Thinking through a Lesson: Successfully Implementing High-level Tasks

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
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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

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- CS Educator as Dungeon Master with Jon Stapleton
  - In this interview with Jon Stapleton, we discuss metaphors for education and facilitating, the importance of community and navigating inappropriate content online, how programming languages and platforms influence learning, theories and philosophies that inform Jon’s practice, critical code studies, and much more.
- Fostering Intersectional Identities through Rhizomatic Learning
  - In this episode, Jon Stapleton and I read our (2022) publication titled “Fostering intersectional identities through rhizomatic learning,” which uses mapping as a metaphor for individualized learning.
- 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.
- Mindful Makers: Question Prompts to Help Guide Young Peoples' Critical Technical Practices in Maker Spaces in Libraries, Museums, and Community-based Youth Organizations
  - In this episode I unpack Bowler and Champagne’s (2009) publication titled “Mindful makers: Question prompts to help guide young peoples' critical technical practices in maker spaces in libraries, museums, and community-based youth organizations,” which "examines question prompts as a means to scaffold reflection and reflexivity in the design, development, and use of technological artifacts in maker spaces for youth at public libraries, museums, and community-based organizations" (abstract).
- Rhizomatic Learning with Catherine Bornhorst, Jon Stapleton, and Katie Henry
  - In this panel discussion with Catherine Bornhorst, Jon Stapleton, and Katie Henry, we discuss what rhizomatic learning is and looks like in formalized educational spaces, affordances and constraints of rhizomatic learning, how to support individual students within a group setting, standards and rhizomatic learning, why few people know and use rhizomatic learning approaches, how to advocate for and learn more about rhizomatic learning, and much more.
- Talking About [Computer Science]: Better Questions? Better Discussions!
  - In this episode I unpack Allsup and Baxter’s (2004) publication titled “Talking about music: Better questions? Better discussions!” which is a short article that discusses open, guided, and closed questions, as well as a framework for encouraging critical thinking through questions. Although this article is published in a music education journal, I discuss potential implications for computer science educators.
- Using Questions That Guide Mathematical Thinking to Think Computationally
  - In this episode I discuss some example questions we can ask to encourage kids to think deeper about computer science and computational thinking by unpacking two papers on using guiding questions in mathematics education. The first paper paper by Way (2014) is titled “Using questioning to stimulate mathematical thinking” and the second paper by Pennant (2018) is titled “Developing a classroom culture that supports a problem-solving approach to mathematics.”
- More episodes related to debugging
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