Moving Towards a Vision of Equitable Computer Science

In this episode I unpack Koshy et al.’s (2022) publication titled “Moving towards a vision of equitable computer science: Results of a landscape of PreK-12 CS teachers in the United States,” which provides recommendations for the field based on a landscape study of CS educators in the United States.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is Jared O'Leary

    each week of his 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 quote

    moving towards a vision of Ecuador

    computer science colon results of a

    landscape survey of pre-k12 Cs teachers

    in the United States end quote it was

    released in December of 2022 and it was

    written by Sonia Kashi Brian twerk

    Daquan Bashir Shayna glass Rachel Goins

    Lisa Cruz novahotsky and Allison Scott

    apologies if I mispronounced any names

    here's the very first paragraph of the

    executive summary quote given

    Technologies significant role in society

    our Educational Systems must ensure that

    all students have access to robust and

    rigorous Computer Science Education to

    prepare them to participate in the

    global economy and to contribute to a

    more Equitable Tech driven future as

    such computer science CS teachers are

    critical to the efforts to expand access

    and equity in CS education in our first

    national study published in 2021 We

    examined the landscape of pre K-12 CS

    teachers in the United States in this

    detailed and nuanced understanding of

    teachers experiences and perceptions of

    achieving equity in K-12 CS education

    end quote that's from page two power to

    summarizes paper into a single sentence

    I'd say that it provides recommendations

    for the field based on a landscape study

    of Cs Educators in the United States all

    right in the executive summary it

    provides like a very high level overview

    of some of the key findings as well as

    five recommendations I'm not going to

    talk about the recommendations yet so

    I'm going to kind of go in the order

    that is introduced in this paper so the

    first main section is on the

    demographics of respondents though 82

    percent of the respondents were in

    public schools 18 were private the

    majority of teachers were in high school

    with 58 only 35 percent were middle

    school and 25 were in elementary school

    and that's by the way out of 2238 Pre-K

    States as well as Washington DC and

    Puerto Rico now one of the interesting

    questions that I kind of have about this

    is when they say CES teachers do they

    mean computer science teachers or

    teachers who are teaching computer

    science which I know you might be like

    Jared don't do that we're arguing about

    semantics here sort of there are some

    Educators who 90 of what they do is not

    computer science and they might not

    identify as computer science teachers or

    Educators like I've spoken to some music

    educators who their job is music

    education but they do computer science

    in their classes so they teach computer

    science would they be considered part of

    this survey or not and I don't know just

    because I didn't look at this survey now

    picking back up with the demographic

    discussion 56 of the teachers who

    responded were in a higher income school

    or community and only 29 were in a high

    population where the students were black

    Latin native native Hawaiian Pacific

    Islanders to know that the results of

    this study although it's great that they

    got 2 000 people to respond to it it's

    still going to be a little bit off

    depending on where you're at so for

    example like some states like South

    Carolina I don't know if this was like

    Dominic Sanders's uh hand in things but

    they like had a ton of responses but

    then other states had like four not

    gonna call out the state that I saw that

    only had four there might be some that

    have lower but if you want to see how

    your state did on this and see whether

    or not that you like as a csda chapter

    or just as an individual can like help

    for the next round of the survey down

    the road I'll include a link to this in

    the show notes but they have an

    interactive map where you can click on

    like oh let's filter by a specific State

    and see how we responded and what our

    results were so I'm going to talk about

    the broader overall landscape across the

    United States but maybe you'll find

    something that is super relevant for

    your state and it might have some

    different results than what I'm about to

    talk about now most of the teachers in

    this year's survey 71 said that they

    were 100 in person six percent said they

    were 100 online and 22 percent of the

    respondents said that they were in a

    hybrid scenario now back when I did an

    episode on the previous round of the

    survey which was from episode 83 and for

    content Texas is now episode 166 so this

    was a while ago the percentage of

    teachers who responded that were white

    was 75 but this time around the

    percentage of teachers who responded

    that were white were 68 so there is an

    improvement in terms of more diverse

    responses from non-white CS Educators

    however what I don't know is is that

    just because of different people

    responding who might not have done it in

    the previous round or is that because

    it's more diverse than it was in 2021

    from a racial demographic perspective

    and I don't know if you want to see a

    breakdown in terms of like overall

    Elementary Middle School High School low

    income High income as well as low or

    high black Latin native native Hawaiian

    and Pacific Islander you can actually

    see that on page seven of the report one

    of the things that I appreciate in this

    round is they have nine percent of the

    teachers have a disability status which

    it's nice that people are actually

    looking into that more so thank you

    kudos to the authors and then it breaks

    down how 54 overall of teachers are

    women and 46 being male and they do note

    that less than one percent of

    respondents identified as non-binary

    thank you for including that as a

    non-binary individual I appreciate it

    and if you want to see the breakdown

    again based on the categories that I

    listed with Elementary Middle High

    School low income High income low and

    high black Latin native native Hawaiian

    and Pacific Islander you can find that

    on page eight I want to give you just

    enough to make you be like oh I really

    want to check out this report and not

    enough to make you go oh I don't need to

    read this report because I think it

    would be helpful for anyone to read it

    okay on page nine there's a really

    interesting breakdown of the courses

    taught by the respondents I'm going to

    read through each one of these

    percentages now you're going to notice

    that this is not going to add up to 100

    and one of the reasons probably is

    because teachers are teaching multiple

    different types of classes and grade

    levels so 10 of the respondents taught a

    standalone pre-k5 CS course 14 Tatton

    integrated course in that grade span 20

    taught a standalone CS course or six

    through eight and fifteen percent were

    integrated in that grade level 36

    percent taught in intro level high

    school CS course six percent taught in

    integrated High School CS course 19 A

    specialized high school CS course 24

    taught an apcs principles class 17

    taught an apcsa class and 12 Taunton

    other class really curious what's under

    the other category do they mean

    something other than computer science or

    do they just mean some kind of Cs course

    that wasn't really categorized in that

    area it's the second one that's

    intriguing maybe it was like app

    development course or something but that

    would probably fall under the

    specialized high school CS course I

    don't know thinking out loud on page 10

    they have a breakdown of people who had

    Cs and Tech science Majors graduate

    degrees credentials or industry

    experience this was interesting to take

    a look at and I'm gonna leave that there

    as a teaser to encourage you to take a

    look at this paper another really

    interesting breakdown in figure 9 on the

    same page on page 10 is they had a

    teacher classroom experience breakdown

    and they broke this down into Pre-K 12

    classrooms and CS classrooms so they

    broke it down by early career mid-career

    and late career which was 11 plus years

    so in the Pre-K 12 classes 21 were an

    early career but in the Cs classes 50

    percent were in early career which is

    zero to four years for the mid-career 31

    were in a Pre-K 12 class and in a CS

    classroom is 37 and then late career 11

    plus years in the Pre-K 12 class was 48

    compared to only 14 in the Cs classrooms

    that was really interesting pretty

    drastic difference between the two

    different groups in figure 10 this is on

    page 11 so they talk about the community

    at large so 33 of respondents were the

    sole CS teacher in the school 18 had one

    more CS teacher 16 had two more and then

    science teachers in their school again

    it's not in their District but in their

    school and I'm really wondering if that

    like three or more is that like a

    massive high school or is this just like

    in an elementary school where they're

    integrating computer science and I don't

    know for context I was the only one in

    my school we had a few other people in

    the district who were doing it in their

    school or schools but because it was a

    technology pull out that really just

    became 100 coding classes we just had

    one specialized person to teach that at

    each one in the schools which in my

    opinion it makes it so that a school can

    go further much faster because there's

    one person who's able to dive deeper and

    really just focus all their efforts on

    this as opposed to like yeah I teach

    Math and Science and Ela to my fourth

    graders and now I'm also having to

    integrate CS like it's not going to be

    as easy for them to be able to learn

    like multiple programming languages or

    whatever just the Cs content in general

    compared to somebody whose only job is

    to focus on that but that's my own

    biased opinion and you can disagree with

    me and you can disagree with me even on

    the podcast if you'd like to there's a

    contact me button on my website and I do

    a lot more interviews in 2023 so feel

    free to hit me up I'll actually talk

    about that more in next week's episode

    alright so on page 11 on figure 11 they

    actually have a discussion on the level

    of support received by CS teachers so

    this how supported CS teachers feel and

    what's interesting is the spread overall

    is between 69 and 84 so it's a

    relatively small spread across

    categories like have the materials

    supplies equipment and space necessary

    to do my job have the professional

    support necessary to be a successful CS

    teacher I have the opportunity to

    collaborate with other CS teachers and

    feel part of a community of Cs teachers

    the fact that like an average of three

    out of four teachers feel supported in

    all those areas that's actually pretty

    good especially given that CS is a

    relatively new field so I know that some

    states haven't really had the time to be

    able to develop systems of support for

    CS Educators like sometimes there have

    been teachers who are just kind of

    getting started with cs before they've

    even gotten like policies in place to

    develop CS standards or adopt csta's CS

    standards or even like mandate it in a

    school or whatever so that's pretty high

    numbers in my opinion and is good it's

    certainly much better than people

    feeling under-supported now there's

    certainly room for improvement here but

    what I didn't look at is how how would

    these numbers compare in like each one

    in the states so like if you are in I

    don't know Wyoming shout out to everyone

    in Wyoming do the respondents there feel

    as supported as in other states I don't

    know maybe the interactive map can help

    you with that but again maybe we didn't

    get enough respondents from that state

    and we might need to get some more now

    if we flip the other side to challenges

    for gaining support in CS education the

    two main categories is that they had

    were lack of admin support and lack of

    counselor support So in high school the

    lack of counselor support was high it

    was 32 percent but then in elementary

    school it was low 13 and the middle

    school is 17 that makes sense in my

    opinion becomes more of an elective

    typically speaking in most high school

    contexts compared to Elementary where

    it's usually mandated but then if we

    look at the lack of admin support this

    was a spread between 26 and 29 with

    Elementary Educators being at 29 27 for

    middle school and 26 for high school

    that was interesting consistent now

    another interesting finding and this

    kind of makes sense so page 12 it talks

    about teachers confidence in being able

    to promote Equitable computer science at

    the school district and state levels so

    at the school level 74 percent of

    respondents said yeah I feel comfortable

    or confident promoting Equitable CS but

    at the district level is only 56 and the

    state level it was only 44 honestly 44

    is higher than I thought I don't know

    what the respondents thought of as being

    able to promote it at the state level

    maybe it just means by voting or maybe

    it means by like being on committees or

    a part of like csta's local chapters or

    something and I don't know but with that

    being said one of the things that you

    might be able to have like in a like a

    csta chapter Meetup is talking about

    well how might we actually increase

    confidence in promoting Equitable CS at

    district and state levels not just at

    the school level although there's

    obviously still room for improvement

    there so maybe that's the topic of

    future discussion with your local

    chapter which if you want to learn more

    about csta chapters check out the

    interview that I did with Jason Bourne

    I'll include a link to that in the show

    notes as well as an interview that I did

    with Dominic Sanders who I mentioned

    earlier now here's an another really

    interesting question that they asked so

    they asked for teachers a sense of

    agency in Shifting the students's Cs

    perceptions so 81 of respondents said

    that they felt that they could help

    students believe they could do well in

    computer science 77 said that they would

    help students value learning computer

    science but only 61 percent thought that

    they could motivate students who show

    low interest in computer science I

    wonder what grade level breakdown that

    would be I imagine that the motivating

    students with low interest would be a

    problem in mandatory classes but not so

    much when students elect to take them

    that's just speaking from my own

    experience like in music education and

    computer science education from

    kindergarten all the way through

    graduate students most the time when

    students are electing to take something

    they're more interested than when

    they're required to take it and if

    they're paying to attend then they're

    usually more motivated than if they're

    not but again if this is like required

    like for graduate school or something

    they might not be super motivated to

    learn something so I'd be really

    interested to see what the breakdown is

    for those particular questions but

    that's an interesting finding I found

    for myself that the best way to motivate

    students was to focus on their interests

    first and make that a 100 priority of

    everything they were doing in the class

    which is why the curriculum that I

    created for free at boot up professional

    developments which is at boot.pd.org is

    all about interest driven learning and

    starting in 2023 I'm actually creating

    my own new CS content on YouTube on my

    own channel to specifically focus on

    helping students learn to explore their

    interests through computer science stay

    tuned figure 15 on page 13 has a really

    interesting finding but they say that 47

    of respondents talk about digital

    citizenship 40 talk about impacts of

    computing which is one of the standards

    for csta so I kind of hope that would be

    higher cough cough it's an entire strand

    uh 42 of the respondents said that they

    talk about ethics but only 20 so that

    they talk about accessibility check out

    the interviews that I did with my Israel

    Jesse wrath gibber Andreas stefek as

    well as some of the other papers that

    I've tagged as accessibility to learn

    more about how you might be able to

    increase that so instead of being among

    the 80 of people who don't currently

    talk about accessibility you can become

    some of the 20 who do all right so page

    and their own perceptions of effectively

    teaching with identity inclusive

    pedagogy if I remember correctly last

    year's survey said that 40 roughly of

    the respondents didn't think we needed

    to discuss equity in CS so this is

    actually broken down even more than it

    was last year and they instead of

    referring to it as Equity they talk

    about identity inclusive pedagogy which

    kudos to the author on that word choice

    I think that is less polarizing than the

    word equity which I don't think that

    word should be polarizing I'm a fan of

    equity work if this is your first time

    listening you've never heard me before

    got a bunch of podcasts to talk about it

    but going with identity inclusive

    pedagogy I think may have been easier

    for some people to digest because this

    time it was roughly 30 of people who

    didn't think we needed to talk about

    racism sexism ableism and other

    inequalities in CS classrooms so maybe

    again this is just like a sampling

    difference in terms of getting different

    participants to respond but instead of

    talk about that now in terms of

    confidence overall it was like in the

    low 70 percent for most of these

    responses so 71 of respondents said that

    they felt comfortable or confident with

    using inquiry-based strategies 65 said

    using culturally relevant pedagogy to

    support student learning was a

    confidence areas that was the lowest one

    that they had the highest response was

    confidence in teaching students from

    diverse backgrounds which is good

    because I'd argue that most classes are

    going to be very diverse depending on

    how you look at it how many layers of

    culture you go down talked about that

    more in detail in other episodes but 71

    of the respondents felt confident with

    teaching students with IEPs or 504 plans

    which would be nice if that were a

    little bit higher but almost

    three-fourths is better than the

    opposite of that 74 confident with using

    a variety of assessment strategies

    actually just did a couple of

    assessments episodes you want to check

    those out for that 26 if you don't feel

    super comfortable with that yep 74

    respondents felt confident adjusting

    lessons to the proper level for

    individual students I wonder if that's

    like you can't really adjust some

    lessons if you're using like a can

    curriculum so that's just me thinking

    out loud as somebody who's written

    curriculum for a few years now and then

    conversations around the impacts and

    ethics of computing which is great they

    feel comfortable with that but it's

    concerning that only 40 percent of

    respondents actually talked about

    impacts of computing in their classrooms

    so the remaining percentage 33 might

    need to do it more now going back to

    what I was talking about with roughly 30

    not feeling comfortable talking about

    like racism Etc so it was 69 of the

    respondents did feel comfortable with

    that now if we talk about some other

    identity inclusive pedagogies that

    discuss on page 14. 87 felt that they

    were effective at incorporating diverse

    cultures and experiences into classroom

    lessons and discussions and 93 felt that

    they could connect students prior

    knowledge with cs Concepts than that it

    would lead to deeper learning so that's

    great for a number of reasons one is

    they broke it down into different

    categories that they were looking at and

    then two those numbers are better again

    relating to equity in particular all

    right so all my PD providers perk your

    ears up page 15. here are teachers who

    have their own self-identified

    professional development needs 33

    percent of teachers felt that they could

    continue to improve applying CS

    practices like computational thinking 21

    felt that they could continue to improve

    applying knowledge of computing systems

    programs and interpreting algorithms 16

    felt that they could improve modeling

    networks and the internet sixteen

    percent felt they could improve using

    and analyzing data and 15 felt they

    could improve planning projects that

    have personal meaning to students I'm

    glad that was the lowest one maybe it's

    because the majority of respondents use

    the curriculum at boot.pd.org that I

    wrote wink wink nudge nudge I'm just

    kidding but seriously though I am happy

    to see that the majority of the teachers

    felt like they didn't need to focus on

    that but instead need to focus more on

    applying CS practices knowledge Etc

    here's a really important quote from a

    CS teacher from Michigan and this is

    from page 15. quote I need more access

    to professional development our school

    district has a very limited budget and I

    am only able to participate in funded

    conferences and events end quote snaps

    to that I remember what it was like

    being on an only income to people on a

    teacher salary it was hard to get to

    conferences and whatnot especially when

    it's like across the country you gotta

    fly on average I estimated that each one

    of the like presentations that I did at

    different conferences including

    registration food Hotel airfare car Etc

    all that came to generally speaking

    about a thousand dollars per trip that's

    a lot of money so if there are ways to

    fund teacher professional development

    I'm sure they'd participate more they

    just might not be able to get there or

    might not have the money to do the

    registration costs so if you are part of

    like a csta chapter maybe you can find

    ways to fundraise to provide

    sponsorships or scholarships to teachers

    whether it's to reimburse travel costs

    or registration costs or whatever like

    the Arizona csta chapter where I'm the

    treasurer of like we've done what I

    think is a great job at trying to

    support people coming from out of town

    like into Phoenix for the Cs

    professional development but another

    thing if you're in like a CS

    organization may be partnering with

    corporations or large donors or whatever

    to help cover those costs because it's a

    real struggle for a lot of people page

    researchers like people who work on like

    NSF grants I'd really pay attention to

    figure 19 in particular so these are the

    top challenges identified by teachers in

    teaching computer science so 30 of

    respondents said that there was a lack

    of academic priority 29 felt that there

    were too many preps or other

    responsibilities like bus Duty or lunch

    duty or other duties 28 felt that there

    was a lack of support or interest or

    knowledge by the Admin 26 percent felt

    that there were scheduling constraints

    lack of hardware and software resources

    and then 26 felt that there was a lack

    of student interest or enrollment if I

    were writing a grant right now like for

    the February submission for rotting

    participation NSF or the EHR racial

    Equity Grant coming up in March I'd be

    citing those figures and then figure 20

    talks about teacher perceptions on the

    importance of computer science but like

    no surprise it ranged between 94 and 85

    percent I mean you're asking CS teachers

    do you think your job is valuable or

    worthwhile I mean I'd hope they say yes

    but that gets into the next section

    starting on page 17. so they talk about

    recommendations so there are five

    recommendations based off of their

    findings so the first recommendation is

    to recruit retain and diversify the pool

    of computer science teachers and they

    provide some actions for teachers admin

    policy makers and curriculum or PD

    providers I highly recommend taking a

    look at those actions on page 18. their

    next recommendation is to prioritize CSS

    as as a core subject with universal

    participation throughout pre-k12

    education and again they have some

    actions for that that's on page 19. well

    I totally agree with recommendation

    number one I respectfully am skeptical

    about recommendation number two I think

    the more core subjects quote unquote

    that we add to our plate the more it's

    going to dilute what's already being

    discussed and I think rather than making

    more classes mandatory for everybody I

    think we should make it so that we have

    less mandatory classes and allow

    students to actually specialize by

    diving deeper in the areas that they

    want to so instead of spending 10

    percent of your time on 10 core classes

    this is just like some fake math to make

    a point instead maybe you only spend I

    don't know 30 percent of your time on

    core classes and 70 of your time diving

    deeper into an area you want to

    specialize it might be computer science

    or it might be like in my case music I

    took whatever was necessary in order to

    get the classes to get into college and

    then the rest of my electives I mainly

    spend and focusing on music classes so I

    did band I also performed in the

    orchestra did marching band all these as

    a percussionist I even came in on

    lunchtime taught the Freshman Etc if I

    could specialize even more than I did

    that would have been great but as we

    continue to add more and more classes

    that are core or mandatory which kind of

    takes away from the other ones that are

    core so if you get computer science as a

    core class now great in two or three

    years there's gonna be another

    organization or field that comes up and

    it's like we have an equally valued

    argument why this class should also be

    core like I don't know mental health

    that I think should be a core subject

    that we focus on but we don't what about

    social media discourse and like just how

    to communicate build relationships treat

    other people that could be a core

    subject area so an interpersonal

    relationship course you might be like

    yeah Jared those can be embedded in

    other classes yeah so computer science

    and I disagree with that too but anyways

    I'm in a ranty mood I guess so I'm just

    gonna go on to recommendation three this

    one is to invest in ongoing training for

    CS teachers and as their our own finding

    show there's an interest in that and

    there might be some constraints as to

    why they're not able to do that so they

    provide some actions again for teachers

    admit and policymakers curriculum and PD

    providers that's on page 20 and I'm in

    full support of that in recommendation

    number four they recommend providing

    curriculum resources and training that

    are aligned with identity inclusive

    topics and approaches totally agree

    their actions that they recommend around

    resource for that like there's so many

    interviews with some wonderful people on

    the show that talk about identity

    inclusive approaches topics Etc and just

    listening to that is an excellent way to

    get some new insights or ideas or

    approaches whatever or your own

    classroom and then these like unpacking

    scholarship episodes hopefully also

    provide some help for you in that area

    the last recommendation that they

    provide is connecting CS teachers to

    collaborative communities and then

    provide some recommendations or some

    actions on page 22. I totally agree with

    that so one of the things that they

    mention is like attending the csta

    meetups like the chapter meetings or for

    the conference or the pde provider

    Summits Etc like there's so many

    excellent ways that you can connect with

    other people specifically through csda

    that I highly recommend if you feel like

    you're the only person or you literally

    are the only person in your school or

    District or whatever teaching computer

    science and you feel alone there are so

    many people out there who are able to

    connect with you remotely so I highly

    recommend taking a look at those actions

    that are on there they do include links

    to like how to become a member of csta

    or join your local chapter Etc but those

    are the key findings and then some of

    the recommendations that they provide

    again I highly recommend actually

    reading through this particular paper

    and when you do so what I recommend is

    thinking through how does this report

    inform your own practices in computer

    science education or the kind of impact

    you want to have and then what questions

    could they ask in the next iteration of

    this kind of survey having read through

    the previous one in 2021 and then this

    year's survey that came out I'm really

    happy to see some of the changes that

    they made knowing most of the people who

    are on this uh committee who work on

    this report they're very open to

    feedback so if you got some ideas on how

    they might improve it I'd highly

    recommend reaching out but anyways thank

    you so much for listening to this

    episode I hope you enjoyed it if you did

    consider leaving a review or even better

    sharing it with somebody else who's not

    heard of this podcast being 166 episodes

    in I realized that the hashtag csk8 does

    not really give a great identifying name

    for what this podcast is about no

    Rugrats but word of mouth I think is

    probably the best way to help spread the

    resources and ideas that are shared in

    this podcast if you want to do that I

    mean if you got this far into the

    episode and you don't want to do that

    that's interesting but regardless thank

    you so much for everyone who lives in

    stay tuned next week for another episode

    it's gonna be a short one I'm gonna talk

    to you about what's happening in 2023

    but until then hope you're all staying

    safe and are having a wonderful week

Article

Koshy, S., Twarek, B., Bashir, D., Glass, S., Goins, R., Cruz Novahatski, L., & Scott, A. (2022). Moving towards a vision of equitable computer science: Results of a landscape of PreK-12 CS teachers in the United States.


Executive summary (Excerpt)

“Given technology’s significant role in society, our educational systems must ensure that all students have access to a robust and rigorous computer science education to prepare them to participate in the global economy and to contribute to a more equitable tech-driven future. As such, computer science (CS) teachers are critical to the efforts to expand access and equity in CS education. In our first national study published in 2021, we examined the landscape of PreK-12 CS teachers in the United States. In this 2022 follow-up study, we sought a more detailed and nuanced understanding of teachers’ experiences and perceptions of achieving equity in K-12 CS education” (p. 2).


My One Sentence Summary

This paper provides recommendations for the field based on a landscape study of CS educators in the United States.


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • How does this report inform your own practices in CS education?

    • What questions could they ask in the next iteration of this kind of survey?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

  • Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode

    • Accessible CS Education through Evidence-based Programming Languages with Andreas Stefik

      • In this interview with Andreas Stefik, we discuss the importance of using evidence-based programming languages, problems with the lack of replication in CS education scholarship and academia in general, the importance of designing for accessibility and disabilities, lessons learned designing Quorum (an accessible programming language and platform), and much more.

    • Accessibility and Inclusion in CS Education with Maya Israel

      • In this interview with Maya Israel, we discuss Maya’s shift from special education into CS education, the importance of universal design for learning (UDL) in CS classes, understanding the spectrum of accessibility for students with a diverse set of needs, the current status of accessibility and inclusion within the field of CS education, problematize deficit framings of students with disabilities, and so much more.

    • Connecting with and Listening to Students with Dominick Sanders

      • In this interview with Dominick Sanders, we discuss the importance of connecting with and listening to students, the impact of being a positive role model for kids, considering equity for individuals and across the entire state of South Carolina, what Dominick learned through their experience with Xposure STEM, Dominick’s plan for improving CS in South Carolina, Dominick’s experience with CSTA’s Equity Fellowship, how Dominick continues to learn and grow as a CS educator, thinking through intersectionality in relation to representation, and so much more.

    • Exploring (Dis)Ability and Connecting with the Arts with Jesse Rathgeber

      • In this interview with Jesse Rathgeber, we discuss what educators should know about (dis)ability culture and research, person-first language vs identity-first language, suggestions for combating ableism through anti-ableist practices, how the arts and CS can come together and learn from each other (great for sharing with arts educators who might be interested in CS), and much more.

    • 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.

    • Lessons Learned From CSTA Chapters Across the United States with Jason Bohrer

      • In this interview with Jason Bohrer, we discuss lessons learned coming into computer science education from another subject area, lessons learned working with CSTA chapters across the country (and during a pandemic), how CSTA has impacted the field and continues to evolve over time, how Jason continued to learn about CS without getting burned out, considering equity and inclusion when recruiting for CS education, CSTA’s new CS Teacher Standards, and much more.

    • The Computer Science Teacher Landscape: Results of a Nationwide Teacher Survey

      • In this episode I unpack Koshy, Martin, Hinton, Scott, Twarek, and Davis’ (2021) publication titled “The Computer Science Teacher Landscape: Results of a Nationwide Teacher Survey,” which provides recommendations for the field based on a summary of findings on teacher demographics, current challenges for CS educators, and the state of cultural relevance in CS education.

    • More episodes related to accessibility

    • More episodes related to assessment

    • More episodes related to equity

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  • Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter



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