Thinking through a Lesson: Successfully Implementing High-level Tasks

Thinking through a Lesson: Successfully Implementing High-level Tasks
Jared O'Leary
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In this episode I unpack Smith, Bill, and Hughes’ (2008) publication titled “Thinking through a lesson: Successfully implementing high-level tasks,” which provides a heuristic that can be used to prepare for a lesson.

  • 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 guest

    or a solo episode where I unpack some

    scholarship in relation to Computer

    Science Education in this week's episode

    of unpacking a paper titled thinking

    through a lesson colon successfully

    implementing high-level tasks this paper

    is written by Margaret s Smith Victoria

    Bill and Elizabeth K Hughes there's no

    abstract for this particular paper as it

    is relatively short however if I had to

    provide a single sentence summary I'd

    say that this article provides a

    heuristic that can be used to prepare

    for a lesson as always you can find a

    link to this article in the show notes

    which you can find at jaredolary.com and

    just click on the podcast tab or you can

    click the link in the description on the

    app that you're listening to this on

    which will direct you right to the show

    notes on my website you also find

    hundreds if not thousands of free

    computer science education resources

    including a link to bootypd.org which is

    the non-profit that I work for and that

    powers us podcast and a bunch of gaming

    and drumming stuff literally over 1 000

    hours of drumming content because I

    create content for work and for leisure

    so in the introduction of this short

    article the authors provide an example

    of a math problem that can be solved

    many different ways and so the authors

    are talking about how in these higher

    level tasks where there are multiple

    paths to coming to some sort of solution

    students will need to draw on their

    schema or their different prior

    experiences and understandings in order

    to come up with a solution to the path

    and there's not necessarily a right a

    wrong way to come up with an answer

    they're specifically talking about this

    in a math context however when I read

    this I immediately thought of like

    debugging or you know just programming

    in general like trying to come up with a

    function that will do a very specific

    task there are many ways to write that

    function like are you going to use if

    else conditionals are you going to use

    case switch what kind of Loops will you

    use if any will you engage in nesting

    will you call other functions there's

    many different algorithms that can be

    used to solve a problem or in this case

    create a function it's a quote from page

    solution path is an important component

    of what makes this task worthwhile it

    also challenges teachers to understand

    the wide range of methods that a student

    might use to solve a task and think

    about how the different methods are

    related as well as how to connect

    students as diverse ways of thinking to

    important disciplinary ideas end quote

    this reminds me a lot of the

    conversations on rhizomatic learning

    like the now three podcast episodes with

    John Stapleton appearing in it thank you

    John always a pleasure to work with you

    where we talk about like different paths

    being taken but this is a little more

    specific in that it's different paths

    being taken to solve a specific problem

    as opposed to to guide your own

    individualized learning but it reminded

    me so much of when I was working in the

    K8 coding classes that I was in before I

    joined boot up where students would come

    up with such unique like little

    solutions to some bugs or problems

    they're trying to solve or just things

    they're trying to create that I wouldn't

    have ever thought of like oh that works

    I would have done it a completely

    different way but hey it works the way

    you want it to every algorithm has an

    importance and constraint compared to

    another one but what's awesome about

    programming is there's many different

    solutions often that can be used for a

    given problem or to Simply X Express

    oneself now to help teachers kind of

    prepare for the many different solutions

    and paths that students might take the

    authors created a lesson planning

    protocol which quote is intended to

    promote the type of careful and detailed

    planning that is characteristic of

    Japanese lesson study by helping

    teachers anticipate what students will

    do and generate questions teachers can

    ask that will promote student learning

    prior to a lesson being taught end quote

    not this is a really important thing to

    consider so with project-based learning

    one of the things that I talk about is

    the actual facilitation of project-based

    learning or even like rhizomatic

    learning is relatively easy to do just

    asking guiding questions pointing

    towards some resources connecting

    students that is really easy to

    facilitate however the design takes a

    lot of thought and careful planning in

    order to be able to create experiences

    or spaces or projects that students want

    to engage in but if you're new to the

    facilitating it can be difficult if

    you're unsure how to guide students

    through potential problems or bugs that

    they might have have or run into so

    let's take a look at the figure that

    they have figure two on page 134 so this

    is the protocol so it's broken down into

    three parts the first part is on

    selecting and setting up a mathematical

    task think of it as a computational task

    I'll kind of adjust the wording to match

    that the second part is to support

    students exploration of the task and

    then the third part is about sharing And

    discussing the task all right so I'm

    going to read off figure two and I'm

    going to change the wording so that it

    focuses on Computing think of that

    broadly whether it's computer science or

    coding or whatever alright so this is

    from part one quote what are your

    Computing goals for the lesson I.E what

    do you want students to know and

    understand about Computing as a result

    of this lesson in what ways does the

    task build on students is prior

    knowledge life experiences and culture

    what definitions Concepts or ideas do

    students need to know to begin to work

    on the task what questions will you ask

    to help students access their prior

    knowledge and relevant life and cultural

    experiences what are the ways the task

    can be solved which of these methods do

    you think your students will use what

    misconception options might students

    have what errors might students make

    what particular challenges might the

    task present to struggling students or

    students who are English language

    Learners how will you address these

    challenges what are your expectations

    for students as they work on and

    complete this task what resources or

    tools will students have to use in the

    work that will give them entry into and

    help them reason through the task how

    will the students work independently in

    small groups or in pairs to explore this

    task how long will they work

    individually or in small groups or pairs

    will students be partnered in specific

    ways if so in what way how will students

    record and Report their work how we

    introduce students to the activity so as

    to provide access to all students while

    maintaining the cognitive demands of the

    task how will you ensure that students

    understand the context of the problem

    what we hear that lets you know that

    students understand what the task is

    asking them to do end quote Yeah so this

    is a really helpful set of questions to

    kind of think through whether it's a

    task like the wording uses or a project

    or a problem or a bug or whatever can be

    used in computational thinking

    computation the literacies computer

    science coding honestly I wish I had

    read this many years ago even though I

    did similar processes in terms of

    thinking through how to prepare for a

    project these are some excellent

    questions to consider so now let's talk

    about part two which is like supporting

    students while they're exploring the

    task again this is from page 134. quote

    as students work independently or in

    small groups what questions will you ask

    to help a group get started or make

    progress on the task to focus students

    is thinking of the key computational

    ideas in the task to assess students is

    understanding of key computational ideas

    problem solving strategies or the

    representations to advance students

    understandings of the computational

    ideas to encourage all students to share

    their thinking with others or to assess

    their understanding of their peers as

    ideas how you ensure that students

    remain engaged in the task what

    assistance will you give or what

    questions will you ask a student or

    group who becomes quickly frustrated and

    requests more Direction and guidance in

    solving the task what will you do if a

    student or group finishes the task

    almost immediately how you extend the

    task so as to provide additional

    challenge what will you do if a student

    or group focuses on non-computational

    aspects of the activity for example

    spends most of his or her or their time

    making a poster of their work end quote

    now these questions are really good for

    thinking about like engagement and

    helping people in the moment I would

    argue however it is much easier to keep

    kids engaged when they are the ones

    driving their learning so if it's

    focused on interest driven learning and

    students are exploring their interests

    odds are they're going to be very

    engaged for the ones who are not they

    might not be engaged because they just

    don't know where to start or what to

    work on it might be overwhelming for

    them at least for some of the students

    that I worked with and so just sit down

    with them and just have a conversation

    what do you want to learn what would be

    interesting for you to explore ah you're

    interested in sports cool here's a neat

    way that you might do that or check out

    Susie's project over here she's doing a

    sports project could you do something

    similar how might you change your

    variation to be different from Susie's

    variation Etc but one of the questions

    that really stood out for me was what

    will you do if a student or group

    finishes the task almost immediately

    that happened the first programming

    class that I took was in high school it

    was a C plus plus and the teacher is his

    first year ever teaching it he had never

    programmed before the school was like

    hey we want to do the sing then the math

    teacher is like cool I I can try and

    figure it out I'll stay one lesson ahead

    of the students so basically what he did

    is he gave us a month worth of

    assignments and then myself and many of

    my peers would finish it in a week or

    two and then we'd literally just play

    emulators for the remaining time that we

    had until we get our next set of

    assignments and in case you're not

    unfamiliar with it playing emulators

    means we basically played like retro

    video game stuff on computers so we'd

    play like Mario and like Sega Genesis

    Games Etc on our computers because we

    had nothing else to do in the class

    because the teacher was not at a place

    where they could help us dive deeper

    into something which is why I think it's

    important yes you can get started and

    start teaching without knowing much

    about computer science and coding but in

    the long run you're really gonna need to

    learn it and not just relying on the

    surface level understandings if you want

    to be able to help students continue to

    dive deeper because otherwise kids are

    just going to get bored I turned away

    from computer science because I was

    bored in class I stuck with music and

    got all my degrees in music education

    because it challenged me all of my

    instructors and directors Etc were at a

    level where they could keep pushing me

    to be better and better every single

    time I showed up thought I had something

    really great and then I learned oh

    here's something else I can improve but

    with coding because the teacher was

    unable to push me on that I was held

    back by that educator because I wanted

    to learn more I would have gladly spent

    my entire month working on programming

    instead of half programming and half

    gaming if the teacher was able to

    actually show me how to spend my entire

    month on programming I was actually

    planning on going into a career in

    programming and game development and

    whatnot but then just got so bored with

    it so yeah okay to not know much when

    you get started but you eventually need

    to know enough in my opinion and I know

    I'm very biased especially because of my

    background in music education there are

    very few music educators who don't have

    an extensive if not multiple

    decades-long experience making music

    before they started teaching music I

    started late I I started making music in

    eighth grade and most of my peers

    started when they were like five or

    maybe at the latest like fifth or fourth

    grade so by the time most music

    educators become teachers they've been

    doing this for at least a decade or two

    engaging in the field even at

    professional levels and that's not

    necessarily the case for a lot of the

    teachers that I see in computer science

    education it's generally classroom

    Educators or teachers from other subject

    areas like myself who are like yeah this

    looks interesting I want to learn more

    which is great but it's going to take a

    lot of work but anyways I'll end my rant

    there so part three of this protocol is

    still on page 134 quote how will you

    orchestrate the class discussions so

    that you accomplish your computational

    goals which solution paths do you want

    to have shared during the class

    discussion in what order will the

    solutions be presented why in what ways

    will the order in which Solutions are

    presented help develop students

    understanding of the computational ideas

    that are the focus of your lesson what

    specific questions will you ask that

    students will make sense of the

    computational ideas that you want them

    to learn that will expand on one debate

    and question the solutions being shared

    that will make connections among the

    different strategies that are presented

    that will look for patterns that will

    begin to form generalizations how you

    ensure that over time each student has

    the opportunity to share his or her

    thinking and reasoning from their peers

    what will you see or hear that lets you

    know that all students in their class

    understand the computational ideas that

    you intend for them to learn what will

    you do tomorrow that will build on this

    lesson end quote I love that not only is

    it like thinking of okay well how will

    people be able to share and reflect on

    and kind of learn from or even compare

    with their peers but then also thinking

    of okay where are you going next back

    when I was a music teacher I took over

    at several different schools where like

    the previous General music teacher and

    band director or even like Drumline in

    high school they would reach some kind

    of a goal and then take it some kind of

    like an extended break like okay we did

    our concert now we're not going to do

    anything and then same thing with like

    the coding class whenever like students

    would finish certain number of puzzles

    in their puzzle-based platform that they

    were initially working on on when I

    started there they expected to be able

    to just play games for the rest of the

    day it was like no sorry that's not

    gonna happen it's very important to

    reach goals to celebrate reaching those

    goals and to reflect on how has your

    learning evolved over time how does it

    compare to in the past and then to set

    new goals and if you're doing it in a

    razzmatic context where everybody is

    going at different paces and working on

    different things that happens

    immediately cool you just finished a

    project okay let's talk about what you

    learned now let's talk about what do you

    want to learn next all right now let's

    start working on that the learning in my

    opinion never stops alright so the

    remaining sections of this paper kind of

    unpack some more things to consider

    around the figure two that I just read

    off so I highly recommend checking this

    out so some quick things that stood out

    to me is that this protocol wasn't

    intended so that teachers will go

    through and like write out an answer to

    every single one of these questions it

    was intended to be used periodically or

    even collaboratively to just kind of

    help prepare for and think through

    things over time this will become more

    of a natural part of of the process if

    you do this more speaking from

    experience and it'll become much faster

    for you to be able to guide students on

    the fly when I first started asking

    questions in the process while students

    were working on their own interest

    driven projects I initially was not very

    good at it but because I practiced it

    every day and would often like when I

    first started teaching record my lessons

    and go back and watch them and go what

    worked what did not work what could I do

    to improve this it made it so that

    eventually I didn't need to do that or

    it didn't take nearly as long because I

    could just reflect on it and go okay

    this is what worked this isn't what did

    not work etc now because I read a decent

    portion of this seven page article I I

    will just kind of like read off some of

    the headings that come up and the next

    subsection someone is on getting started

    then on articulating the goal for the

    lesson and then on anticipating student

    responses to the task and then creating

    questions that assess and Advance

    students's thinking and then it kind of

    ends with a conclusion section and kind

    of talking about what are the benefits

    of using this protocol as always I'd

    like to end these unpacking scholarship

    episodes with some kind of a sharing of

    my lingering questions or thoughts I

    have a quick series of questions for you

    so what do you use to prepare for

    process and reflect on educational

    experiences you facilitate if you were

    to write them down and categorize them

    or code them if you want to use

    qualitative language what kinds of

    questions do you focus on more than

    others what questions are missing how

    has this changed over time and where are

    you headed next now I will include in

    the show notes some links to some

    podcasts that I've done in the past that

    talk about different questions that you

    can ask in CS education context so make

    sure you take a look at that but I hope

    this article or this episode helps you

    think through how you prepare for

    process and reflect on lessons or

    teaching facilitating Etc so I highly

    recommend taking a look at this article

    it is very interesting and even though

    it's written for mathematics education

    this can very easily apply to Computer

    Science Education whether you're brand

    new to teaching computer science or

    you've been doing it for a long time I

    genuinely think this is a very useful

    article because again it kind of serves

    as a heuristic a tool for thinking with

    or through with a goal cooked to move

    beyond the structural components often

    associated with lesson planning to a

    deeper consideration of how to advance

    students is computational understandings

    during the lesson end quote it's from

    page 137 and again changing mathematical

    to computational alright so I know this

    was a short episode this was a short

    paper seven pages with references six

    pages without honestly it's probably

    like five pages given some of the

    pictures and whatnot check it out at the

    show notes at jaredelary.com if you

    enjoyed this episode please consider

    sharing with a friend colleague or a

    random stranger on the street hey person

    you look like you'd be interested in

    this podcast here you go and then skip

    away while whistling your favorite tune

    anyways stay tuned next week for another

    episode until then I hope you're all

    staying safe and are having a wonderful

    week

Article

Smith, M. S., Bill, V., & Hughes, E. K. (2008). Thinking through a Lesson: Successfully Implementing High-level Tasks. Mathematics Teaching in Middle School, 14(3), 132–138.

My One Sentence Summary

This article provides a heuristic that can be used to prepare for a lesson.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • What do you use to prepare for, process, and reflect on educational experiences you facilitate?

    • If you were to write them out and categorize them, what kinds of questions do you focus on more than others? What questions are missing?

      • How has this changed over time and where are you headed next?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

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