgot how it was mentioned but it was
just more you know aligning for
different disciplines and engineering
you know basically doing engineering and
aligning disciplines
and so
what you need is an instructional
approach a methodology for how to teach
and so that's pbl
i hadn't heard of it back then and so i
sought out resources and i realized that
it's something that
number one is research based
two
you have to learn it three you have to
practice you know teaching with it and
then eventually
it becomes an expertise yeah so it's not
a one two three thing
how do you conceive of stem so some
people think of stem as oh it's the
intersections of science technology
engineering and math but other people
see it as oh well kids have a science
class then they go to a technology class
then they go into engineering class as
these like separate silos no it's
engineering has to be engineering if
there's no engineering design process
meaning
that i have a challenge or i have a
problem that i'm trying to solve
and so if i don't have a methodology
for solving the problem like an engineer
then it's not stem
and so
you know it doesn't matter what the
problem or the challenge is
the engineering design process that
should stay the same now
based on the problem so let's say if i'm
you know building a race car so the
scientific principles that i'm thinking
about
have to really be around energy forces
and motion if i'm building a tower then
the science is really about how
different materials absorb forces
so you see science will change
based on whatever the problem is and so
will math right math is applied science
and then
whatever tech i'm using it really
depends on what the problem is but the
engineering part should stay the same
and where do you see computational
thinking and computer science kind of
fitting within that well we're always
using electronics right and so we're
always you know coding and programming
even if it's like robotics or something
like that that's a very simple thing but
there you'll see that there's an aspect
of computer science that's involved
there
there's another discipline it's called
mechatronics mechanics electronics and
computer science and also mechanical
engineering but what i'll say is this
computational thinking
is a problem-solving methodology that's
used in computer science
when you're coding or when you're
programming
the same way engineering
has an engineering design loop
right and so i'll back up even more
every discipline has a methodology for
solving problems in education we widely
use blooms
right and i think that
a lot of other thinking frameworks and
really we can say it's a problem-solving
framework or it's a thinking framework
but
every framework for teaching young
people
how to think and how to solve problems
in my opinion really borrows from blooms
and so
what i like to use is basically
three major verbs analysis synthesis
evaluation so everything i'm doing in
any workshop in any of my teaching i'm
having
educators or young people analyze
either a modeling i'm explaining
i'm providing an artifact whether it's a
video article paragraph whatever so
they're analyzing this they're taking
that knowledge and now they're
synthesizing or they're designing
you see that and then what the
evaluation is is reflection for
metacognition
and so in science
right we don't we use blooms
but we use aspects of blooms in inquiry
design or in engineering design inquiry
design is for the natural world plants
and animals engineering designers for
the physical world and so in history we
can use something like design thinking
in math there's so many other strategies
of thinking routines but for computer
science is computational thinking and so
if we teach young people how to teach
like a computer
in terms of a framework
decomposition abstraction pattern
recognition and algorithm design then
when we teach them how to code they'll
already understand
how the computer thinks
and so it starts out as a framework but
after practice and through repetition it
becomes a mindset and so that's what's
needed i like the idea of the problem
solving as kind of being like a
structure that kind of informs what you
do within it but what about if somebody
is like i want to express myself so
going back to what you're talking about
with like the emotional intelligence and
social emotional learning like if
somebody is like i want to
make music that's relaxing like is the
problem solving more of like the micro
that is not necessarily driving things
but is like oh i ran into a bug or oh
this doesn't sound good let me try and
solve that but the overall thing that is
guiding the project is the
like desire to create so
projects or problems are guided by a
theme
what are we trying to accomplish right
and so that is just
my
project is focusing on making music and
so i want to make a relaxing song so how
can i um compose a piece of music that
is relaxing and soothing and
helps me you know relax right you know
something like that like i'm thinking of
what you said
and so
that is what your problem is
and so
there's some sort of data collection
that you have to figure out or you know
research where you're figuring out well
what makes music relaxing
or what do people respond to
so you don't really use
a thinking framework like computational
thinking there
you would use there some type of
qualitative research methods like
interviews
right research skills
now while you're actually composing the
music i wouldn't use
computational thinking up for that i
would use whatever
music design process
that you know composers use i would use
that there computational thinking would
be if i'm coding well i mean you could
like in scratch create music through
code or sonic pi which uses ruby or
create music through that so like to
frame it like i want to code infinite
relaxing music through one of those
platforms where it like randomly makes
music that makes me chill out okay okay
so you're not composing music you are
pulling music that's already composed
you know pieces already composed and
you're putting them into an algorithm so
that they pop up at in certain different
places oh no like you're composing so
let's get extra nerdy so let's say you
create an array of like potential notes
like this is my scale or my mode that
i'm going to play
i'm going to have it so that the
algorithm randomly chooses which notes
within that array is going to like play
in the sequence
etc you asked the wrong guy for that
i thought that you were really thinking
about like you know composing music like
on sheet paper
so like in those intersections though
like it's interesting to think about
like you mentioned yes there are some
frameworks that you can go through for
composing but when you are composing
music through code then like there's
that computational thinking aspect that
goes into it well that applies then
right and so you'll have to um design
algorithms and so in those algorithms
you will definitely
like how you said like you know build
your arrays you know i guess you know
define where you want certain things
played in your computational thinking
process i would recommend some
flowcharting i think that if you flow
chart out the process it'll definitely
help you encoding exactly what you want
to happen and i think that's really what
it's all about if you're making a
program you definitely have to start
with the problem with the solution
and then you code it
and so i think that that's a skill that
is often overlooked
having a design team of students
really
write down what the problem is
what they're trying to really accomplish
and that's where you know computational
thinking comes in it comes in a lot of
times unconsciously where we
automatically you know match patterns
you know abstract information that's not
really needed
and then once we have that then i think
you know step two is you know defining
the problem is to in pseudocode just in
regular language you know map out each
of the algorithms or each of the steps
and
blow charting it with universal symbols
so we know what the inputs to outputs
the loops and the variables and all
those things are
and then we can you know code it and
then
you know test it evaluate it and debug
it if i can reframe it just kind of as a
check the way that you're describing
computational thinking is it's situated
within problem solving it is used to
solve a problem there's a purpose to it
is that yeah it can't be
the focus of of the project i love that
definitely resonates it's not out yet
but i just did an interview with mitch
resnick and one of the things that we
talked about is like the problems with
computational thinking where people
look at it as oh this is just thinking
that's all we have to think about and
it's devoid of application of
understanding like you mentioned with
problem solving so i love that you're
contextualizing it that way but i'm
wondering
what do you wish more people understood
about that computational thinking well
they have to actually get in there and
do and solve problems you know
computational problems
if they're not doing that then they
can't explain what i just explained you
know so
there's something in science that we
call empirical evidence it's a knowing
from the senses it's a knowing from
experience
and so if you're solving
computational problems and you're using
this framework then
initially it'll be a struggle but with
that struggle comes knowledge
construction and then the understanding
of what that is and then you'll be able
to explain it now to someone else
if you don't do that then it's just a
bunch of major concepts and so i can't
really see
how a project would be about those you
know major concepts
you know it's a problem-solving strategy
or a set of strategies and so you need
to have a problem first and so i love
what you said about music i didn't
really know that you were trying to
design a program for music that's why i
said i wouldn't use computational
thinking but once you said yeah you know
i'm writing a program that's a whole
different thing so if somebody is
interested in this like all right
computational thinking computer science
this sounds awesome i want to learn more
about it i haven't experienced this in
my own education what advice would you
recommend for getting started all right
so first things first if you're an
english math science social studies
teacher you cannot dedicate an entire
year's worth of your curriculum to this
i would start with one project a
semester and so a school year is
typically four or nine weeks and so
every 18 weeks in most schools we would
have a semester right and so i would do
one
project that is two to three weeks tops
and i would do whatever i can to make
sure that whatever i
have to teach
is somehow aligned to that topic in
computer science or stem and i wrote a
book it's called wrap up robotics and so
it's in the context of robotics
but the foundational learning or the
skills or knowledge needed for
computer science engineering and
computational thinking
for k through 16 are pretty much laid
out in that book and so i would start
with some unplugged lessons and so the
book is filled with a bunch of those
where any teacher can basically coach
young people through
computational thinking
but unplugged right and so they learn
what the concepts are in practice
and then i wrote a chapter for each of
the content areas and i basically pulled
out of the common core and the ngss
any of the standards that align to some
type of computer science
or stem learning in the context of
robotics and then just doing a little
project like that and i think that when
you start there you are going to number
one
learn a lot
number two fail a lot and then when you
start next time you're starting from
experience
and so i think that that is very
important and if people do that then
it'll help them
not create computer sciences it takes
like 25 years to do that
but
you'll put an awareness into young
people
of how the technology around them works
you know a lot of young people think
that you know technology is magic but
it's not you know a lot of programming a
lot of coding a lot of computational
thinking went into making these things
and so i think that when they get
involved in a project like that where
they're designing where they
are programming then it takes them out
of that consumer mindset and more into
that designer mindset and there's so
many different pathways within that
someone
can take and i think that that's just
the awareness that young people need and
honestly
i think that
every person
should learn some sort of design process
and should learn to solve problems no
matter what the problem is through a
process a systematic approach
and when that happens you're essentially
teaching them
how to think
how to fish
how to learn
how to construct knowledge and just be a
better learner in general i'm wondering
if we can put a spotlight on one of the
things that you mentioned
being willing to
fail a lot
and the importance of that especially if
you are new to cs like why is that an
important thing to be willing to do as
an educator and as a student yeah well i
think anyone that has ever accomplished
anything that they didn't think that
they could accomplish at some point in
their life has realized that failing
well learning from from failures is part
of the process
and so
the reason why
stem learning is fun initially is
because it's typically done through toys
or what it appears to be a toy or you're
building something and it's got some
built-in missions or programs and so
it's fun but
when you don't fully
learn how to use it
through learning right like it's more
like you know tinkering then then that
novelty will wear off eventually and
then it's just boring after a while you
know it's the same thing over and over
again but when you're learning how to
solve a problem
through a process
with that toy or with that technology
then
you're going to fail
because something like
coding
and like really any skill but especially
coding it's an earned skill it's not
something you can just you know pick up
and do there's certain concepts you need
to understand and the main ones are
inputs outputs loops functions variables
and logic if you don't understand these
things you'll never be a coder
programmer so if we learn those things
right and then we learn how to fail
through making a program
then eventually we start to develop
expertise that we can show others or
that we can transfer
will also realize that it's a field that
although the concepts and the
foundational knowledge hasn't really
changed
but
the new technologies and everything
that's happening and how it's used
that is always changing and so you
realize that you're always a beginner
but being a beginner with experience
is a hell of a lot better than being a
beginner with no experience yeah i spoke
with a lot of cs educators who like we
all agree that debugging is one of those
standards that even if you don't want to
do that standard you're going to run
into it like every day so it's just
par for the course especially when it
comes to programming and whatnot
uh thinking back to what you were
talking about earlier with project-based
learning i'm wondering what do you wish
more cs educators understood about
project-based learning that the product
is not the project the project is the
entire process or the unit plan if i'm
writing a program
that's just a product right or if i'm
designing a robot that can do something
that's just a product the project is i
have a client
and the client wants me to design a
product to do x y and z
right so that is part of the process
right you know building the program is
another part but then presenting it
putting it out in the public
if it's something that
like let's say there's a concern
where you know people need to know
something
maybe making a public service
announcement that has a call to action
things like that that's a project not
the actual product yeah i like that the
examples you gave they're like situated
within like a real world application
it's not just a project for a project's
sake it's like oh you might actually do
this outside of class
so i've got a two-part question so the
first part is when might you encourage
cs educators to do project-based
learning but then the second part is
like the flip of that when would you not
recommend doing project-based learning
yeah so i would recommend to a computer
science educator i would do one project
a semester
anything new that you're trying out
i would only do it
once every 18 weeks
and the reason why is because you're
learning the entire new framework so
you're taking something you already do
like computer science
but now you're
you know building in you know
collaboration
reflection intellectual challenge you
know things that you may not have
thought about in the past
and so if you try to do that all in one
shot it'll be difficult and so i'd say
take one bite of the elephant at a time
and so if if you do a project once a
semester
then you'll be able to take parts of the
ppl framework and start to integrate
them or incorporate them into other
lessons and other projects and then
eventually you'll be a better teacher in
my opinion i wouldn't do
pbl when you are preparing students for
the ap exam
i just want to do that you know if i
have a 90 minute block
so i wouldn't do pbl and everything if
we didn't have to think of ap
as like
guiding whether or not you would or
would not do project-based learning so
just an ideal learning environment
without having those external factors
would there be a moment where you would
not recommend project-based learning no
i think ppl is good for all children
know the research says it it does work
in the ap environment i'm specifically
stating
if we're preparing
for the ap exam right now there is data
from edutopia as a research arm called
lucas educational research and so they
did pbl with ap students
in science and in social studies and
scores actually increased i'm talking
about when we're actually
you know test prepping i wouldn't put
that in the project
that's what i'm saying but no on pbl it
definitely works in ap classes yeah i
appreciate that clarification because
there's definitely research out there
that's like yes you have to prepare for
the test if you're going to do it you
need to like practice taking the test
essentially i'm not saying that it can't
be in a project but i don't see how
right
yeah but you can easily make time in a
project to stop the project and to
work on your test prep yeah it doesn't
have to be an either or scenario i know
having worked with undergrads they have
a tendency to see oh i can only do this
one thing and never anything else it's
like well no it depends on the context
and your goals and whatnot i'm wondering
one of the earlier things that you
mentioned sel wondering if you could
unpack more of what is sel and then how
do you integrate that into
uh teaching and learning yeah so social
emotional
learning is
what we use to help young people
in developing their emotional
intelligence skills
and so
emotions are really part of everything
and so a lot of times when we're not
emotionally intelligent or we don't have
this intelligence
we really don't know how we show up
emotionally in our social interactions
or how other people you know react to us
that's on a social level on a personal
level
we really don't know what is triggering
our emotions we don't know
why we react the way we do or why we
respond the way we do and so i think
it's important to just have a framework
for that too
or you know number one
before the framework is to understand
what emotions are and how they impact
the mind body and behavior and so one of
the things that i didn't know a few
years back that really helped me out a
lot
is to understand that emotions perceive
feelings
and feelings perceive behavior and so
when i got that piece of knowledge i
realized
that i don't have to
respond or react to every single emotion
i'm experiencing
like anger
right like anxiety
you know there's nothing wrong with
experiencing these things
but you have to find a way out of them
how to conquer them and so i think that
all educators and all students need to
be able to
at any given moment in any type of
situation
in an accurate manner identify
what emotion
or range of emotions they're
experiencing
at that time and then finding strategies
for restoring peace because we never
really do our best work
or be at our best if we're not at peace
and so you'll find um you know people
that we call it you know getting in the
zone
when they are doing something that they
really love
and they can do it for hours and hours
and hours and they're so into it and
they have a beautiful
experience
well in that
moment
right you're experiencing joy
that's a happy emotion how do we you
know get there and you know and you
can't zen out you know 24 7. it doesn't
work that way
but you need to have a system an
algorithm for solving or looping back
into the emotions of the day and then
finding a way to restore peace how do
you recommend educators learn more about
sel on how to help kids and whatnot so
like i've gone through
therapy for many years that has helped
me to understand how to
address like issues i was having my mind
but i don't necessarily know how to help
kids who are going through things that i
haven't been through so like my wife is
a trained therapist and is like really
good at working with kids but i don't
have the understanding that she does so
like how did you learn about sel or how
might you recommend others learn about
it yeah so i wrote an article it's
called three steps educators can take
to better manage emotions and so here i
share my story and so
i have a couple of teenagers and
honestly i didn't know that i wasn't
emotionally intelligent i didn't know
this a few years back you know i was
living through life you know doing the
best i can and you know and that's it
and i have a couple of teenagers and as
they got older they started to pay me no
never mind right anytime i would say or
do something that they don't like
they would just be like you know what
whatever you know i'm tuned me out and
so as a parent that's pretty painful you
know it's not a good feeling and so i
knew that i
had something i had to work on but i
wasn't sure what and so there's a great
quote by laozi when the student is ready
the master appears and so a few days
later or a week later you know not sure
i was reading an article on making first
impressions by dr travis radbury in the
article he talked about his book that he
co-wrote with gene grieves titled
emotional intelligence 2.0 i got the
book on audible and well when i read its
title emotional intelligence it just
jumped out at me and and you're a music
guy so
you know that
someone that is a creator certain things
jump out at them that don't for you know
regular people
and so
i got the book on audible and it came
with an appraisal
and the appraisal said that i got a 76
in my social competence it pinpointed
exactly where i was at
okay and i'm talent smart is the
organization that produced this book
and so they have a framework or four
domains
is
social competence for
relationship skills and self-awareness
for self-management skills it's
something like that and so i just
started there in the article though i
broke down what emotions are you know in
psychology and they say that the first
step is labeling or identifying right
and so after knowing what emotions are
and so i like
patrick's wheel of emotions because it
really shows the range of emotions but
it focuses on eight basic ones
anger anticipation joy trust fear
surprise sadness and disgust
and so when you have a tool like that
and you're like okay
so
the emotions i feel or i experience on a
daily basis are an amalgamation of those
eight main ones
in tandem with other ones on the wheel
then labeling is not a problem once
you've labeled then you can find you
know strategies it could be breathing
you know like one
really great one is just to
interrupt thinking if you focus on on
breathing you can't really
you know think at that moment and so
it's three simple
breaths
right and so that right there it causes
a pattern interrupt
and allows you to see or to feel things
in a more logical way which is what we
need
in the article i talk about dr james
gross
and he's a researcher and
he
really has a great framework it's
basically a framework it's the process
model for
or emotion regulation
and so
through practicing a framework like this
you can change
how you emotionally respond to you know
different situations you see
how we respond to things
is conditioning
we can uncondition ourselves with some
work and so that's important and i've
also realized you know and becoming
trauma informed
as a teacher is that there is emotional
trauma but there's psychological trauma
and so sel is not meant to replace
trauma informed therapy right it's not
but we can learn through seo how to not
re-traumatize people and how to be more
mindful and respectful of what their
triggers are but also helping them
in coping and with coping that's just a
step into you know therapy and
eventually healing yeah like anyone who
has ever overcome a traumatic experience
knows you need to feel it to heal it and
so that's an important thing and i
really appreciate the
mentioning that's not like a replacement
for therapy but like thinking of
students as humans and teachers as
humans and understanding that they are
going through a lot potentially and not
just thinking of oh well they did bad on
this test like okay but why what might
be going on that might be impacting that
yeah i'm honestly i think sel
or emotional intelligence is more
important than everything else you know
i don't understand how we left that out
of the curriculum
but we're here now and i'm so so happy
that
it's something that we can focus on i
was focused on it a few years ago and
i've mastered my emotions you know
pretty much
even if i'm nervous or have anxiety i
know how to make them fly
or how to make the butterflies you know
fly in the same direction now
but what i didn't think was that i would
be helping other educators with that
i just thought it was a personal issue
you know something i had to work on
and after kovid
you know i kind of realized that
we're all human right and so we're all
experiencing emotions we all have to
deal with you know difficult ones
and i think it's a duty now to
help others
that article i put into the chat i wrote
that in february of 2020.
the original link is there
but on medium i published it april 8th
and so
it was written
pre-coveted and so i thought that that
would be all the work i do on sel or
emotional intelligence i thought that
that was it and i put it out as a story
or an article just like it can help
someone
not thinking that i would eventually do
more research into the topic along with
equity
and other you know heavy lifts in
education and to write a book about it
which solution tree
is pre-reviewing right now on equity and
sel and so it'll be out sometime in
early 2022 so i'm excited about that but
i never thought i'd be doing this never
ever it's weird how life heads in
directions we never anticipated like
with my background in music education to
think that i would be full-time in cs
education for several years that never
would have thought of that a decade ago
but
well
you know
i don't know a lot about music i'll be
honest but i know that a lot of it is
digital now and i know that it can be um
created on a computer what i've heard so
that makes sense yeah it's fun at least
for a nerd like myself
so you mentioned you didn't anticipate
helping teachers with seo like looking
broadly at how you've helped teachers a
lot of it is through like professional
development consulting and whatnot you
mentioned that you like to make
professional development inspirational
actionable and fun and so i'm curious
how you do that because a lot of people
when they think of professional
development it's like oh is this thing i
have to go do to get my hours and it's
boring
inspirational what i use is just
interpersonal stories one of the things
that i've realized
in fact very quickly in my pd journey as
a facilitator is that teachers
hate it
not despise it not like it but hate it
when the pd person
is telling them to do something that he
or she hasn't done themselves
so the inspiration needs to be from a
personal story some personal insight
and so
you being a computer science teacher you
know you already know based on my
explanation of computer science and
computational thinking that you know
that at one point in my life i dive into
this topic and i have
hands-on
knowledge
now the music part i didn't have and i
was honest with you
that's the part that's inspirational a
teacher will forgive you when you say
you don't know something but will never
ever forgive you or will have a hard
time trusting you when you're bsing them
you see and so the inspiration i think
it comes from personal insight of
practicing what you preach actionable
well
it's got to be something that they can
replicate meaning that
they need a step one step two step three
and so a common theme in my articles
that you can google is that everything
is in steps three steps to do this four
ways of doing this
two ways of whatever and so that's how
the workshops are are all designed
everything in logical steps and so it's
not that they get the same product but
they replicate the process and the
success that i am putting forth and so a
way to do that is through instructional
strategies and vetted educational
protocols you know just like in the
classroom and if you really think about
it if you go into the military into a
hospital
into a police station there's a protocol
for everything
and so in my workshops i have a protocol
for everything and so it's actionable
and they can replicate that with their
faculties or with their kids
and fun
i like to play music so you'll be happy
about that but also i
do a lot of research in the intake calls
and find out exactly what
do these folks need
what do they like what are they into and
so i try to uplift those things into the
workshop and so
those words there are actually words
that i've gleaned from lots of data
collections
tons of the other collections these are
the themes that people are finding in
the workshop you can actually go onto my
webpage and there's a section or a page
called master class and underneath it
you'll see testimonials
and so
my net promoter score is pretty high
and so these words and you know data is
gleaned from so that's how i know that
the workshop is actually this and i'll
make sure to include links to that in
the show notes i'm curious like if we
zoom out and look at education as a
whole like what do you feel is holding
back educators or the field and what can
we do about it well i think in education
we know what to do i just don't think
that we know how to do it all the time
starting with working together in a
collaboration i think it's a sticking
point for a lot of schools a lot of
plc's and i think that if schools just
start with number one what do we want to
do to help our children and every school
has a different context there are some
similarities i do agree with that but
every context is different every set of
students of every group of students
every staff needs something different
and so i think just in re-centering
ourselves and having some shared
agreements and developing them together
shared agreements and norms about how
we're going to do this work and what we
need in order to do the work as a team i
think it's what is really needed at this
time especially at a time right now
where we don't know what's going to
happen you know learning laws
testing covet mass mandates
all these different things are hitting
educators all back up educators in the
classrooms are on the front lines of
what's happening in the home or not
happening in the home along with all the
policy and all the mandates and
everything that's happening in education
the standards all these things and so i
just think that
we need to
work together and we need to really
learn how to do that and that's what's
missing when i say that we know what to
do
we already know that it's pbl we already
know that you know computer science is
good for all students we know sel is
important whether we agree or not we all
know that social justice
you know is an issue in america right
equity all these things but how to do it
that's the issue so how do you
try and stave off like the burnout that
can come
with working in the field of education
because there's like a lot being thrown
at educators like a lot of pressures
you're we're traveling before covet i
know you're still doing professional
development like how do you try and
prevent that well
i think that
what i do is
i loop back
the things that i enjoy doing but i
don't have time to do and for me it's
hiking it's sightseeing one that i do do
a lot is eating out i'm a big foodie
right stuff like that what i do is i
make time for those things
right now on the weekends friday and
saturday my wife and my two children we
map out something that we want to do in
nature it could be canoeing it could be
sailing row boating whatever or it could
be hiking and then we find a restaurant
something that we've never tried before
and so we do that like on a saturday on
a sunday
it could be a pool day it could be a
game day a movie day but the whole point
is to do something that you enjoy doing
and that's how you restore
your emotional health and your burnout
and your fatigue
you have to do something
where your mind is no longer engaged in
that workflow and i think if you do that
on a consistent
basis
like for me it's the weekends and it's
after 9 30 at night you know and at 9 30
at night it might sound funny to you or
to someone listening but i like to watch
things that make me laugh like the
golden girls i mean it's true the
jeffersons
martin shows that i like humor that i
like and it takes my mind off the
workflow
and the thing that i've realized is that
it could be the resurrection work is
going to be there it's not going away
and so there's nothing wrong in
you know disconnecting for your own
mental health yeah that definitely
resonates that's something that i had to
learn to do and value and it wasn't
really until a therapist pointed out
like hey you don't you're not making
time for yourself
all you're doing is working
yeah and so one thing like i was in
chicago last week and i did a gig there
actually and
my wife said you've done
i don't know what it's been man it's
been
since april 2020 i have been basically
every week doing pt you know just
basically every week and she said to me
you have not been on a real vacation a
long time so let's take two three days
since chicago let's do something fun and
no work and so that was hard for me it
was very hard for me because i have a
lot going on and so
like i sat down and i wrote down so what
do i want to do in chicago on my bucket
list is to visit michael jordan statue
and so we put that on the list
she wanted to do
a boat ride on the riverwalk she wanted
to go to the highest
building i think it was a sears building
and to look down and see the whole you
know city and so we did that for three
full days in a lot of restaurants and
i realized that i need something like
this two three times a year you know not
for an entire week or two weeks maybe
five six days if i can afford it or if i
have time
but yeah like you need something like
that or you can't really restore or heal
emotionally or you know mentally from
all that's going on yeah that definitely
resonates i how sat from my parents like
for a week maybe a month ago and just
getting out of the summer heat in
phoenix and being able to get up into
the forest area because like their
backyard backs up to the forest like it
was wonderful it's just a disconnect for
that week
need to do that more
yeah like there's a power in nature you
know nature has amazing restoring
qualities
and so
i think you just have to know
what you actually need i think john
spencer has to for ours you know
relaxation
restoration
i forgot the other two but you just have
to figure out what do you need for your
own healing whatever that is you know
physical mental spiritual and make time
for that and if you don't you will
regret it eventually and the people
around you
will probably not be in your life um
forever if you don't do that so the way
that you've been discussing that and
then even how you described your
professional development like if i were
to
use one word that kind of
really stands out it would probably be
the word intentional from an outside
perspective and i say that with like a
compliment that is something that really
resonates with i try and look at life
from an intentional perspective and be
intentional with time finances etc i'm
curious if you were to shift your focus
on how you are intentional with
improving yourself
either
your knowledge of cs education or your
abilities as a pd facilitator how do you
kind of practice and iterate on those
abilities yeah so
i created a blog series it's called
lifelong learning defined for peak
performance and education
right now
a lot of the focus has been on equity
seo
and project-based learning in my work
some computer science you know basically
those things and also in environmental
science has been a big
focus but i created a master class
called
high quality teaching for peak
performance and
i want to
lift up the elements of the framework i
haven't looked at it recently
so i don't remember everything but these
are the things that make up who i am
and
the way that i do all of my work and so
it's a framework and so the first thing
is this and so as a phd student i
learned that
phd students have to create knowledge
right
and so one of the things that i've
been very blessed with is to be very
consistent in my pd services for almost
some 10 years now and so
using that in tandem
with my knowledge in the phd program
i've learned how to do my intake calls
at semi-structured interviews so i'm
basically learning a lot about the
organization about the teachers and what
they actually need
and then after the workshops are
designed based on this knowledge and
also best practices then i'm getting
feedback surveys
right and so i'm looking at what the
teachers say and so these two big steps
over time
make a framework
and so one of the frameworks that i've
developed for peak performance and high
quality teaching
that really tell my story but also i
think other educators need is to number
one
really develop their emotional
intelligence skills personal and social
competence as we've been discussing
but two is to understand their own
educational philosophy basically know
what they think about teaching and
learning and how young people learn
right and their why and all these things
but two is to adopt sound instructional
design practices meaning that they need
to understand how to unpack a curriculum
framework or unpack a project or an idea
that they see online
and also standards they need to be able
to create their own project in their own
lesson and then they also need to
understand how to facilitate it
and so it's not just knowing how to
write a lesson but it's knowing how
young people learn and so being able to
use
protocols and strategies that help
with
cognitive demand in a way that isn't
overloading
right and so only a person that's a
master and his or her content will be
able to design those experiences
and so knowing what your content is
knowing the
research frameworks
major concepts that apply in whatever
you're teaching and then being able to
you know design good learning
experiences five is to improve your
knowledge of students you can't be a
culturally responsive teacher if you're
teaching young people from different
backgrounds and different cultures than
yourself if you don't know them and so
if you don't you know get to know them
then you can't really help them and so
here's the thing what we're trying to do
in education or what we should be doing
is creating learning partnerships
you can't do that if you don't have a
relationship and you can't have a
relationship if you don't lead with
empathy so you have to get to know your
students as far as their perspectives
for example their interests their goals
what they're good at for their assets
and then their instructional needs
six as we all know you need to be able
to use edtech to augment lessons it's
not that you lead with that tech but
edtech is used to enhance how a lesson
is taught and so
in covit i mean there's no way around it
we all know you know that we have to
focus on this and so i like the tpack
model it's a very strong
framework
for helping educators understand how
their content knowledge their
pedagogical knowledge but their
knowledge of technology how that can
either blend
or re-blend that at different times and
so that's a skill in itself and so i
think that that really goes back to
instructional design practices and
lastly is to become an advocate for your
students
whatever your students need whatever
those equity raisers are you need to
advocate for them and
that really starts with you becoming
what they need you to be so all those
things over the years lots of data
collections a lot of failures a lot of
working on myself that's what i've come
to i'm wondering like if we were to
think broader than how you improve your
own abilities what do you feel is
research that is missing in the field
and whether it be research that you're
doing for the dissertation or just in
general that might be missing all right
so for my dissertation it's a computer
science
focus and so
i did some research prior to it's
published in the journal for computer
science integration and so
what i wanted to figure out was what is
it that's holding back educators who
aren't traditional computer science
teachers meaning it wasn't part of their
undergrad what is holding them back
from teaching
that and also computational thinking
and so i did some research around that i
interviewed i want to say you know 10
educators
and from science math cte other areas
and what i basically realized is that
because they don't have that in their
background or in their wheelhouse
they struggled with two things
understanding major concepts in computer
science but also in how to facilitate it
and so what i think is missing in my
research as far as computer science goes
and really i think it applies to
anything is being able to activate that
in lessons whatever you've learned or
whatever has to be lifted up and so that
really goes back to instructional design
practices
i mean if you want to be a good teacher
based on what i've learned there's two
things you need to know how to do well
no matter what the discipline is
number one
how to write your own lesson plans
you have to
taking into
account
you know not just the standards
and what the lessons are are going to be
but also who's in your classroom
so how are you going to differentiate
for them how are you going to scaffold
for them
what will your learning stations or your
learning centers look like that's why
those eight or seven elements by so many
of them because it's not just one thing
but being able to map a curriculum
hopefully backwards
and then being able to facilitate it
using strategies that again take into
account how young people learn you know
learning happens along a continuum
new learning is built on old learning
and so
a good teacher
builds on that through scaffolding
experiences everyone doesn't know that
and so i think that that research is
already there
but i'm not so sure that it's lifted up
in every field and so in computer
science i definitely think it's needed
especially because we're asking
educators that don't have an undergrad
in cs to now teach cs i mean think of
their return on investment for stem
education billions of dollars have been
spent on stem in the ngss the ngss is
the first time
that engineering design was elevated to
the same level as scientific inquiry in
the standards they used engineers to
actually develop the framework but
educators weren't really trained on
engineering design so
what's the return on investment on that
we see that we're missing a stem
workforce right it's not what we need
well it's not where we'd like it to be
and so i think it's that it's research
on
best way of activating these things in
actual lessons or in the classroom i
think that the educational ship should
always be guided by curriculum
instruction or instructional design
practices for teaching and learning no
book no speaker
no nothing no business partner no money
should be spent if it's not enhancing
cni yeah like that do you have time to
talk about like what your
recommendations are for equity and
inclusion yeah for equity and inclusion
i really think that a staff needs to as
a plc
needs to
really
you know you know get together and
make intentions
about
what their personal and also as an
organization but those intentions are
for dei work
and then make shared agreements about
how that work is going to go and then
based on who's in the building
right what different backgrounds of
cultures ethnicities
you know that they're servicing they
need to really be informed about the
equity raisers of those folks
and so
if not
and i don't mean that they get knowledge
of it from a textbook or from the
history book no in the narratives of
those folks that have been marginalized
and having a process for taking that and
learning
how to as a team
create school-wide
culture on climate practices
that are inclusive for all these folks
and learning from the mistakes and so
when we do that as a plc
then
the educators in the building or the
staff won't be afraid to do two things
number one
speed from the heart
say what they feel but number two which
is very important is to not be afraid to
get the feedback they need
when their perspective needs some change
especially if it harms other people and
so that's a process and so i would
recommend in getting
someone from the outside
when that team really needs to you know
start that hard work and it's you know
long work like you know it's not
something that we just you know doing
one session or one workshop or one book
study but you bring in a person that is
using research-based frameworks and
models number one
number two has checked his or her own
biases
three has healed their own trauma
and four knows how to create safe spaces
and not shame colleagues
and so you know that's just in a
nutshell
you know in the research i've been in
the work i'm doing but i think that
those are important elements yeah i like
that so
where might people go to connect with
you and the organizations that you work
with yeah lifelong learning
learningdefined.com and also at george
does pbl that is j-o-r-g-e and that's on
tick-tock snapchat instagram twitter
whatever
you know it's on there and yeah and
that's it and just drop me a line send
me an email and we can chat and with
that that concludes this week's episode
of the csk8 podcast i hope you enjoyed
this interview with george and i hope
you consider checking out the show notes
to explore some of the free resources
and to connect with george on the
various different platforms that they
mentioned and you can find that at
jaredoleary.com stay tuned next week for
another episode and until then i hope
you're all staying safe and are having a
wonderful week

Guest Bio

Jorge Valenzuela is an education coach, author, and advocate. He has years of experience as a classroom and online teacher, a curriculum specialist, and a consultant. His work focuses on improving teacher preparation in project-based learning (PBL), computational thinking and computer science integration, STEM education, and equity and SEL integration. Jorge is an adjunct professor at Old Dominion University and the lead coach at Lifelong Learning Defined. His book Rev Up Robotics and jump start guides Ready, Set, Robotics and SEL in Action are available from ISTE. His following two books, which respectively focus on PBL and Equity and SEL Integration, are forthcoming from ISTE and Solution Tree. Jorge is also the host of the SEL in Action Podcast on BAM Radio Network.

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Read Outliers by Malcom Gladwell (the book Jorge mentioned)
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Read Jorge’s article titled, 3 Steps Educators can Take to Better Manage Their Emotions
Read Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Bradberry and Greaves
Read Jorge’s articles on Medium
Connect with Jorge
Fi nd other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter