Examining the Realities and Nuances of 'Low-stakes' Interest-driven Learning Environments

In this episode I unpack Worsley’s (2022) publication titled “Examining the realities and nuances of ‘low-stakes’ interest-driven learning environments,” which discusses two case studies of students programming in low-stakes, interest-driven learning environments.

Welcome back to another episode of the
csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week of this podcast is either an
interview with a guest or multiple
guests or a solo episode where i unpack
some scholarship in relation to computer
science education in this week's episode
i'm unpacking a paper titled examining
the realities and nuances of low-stakes
interest-driven learning environments
this was written by marcelo warsley
here's the abstract for this paper quote
the push to develop low stakes and
personally meaningful computer science
experiences is creating novel
opportunities to broaden participation
in cs these opportunities have become
increasingly present across context and
have expanded the possibilities for
introducing and sustaining student
participation in computing however while
these experiences tend to be effective
ways for engaging new participants in
new forms of participation we must be
careful to not overlooked how high
stakes these experiences might be for
learners to explore this tension this
paper describes two case studies of
students engaging in coding and
computational thinking with minecraft
education edition the first case study
involves a seven-year-old black and
latina girl who experiences significant
frustration when her computer program
destroys significant portions of her
project the second is from a latino boy
who avoids using the coding capabilities
in minecraft edu out of here that the
code might not work properly building on
these case studies this paper suggests
that the field takes steps to ensure
that the language and actions associated
with low stakes and high stakes are
reflective of learner perceptions and
that we design learner experiences that
appropriately reflect this nuance end
quote better summarize this paper into a
single sentence i'd say that it
discusses two case studies of students
programming in low-stakes
interest-driven learning environments
you can find a link to this paper in the
description of the app that you're
listening to this on or by simply going
to jaredaleri.com and clicking on
podcasts while you're there you'll
notice that this podcast is powered by
boot up professional development which
is the nonprofit that i work for so
check out boot.pd.org if you haven't
seen the free curriculum that i create
or if you want to learn more about the
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facilitate alright so it's probably no
surprise to anybody who's listened to
this i'm a huge fan of interest driven
learning environments promote it
frequently in my presentations
publications podcasts et cetera it's a
big part of what i did in the k-8
schools that i was working with before i
joined boot up and it's something that i
highly recommend for a lot of people but
what i appreciate about this paper is it
looks at it from a critical lens and
says hey not all sunshine and roses
there's some things we need to talk
about which i appreciate so here's a
question that kind of guides this short
paper from page 45 quote in what ways do
youth demonstrate the possible
high-stakes nature of interest-driven
learning in a game-based learning
environment end quote so in the prior
literature section
the author describes frameworks for
interest-based learning they discuss
culturally responsive sustaining
computer science they talk about
guidelines and best practices for
game-based learning so if any of those
three sound interest in you make sure
you check out the publications that are
cited there and the next section on this
paper is on the methods so in the first
subsection of this they talk about
program participants and contexts
they've been working in the school for a
few years now impacted over a thousand
students and 15 educators but this
particular paper is just going to talk
about two students emilia and alejandro
and the author obviously points out that
like look this is just two perspectives
on here this is not the norm but it's
something we need to consider they
mentioned they've noticed similar
interactions or responses with other
students and i have as well even though
i recommend interest-driven learning
environments it works great for like 95
of the students i've worked with they're
still the five percent we got to talk
about and consider or maybe even provide
an alternative for those particular
students next sub-section under methods
talks about the background on minecraft
education edition so if you're not
familiar with it education version of
minecraft you're able to do some
different like extensions basically
where you can like program stuff in the
game and it'll like run code that you
write to like build stuff or destroy
things or whatever so there's a lot of
really interesting things you can do so
check that out if you haven't seen it
before you can just like search on
youtube for examples of it and people
will give you some overviews all right
so the case studies this is the main
bulk of the paper so the first one is
amelia so amelia signed up to attend a
once a week program that was for six
weeks long during a winter term amelia
is described as quote a gregarious
seven-year-old black and latino girl who
attends a title one school in the
midwest region of the united states of
america end quote from page 46. now
emilia's six-week program was actually
disrupted with kovid so the author
describes an incident that actually
occurs during the summer of 2020 during
the four week section that was kind of
like a makeup for the winter session so
during this time the students who
participated were engaging in like
collaboratively creating a treehouse
amusement park so minecraft if you
haven't played it you can like all you
can have friends join into the same
server and that makes it so that you can
play in the same world and like build
stuff together or go on adventures or
whatever which is what my wife and i did
and how i was able to propose to her
through a mod that i made for the game
which if you haven't seen that video
i'll link to it in the show notes okay
so while they were doing this like
amusement park creation the researchers
would show students like different
things that they could do with code in
minecraft like how to build a house or
stairs or whatever now in one of the
incidents that amelia ran into she was
trying to do something with a program
which would make it so that it would
allow you to dig to excavate an area so
to like clear out i don't know like a
hill or a mountain something that's in
the way to make it like flat or
something like that while she was
running the code to dig it ended up
destroying much more than she had
intended and so she became visibly upset
because it like destroyed some stuff
that she had built or had been working
on when she ran it it actually ended up
continuing to run longer than she
intended to so she started the code and
then was unable to make it stop and so
it destroyed the structure that she was
trying to like add on to and as she
continued through this process it just
kept like she'd reload it come back and
end up destroying things so she got
pretty upset and then refused to
actually try building the structure
again so she had what might be described
as like a fixed mindset and that she
felt like she could not properly use the
code to do what she wanted to and then
convinced herself that the best way to
do it was just to manually excavate or
dig in the ground rather than running
the code for automatically digging but
even though she may have felt that
manual was like the safer way to do it
she felt that it was a poor use of her
time because of what she knew what she
could do with the code builder so she
ended up actually not engaging with
minecraft for several months and it was
roughly a year later that she actually
started minecraft again and while she
might use some of the commands to like
teleport to different locations or
change the time of day she did not use
the code builder to excavate for her dig
for her or build stuff and so the author
in this particular section cites g's
work which i've talked about quite
extensively on this podcast like check
out the podcast on affinity spaces or
check out the interview with brian brown
which i'll link to in the show notes
both kind of talk about g's
understandings of like affinity spaces
or situated language and learning which
are two really important concepts in my
opinion that educators should check out
heavily influenced the way that i
facilitated classes so here's a quote
from page 47 that kind of summarizes
things quote she made multiple attempts
to utilize the code builder but to no
avail instead of being an experience
where she could leverage computer
science to improve her minecraft world
she became detached from both coding and
minecraft in quote a little bit further
down on that page quote in this case the
code builder was actively detracting
from amelia's goals of creating her
structure the ongoing challenges
reinforced that she was not effectively
learning how to use the code builder and
this was negatively impacting her
self-perception in quote all right so
that was kind of a summary of the first
case but let's talk about the second one
alejandro here's a quote from page 47
quote alejandro is a seventh grade
latino boy he enjoys playing console
video games and computer games but does
not really identify as a gamer while
happy to talk alejandro tends to keep to
himself in class he sat at a computer
where there was no one to his left and
typically an open seat to his right this
relative alone list did not seem to
bother him and quote i can relate to
that honestly preferred it so in this
particular case the author describes how
alejandro wanted to build stairs using
again code builder here's a quote from
page 47
alejandro was impressed with himself
when we got it to work and showed his
peers that he had successfully coded a
large staircase i congratulated
alejandro on his persistence and went to
work with some of the other students in
the class however when i passed by
alejandro a few minutes later he was
manually constructing the other side of
the arena when i asked him about why he
decided not to use the code he remarked
that it was too risky in short while he
was able to eventually figure out how to
make the stairs the various roadblocks
and challenges that we had to overcome
instilled a general sense of distrust in
the code moreover he was concerned that
if he tried to use the code something
might go wrong and portions of his arena
would need to be reconstructed end quote
so having built stuff in minecraft
before i can totally understand this not
everything you make is going to be like
perfectly symmetrical and so if you run
code like on one side of an area it
might not work in another so sometimes
if it's going to be asymmetrical or
unique in terms of the overall design
not just cut and paste then running a
code might take longer or maybe you just
need to start like smaller chunks of
code rather than like building the whole
staircase just like one floor or one
level or something alright so the next
section on this paper talks about the
discussion so the author mentions that a
lot of these challenges or frustrations
could have been prevented if students
had the ability to undo like a control z
or if you had like a transparent overlay
that would show you here's what it's
going to look like if you run this code
so it gives you at least a preview of
what's going to happen it doesn't oh i
should have moved over by one and not
you know deleted my entire building
here's a quote from page 48 that's
important quote it is important for
adults to be sufficiently trained with a
collection of strategies to address both
the content and the emotional nature of
potential moments of youth distress end
quote definitely agree with that had
many guests on talk about social and
emotional learning check out the
podcasts that talk about that in the
show notes but also just in general like
i remember a kindergartner who'd come
into the computer lab for the first
couple months of school and he would cry
about wanting his mom one of the
strategies that i would do to help
redirect his attention away from wishing
that he was home was to ask questions
like would you have for lunch today or
what's something funny that happened on
recess or just like other questions that
would help with that emotional
regulation to kind of distract him
temporarily and help him reset when it
comes to frustration with like school
work or whatever it's very helpful to
have some kind of a strategy like that
to help manage that frustration or work
through it so working through problem
solving or emotional regulation or
whatever many different approaches or
strategies can be used but definitely
agree with his statement all right so
here's a main point that's a paragraph
in page 48 that i'd like to read quote
while we have primarily talked about the
work in the context of minecraft the
ideas raised also have relevance across
interest-based learning environments
more broadly technological or design
choices the coding platform should
include some intentional features that
recognize the high level of importance
that youth might place on the program
content within interest-based and or
culturally sustaining computing
experiences similarly instructors and
facilitators should help normalize
making mistakes as a common part of the
programming process and teach students
strategies for proactively managing
those errors finally educators should be
taught core practices for supporting
participants social emotional well-being
while this is being increasingly
emphasized within in school k-12 context
social-emotional learning should be
equally as integral to educator learning
and support in out-of-school context far
from being spaces where youth become
relaxed and indifferent these
interest-driven spaces may be closely
tied to youth identities aspirations and
community roles as a result there can be
a high propensity for emotionally
charged interaction failure to attend to
these considerations could result in the
cycle of goals identity and learning
negatively impacting one another and
pushing youth further away from
computing related experiences end quote
that's an excellent set of points to
consider if you are going to encourage
people to create projects that are of
interest to them how might you support
and respond to students who are
interested in exploring projects that
might be considered controversial or
emotionally charged so for example would
you encourage students to explore a
topic related to politics that's
relevant what about related to a family
member dying what about related to
social justice issues and human rights
depending on where you're teaching you
might have different laws in place for
that that may prevent students or you
from actually addressing any of those
things that might want to come up so
something that you'll need to consider
but also if students are exploring it it
might cause other students to react
positively or negatively or just
emotionally in some kind of a way and so
we need to have support for that so it's
a very important thing to consider when
engaging in interest-driven learning
most of the projects that kids created
were just kind of fun or for the lulls
or whatever but sometimes kids would
explore a heavy topic or an emotionally
charged one and that's okay as long as
you're able to support them in some way
and if not speak with a counselor try
and get some input on how you can best
support students which leads to another
lingering question or thought that i
have after reading this paper is when is
interest driven learning challenging or
taxing on students just because it's fun
doesn't mean it's not difficult like if
you listen to the interview with bob
irving the second one where he talks
about his book hard fun it'd be a lot of
fun engaging in programming and
exploring interest but it doesn't make
it easy and it doesn't mean it's not
like emotionally or intellectually
taxing so how can we support them what
kind of support can we provide in
moments like those far too often when
people talk about interest-driven
learning when i say people i do include
myself on this we talk about the
positives all the like great things that
you can do with this approach but we
also need to talk about how it can be
overwhelming for some if they're not
used to this approach we need to provide
some scaffolding to help them so i
really appreciate that this author talks
about some things that we should
probably discuss more if we're using
interest-driven learning in our classes
but anyways this was a short paper so a
short podcast i hope you enjoyed
listening to it i hope you consider
reading it checking out the authors
other works if you enjoyed this please
consider sharing with somebody else or
sharing a review on whatever platform
you're listening to this on stay tuned
next week for another episode and until
then i hope you're all staying safe and
are having a wonderful week

Article

Worsley, M. (2022). Examining the realities and nuances of ‘low-stakes’ interest-driven learning environments. 2022 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 45–49.

Abstract

“The push to develop low-stakes and personally meaningful computer science experiences is creating novel opportunities to broaden participation in CS. These opportunities have become increasingly present across contexts and have expanded the possibilities for introducing and sustaining student participation in computing. However, while these experiences tend to be effective ways for engaging new participants and new forms of participation, we must be careful to not overlook how 'high- stakes' these experiences might be for learners. To explore this tension, this paper describes two case studies of students engaging in coding and computational thinking with Minecraft Education Edition. The first case study involves a 7-year-old Black and Latina girl who experiences significant frustration when her computer program destroys significant portions of her project. The second is from a Latino boy who avoids using the coding capabilities in Minecraft EDU out of fear that the code might not work properly. Building on these case studies, this paper suggests that the field take steps to ensure that the language and actions associated with low-stakes and high-stakes are reflective of learner perceptions, and that we design learning experiences that appropriately reflect this nuance.”

Author Keywords

Game-based learning, informal, formal, pedagogy

My One Sentence Summary

This paper discusses two case studies of students programming in low-stakes, interest-driven learning environments.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

How might you support students when they are engaging in emotionally charged projects?
When is interest-driven learning challenging or taxing on students?
- How can we provide support in those moments?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- Applications of Affinity Space Characteristics in [Computer Science] Education
  - In this episode I unpack my (2020) publication titled “Applications of affinity space characteristics in music education,” which has twelve characteristics of informal learning spaces that I will discuss in relation to computer science education.
- How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
  - In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
- Lifelong Kindergarten with Mitch Resnick
  - In this interview with Mitch Resnick, we discuss misconceptions people have around the four P’s (Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play) in Mitch’s book, encouraging depth of understanding while playing, what has surprised Mitch during his career, encouraging online communication and collaboration without creating artificial engagement, what Mitch wishes we’d see more of and discuss in CS education, our pet peeves with unplugged activities and computational thinking, accounting for survivorship bias with Scratch, expanding our focus on equity and inclusion to include both the “who” and the “how,” the importance of experimenting and learning through play, and much more.
- Music Making in Scratch: High Floors, Low Ceilings, and Narrow Walls?
  - In this episode I unpack Payne and Ruthmann’s (2019) publication titled “Music making in Scratch: High floors, low ceilings, and narrow walls,” which problematizes the limitations of making music with Scratch.
- Situated Language and Learning with Bryan Brown
  - In this interview Bryan Brown, we discuss the importance of language in education. In particular, we discuss the role of language in teaching and learning, discursive identity, situated language and learning, the importance of representation in education, the role of language on stress, how smartphones and virtual communication platforms (e.g., Zoom) could change learning, and many other topics relevant to CS education and learning.
- Supercharge Your Middle School CS Classroom with Bob Irving
  - In this interview with Bob Irving, we discuss Bob’s book (Hard Fun: Supercharge your middle school computer science classroom with project-based, hands-on, just-in-time learning!), learning CS through Minecraft, the impact of COVID on Bob’s teaching, the importance of interest-driven learning, the future of CS education, and much more.
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