Lessons Learned from CS Professional Development with McKay Perkins
In this interview with McKay Perkins, we discuss what McKay has learned over the years providing elementary CS/coding professional development, considerations for creating within constraints, teaching a sustainable way for integrating CS/coding in elementary schools, the importance of adapting PD to continuous feedback, advice for becoming a professional development facilitator, and much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is Jared Leary in
this week's episode I'm interviewing
McKay Perkins McKay is a professional
development facilitator at boot-up where
I work so we have been coworkers for the
last couple of years so I figured I'd
get him on the podcast to kind of share
his insights about some of the things
that he has learned by doing elementary
professional development over the last
couple of years in our discussion we
also talked about considerations for
creativity within constraints as well as
some recommendations for how to
integrate in a sustainable way in
elementary schools the importance of
feedback both in teaching and in
professional development and advice for
anybody who's interested in becoming a
professional development facilitator as
well as many other topics as always you
can finally show notes by clicking on
the link in the app that you're
listening to this on or simply visiting
Jared O'Leary calm or there's nothing
for sale or anything like that and with
all that being said I hope you enjoyed
this interview with Mackay which will
now begin with McCain introducing
himself my name is McKay Perkins and I
used to be a sixth grade teacher I
taught for five years and then I got a
master's degree in instructional
technology instructional design and I
started working with teachers elementary
teachers and kids with coding elementary
students and then after my master's
degree was through I I've been working
with boot up now for a little over two
years and I've really enjoyed every
minute of it
personally I am the youngest of seven
kids I have a twin brother and I've got
a wife and one child can you tell me the
story of how you got into computer
science education and PD as I said I was
a sixth grade teacher and when I was
teaching them I began to form a belief
that when teachers dedicate time and
energy to insert education into a
child's imagination rather than asking
them to stop daydreaming it unlocks the
teachers potential and willingness to
pursue education and I really wanted to
pursue this thought of inserting
education into the things that children
are interested in so they learn how to
do it I applied and was accepted into
Brigham Young University's instructional
cycle
and Technology program with the idea
that I was going to spend my time
building what I called a secret-agent
math curriculum while I was teaching the
sixth graders I saw in math that when
they were solving story problems they
were totally not engaged and I felt that
they didn't understand what the math was
actually for or why they were working
through the algorithms because the story
problems didn't engage them so they
weren't really paying that much
attention to what they're trying to
solve and why they would try to solve it
in real life and I didn't get why to me
it seems that it's human nature to love
stories but to hate math story problems
it didn't make sense to me so I was
trying to develop an overarching story
with episodes that took students through
the entire sixth grade math curriculum
teaching him concepts and so the idea
that I was getting into was that I was
gonna create story problems where the
students could take on the role of a
secret agent training to be a field
agent and they would have to use math to
solve applicable problems the field
agents were facing and I shared this
idea with my chairperson Peter rich and
I was his research assistant with coding
and so we were meeting with teachers and
students we taught some after-school
programs to 3rd through 6th grade
students and we worked with elementary
school teachers during their PLC
meetings helping them integrate coding
and he said hey you can do the project
that you're planning on but I've got a
lot of research opportunities around
coding that if you want to do a project
there for your master's degree and as I
worked more and more with the teachers
and students I began to see like my
original plan to create curriculum that
was engaging that allowed students to
pursue their own interests I could
achieve all of these things with coding
and I really enjoyed exploring coding
myself and so I decided to jump fully
into coding for my master's project not
just for my job while I was a master
student and so my project on
computational thinking and helping
teachers to apply computational thinking
and coding to their teaching practice
and then while I was working with him he
was working with Buddha and help
consulting with them is he's still doing
today and he came to me once and said
hey Buddhist looking for people who have
your almost your exact experience
description and so I applied and two
years later I'm loving what I'm doing
and now I'm teaching coding to
elementary school teachers and students
across the United States I really enjoy
it so it's interesting that kids felt
that the word problems in particular
were kind of decontextualized that was
the only thing that I felt math actually
contextualized things for me but I could
still see how it would come across as
abstract so it sounds like when you went
into your masters in particular you kind
of had this like change of thought in
terms of like direction of where you're
going I'm wondering if you can think of
something that you believed in when you
first started working in education that
you no longer believed so when I first
was getting into teaching I don't know
if I fully believe this but I kind of
felt that most of our learning happens
in the typical classroom setting that
sitting in a classroom going through
different subjects listening to a
teacher
taking tests I think it was probably a
subconscious thought but that was where
most of our learning happened and if we
you know if we wanted to succeed that we
needed to be good at that type of
learning on why still think that you do
have to be a good student and you have
you do a lot of learning in the
classroom setting since I have found
that especially kids do learning when
they are skateboarding and when they are
talking with their friends and so much
of what we learn and what is valuable to
learn doesn't only happen in the
classroom but it happens in the everyday
hobbies that we have and the activities
that we pursue and I think it was my
experience teaching elementary school
that taught me that a lot of my learning
has been just pursuing things that I
liked and that I was engaged in and
interested in yeah that definitely
resonates with me I felt some other
things I just kind of subconsciously
thought that oh where I go to learn is
at school and I was
really learning outside of that but as I
began to work in education then I
realized wow there's a ton of learning
going on outside of school context yeah
well and it's really nice as a teacher
because you know you it really opens up
a field where you can play you know the
types of things that you can do with
students with education and things that
they are excited about pursuing coding
has really opened up the tools that
students have and that I have as a
teacher to share with students to help
them express that creativity and learn
in fun interesting ways what about with
teachers what was something that you
thought when you first began working
with them and that has changed and like
as an example so I taught the drum mind
that I at the high school that I
graduated from as soon as I graduated
high school so I had like four years of
that and then when I started my student
teaching I went into my first faculty
meeting and professional development
session and just kind of like completely
changed my understanding of teachers
because I realized that some of them
were just horrible students in the way
that they were behaving like all the
things they told me not to do in class
they were doing in terms of how they
were behaving with each other and so
just like completely changed my
perspective and it was just a paradigm
shift do you have anything similar
having worked in professional
development now as I've worked with
teachers doing professional development
the attitude I see most is excitement
and if it's not excitement at first
quickly transitions to excitement and so
I learned teaching elementary school I
would say I was a different teacher than
most and I just don't I say that because
some of the ideas I suggested a lot of
my colleagues looked at me and they were
kind of like that sounds like a lot of
work and good luck with that and to a
point like a lot of it I didn't get done
and so there are there grand ideas that
he didn't do because it was a lot of
work and so they had a point but what I
found was that where I was weak as a
teacher a lot of times they were strong
and where maybe they were weak a little
bit that I was strong and so I tried
really hard and I continued to try
really hard
as I work with elementary school
teachers to kind of have this we work
together because rather than getting
frustrated because we're different hey
we both have strengths and let's work
together but yes I think I was guilty as
well of being one of those poor students
in the professional development hours
that I took as a teacher when you know
the temptation was to check the email I
did try hard though to be respectful and
pay attention and do what I was supposed
to be doing but I agree with what you're
saying and I'm guilty of it too so like
after I finished all of the coursework
for my doctorate I went back into the
classroom and because I was a new hire
in the district I was forced to take the
new higher class which was geared at
first-year teachers who had never taught
a day in their life it was like I one
paper away from a doctorate in education
and I'm being taught what a objective is
and what standards are in lesson plans I
was not a thrilled student but
fortunately I had a class that I was
teaching at a community college that
conflicted so I only had to go to one of
those trainings so if someone were to
walk into your ideal PD session what
would they see here or experience it
would be very little of my voice talking
which is something that I constantly
have to work on you would see groups of
teachers collaborating with each other
and so whether that's sitting together
and working on one project together or
if it was in groups sharing ideas for
how to take these new tools and the new
activities that coding offers and
integrating them into their subject
matter I really get excited when I see
expressions of excitement and that
happens that happens a lot where
teachers you do a project with them
and/or you talk about an idea for how to
integrate some project that we did in
coding and teachers are just like oh my
goodness this is so exciting it's really
really fun for me
aha moments with how they could connect
what they're learning with their
curriculum one of the things that as I'm
teaching I really want teachers to get
from me and/or just from the
the PD is that allowing students to
pursue their interest is so much more
important I feel like they will learn
exactly what teachers are trying to get
them to learn in maybe a different way
than they're expecting and so that's one
of the things that I as I run
professional development but I really
try to stress and hope teachers catch
the vision of allowing students to
pursue the things that they're
interested in because your experience in
coding is building projects that you
like and creating things that you didn't
think that you could it becomes really
exciting and just the nature of what
they're doing in coding you don't have
to teach a math lesson there they're
going to pick up math principles and
social studies principles if you connect
I mean you can connect it with social
studies and they're gonna pick up
concepts that are overarching in
whatever subject area in language arts
and with sequence and all of these
things if we just kind of let go of a
little bit of trying to force coding
into an agenda of what we're trying to
teach and allow the students to just
pursue it I think a lot of those lessons
that were desperately trying to get
students to learn they will learn and so
even though that's you wouldn't be able
to see that in an ideal professional
development teachers if I can see that
they understand that that is really
exciting to me and the last thing I was
thinking about is school administrators
actively working with teachers to learn
how to create the most successful and
sustainable program that they can when
the coaches that we work with really
understand how to take the baton and to
run with the program and they understand
what their teachers need from them you
can tell and it's it's really exciting
to see yeah those are some great points
like administrators need to encourage
and provide time for teachers to
actually implement this thing
consistently otherwise if you're
developing these concepts practices etc
it's going to take forever if you only
do like once a quarter in order to learn
illiteracy and develop skills you have
to constantly practice it yep and you
know and it's hard for teachers to it I
totally get where they're coming from
because I mean one of the things that
me being a teacher has helped me see is
all the different directions the
teachers are being pulled so not only do
you have to teach but you have to like
you have to learn how to manage and you
have to teach six subjects sometimes and
you have to you know it or if you're
teaching one subject you don't get any
breaks in between you're like specialty
teachers the students are cycling
through their classroom so quickly that
they're like I haven't even been able to
like get a drink of water let alone eat
my lunch just because they're so busy
and so and so like it's been really good
for me to see the kind of the different
directions and experience the different
directions that teachers are pulled so
that when you know I come in as a
facilitator saying hey everybody needs
to teach coding that if they're like
well we're doing the best we can but it
doesn't look like I personally would say
like oh I want it to look that way I try
to be understanding of those things and
see that teachers are really working
hard and trying their best and that kind
of we'll take what we can get and
hopefully those teachers who catch the
bug hopefully there are a lot of them
that they will learn how to do it more
and achieve a lot of the other
activities that they're doing through
the medium of coding and computer
science it's interesting how much a
teacher has to do and like you said how
many directions are being pulled at once
and what has been fascinating to see
preak ovid a lot of the discourse that
I've seen especially living in a red
state is that well teaching is not that
hard
you don't really deserve that much money
and besides you get like multiple months
off throughout the year etc etc is like
that was kind of like a prominent
discourse even with a whole read for ed
in Arizona where this is like a lot of
teachers who are like hey we need more
support not just for a salary but for
kids it has been interesting with kovat
a lot of the stuff that I'm seeing is a
change in discourse in that people are
now saying yeah this is actually a lot
harder than I thought
but I have kids at home yeah I'm hoping
that to kind of go with the the tattoo
of my arm of like Calvin opening an
umbrella and playing in the rain like we
can take this negative that is coated
and
reframe something positive out it in
some way when it comes to discourse on
education that I hope it kind of is a
reset button where we can say hey now
that you kind of have some more context
for understanding what we're talking
about let's actually talk about funding
for schools for kids for educators etc
so we'll kind of see how that happens
after kovat is finally over when I was
getting my master's degree one of my
professors Andy Gibbons he talked about
in design kind of praised for having
constraints is that every designer has
constraints you need to figure out what
they are and then work with those
constraints and he said working with
constraints helps foster a lot of
creativity and I'm these constraints
that we have have I think they've
brought our attention to a lot of things
you know one of the things I've been
looking at a little bit is the inequity
of students who don't have technology
who are can't learn from home because
they don't have the technology and
hopefully this will instigate creative
thoughts for how to solve problems that
we've known have existed but maybe not
as much as we do now and hopefully these
constraints so to speak of kovat will
help us to function with more ingenuity
and change the way we're doing things
creatively yeah and hopefully it'll help
us treat each other with more respect
like as a society yeah and speaking of
the creativity within constraints that's
been something that's been a big parts
of like arts education is talking about
that and it was like one of the findings
in my dissertation for like why chip
musicians like to engage with retro
consoles and computer hardware to create
music was because of constraints but
what's fascinating is some people will
end up or maybe not fascinating what's
problematic is that people will often
end up taking that idea of creating with
constraints and take it to an extreme
that kind of like makes it boring or
turns them into an assignment so like an
example of creativity within constraints
is okay you need to create a one-minute
recording or piece of music and you can
only use the objects found within your
backpack so you have to record sounds
that you can make with it
but then an extreme version would be
like okay you can only use these four
items that are pre-recorded for you it
has to be exactly 20 seconds long and
you need to include a melody harmony
beat etc like it takes the the
creativity part in the constraints and
just like kills it and makes it an
assignment that was at a conference once
and I was talking to one it was a
computer science conference and I was
talking to one of the attendees who had
heard about boot-up and looked at our
curriculum and it was like I'd never
used that curriculum as a teacher
because it doesn't it's not integrated
into any subject area and then she
started to talk to me about this
integration where like it was a
worksheet a coding worksheet to teach
the kids to draw a square and it
basically went to us through a
step-by-step algorithm for how to draw a
square and I was thinking like well
doing that activity that's great for the
teacher because it's like yes I'm
teaching coding and I'm teaching
geometry at the same time but I can't
imagine a student really for a long time
enjoying that type of an activity and
and I I remember I came and talked to
you about it and you're like well what
about the pumpkin Carver activity where
that's the whole purpose of that
activity is it puts drawing shapes and
context of creating a pumpkin Carver
where you it draws the different shapes
of the eyes and the mouth and the nose
and I was like oh yeah and even beyond
our Buddha projects I try to tell
teachers look the purpose of the boot-up
curriculum isn't to like be the end-all
be-all like it's to help students get
activated to see what things that they
can do with coding but we would want
them if they have an idea that is
similar to one of our projects or that
uses the principles that we teach in our
projects we would prefer at least I
think we would prefer that they would
build a project that they were
interested in rather than you know
having to build the project that the
teacher or that we came up with yeah and
what's been interesting is from that
conversation we I've kind of emphasized
the integration aspect more so every one
of our pd's okay let's let's talk about
integration and we do it at least twice
P D so trying to get teachers to uncover
that like it was just a simple reframing
of okay instead of just drawing shapes
how about you draw it on a pumpkin
background and now you're carving a
pumpkin so you could be learning how to
do square is cool you could learn how to
make triangle eyes or maybe circle eyes
or whatever so it's it's just a more
engaging and contextualized way of
learning it my favorite thing to teach
was math because in my adult years I've
really seen what you can do with it and
I but I didn't get that connection when
I was a kid and I have a suspicion that
if a kid is doing a project and it's in
their mind connected to math a lot of
kids I think really enjoy it but I think
there's a fair population of kids who
they won't engage with what they're
doing because they think oh this is math
and I'm bad at math unfortunately and
and so by just phrasing it as hey we're
drawing shapes is pumpkin Carver that
takes away the association that kids
might have when I was teaching I feel
like a lot of my kids it was like oh
this is math I'm not good at it and they
would not even like try sometimes and
that was with lots of different subjects
and so I think by putting it in the
context of hey we're just drawing shapes
to make a pumpkin Carver they wouldn't
really realize that the concept that
they were learning right and like
code.org uses it in the context of like
flour and art and whatnot like drawing
the flour yeah so I'm curious
having been a recipient of PD I know it
has informed my approach because I
learned like what not to do mainly and
then some things of what to do what
about for you how have your experience
as a recipient of PD kind of informed
your own approach my goal for PD and
this is based off of my experience in
sitting with PD there I went I've gone
to a lot of PD's where I've been really
inspired by what is shared but I leave
the PD with a lot of new ideas but no
concrete way to start like I don't know
and it's so it's like this myriad of
ideas has been opened up to me and I'm
excited about it but it's like what next
and like I don't know and it's almost
overwhelming so it's like I don't know
where to get started and so as
the days go on I just kind of forget
about it and so one of the things that I
feel like we've tried to do is share
that you know ideas that inspire but
also our PDS are a workshop model and my
goal is that I try to model the PD where
I am acting as the elementary teacher
and there the teachers are acting as the
elementary students so I
I'll tell often tell my teachers I'm
gonna pretend like I'm teaching a
kindergarten class so please don't feel
condescended to but I'm gonna talk as if
I were talking to kindergartners and
it's just so that you can see how a
teacher could model this in the
classroom and then I address them as if
I were addressing kindergarten teachers
and the goal is I'm acting as a teacher
so they can see how I'm modeling it what
I am doing what I'm not doing and then
they can also experience the student
side of things and so they're actually
building the projects learning how to
code at a student level which is great
for building empathy in them for what
their students are going to have to go
through in order to learn this because a
lot of times the teachers are just as
new as their students are to the
activities that we're doing and so my
goal is that and I think our goal is
that when we're done with the one PD
session K through 2 students will have
three projects that they like I would be
pretty confident being able to implement
the very next day and three through
eight teachers would have three lessons
that they could feel pretty confident
implementing the very next day and so
not only inspiring I guess this is my
answer
boiled down not only sharing
inspirational thoughts and activities
and ideas but then also giving a very
focused way to do it and to accomplish
it so people leave the PD saying I could
do this tomorrow if I wanted to yeah I'm
definitely guilty of having done
conference sessions were on more about
sharing potential ideas and not showing
how to do it because like having
presented at conferences where it's
people from all over the place it's like
I don't know your individual context is
but I'm willing to chat with you
one-on-one but yeah I totally understand
that yeah well and I think there's
definitely a place for that you also
don't want to constrain teachers to you
know your way of thinking and so I think
having those sessions to where you are
just sharing ideas is important but I
think largely the demographic of
elementary teacher you know it's kind of
a practitioner mindset I'm guilty of
that too my earliest PD's I did a lot of
just sharing a lot of ideas around
coding like you could go to this place
and you could try this thing and you
could do this unplugged activity and
there's miss robotic tan Oh dork and
scratch and and I think it shared like
you know so many ideas that the teachers
were like I don't even know where to get
started
but I think there's also a way to sift
through that for the teachers who are
beginners in coding and you can say like
okay there's all these activities but I
know teachers are gonna want to get
started someplace so let me sit through
these things and kind of narrow it in
but still try to teach it in a way that
gives the teachers a lot of choice and
lets them make their own decisions so
you were talking earlier about
integration some of the districts that
we've worked with have asked us hey
would you create an integrated
curriculum for our teachers and we've
kind of pushed back a little bit on that
saying what we'll do is we'll share our
ideas for effective integration because
the teachers know what they teach best
and they know their students best and we
think it's more important that the
teachers gain the skill of taking coding
and learning how to integrate it into
other subjects that they're teaching
rather than us just giving it to them
and so allowing that creativity while
we're helping them focus I think is
really important in the PD session
so how has knowing that you have a
background in instruction on the design
how has that kind of informed your own
practices or pedagogy I sometimes feel
that professionals are anxious to ask
for specific feedback from the people
who they're teaching I think we are they
are afraid that if we ask how is this
working for you that what we're really
saying is I'm not sure
if what I designed was good so I'm
asking you to let me know and I don't
necessarily agree that that's the point
I think sometimes we believe asking that
question will instill skepticism in the
learner about our abilities as designers
or our abilities as teachers and
trainers my experience in studying
instructional design has taught me again
and again that using multiple methods to
obtain feedback to try to more fully
understand the learner and their needs
and desires is a vital part of our role
as designers and teachers and I think
there's a way to confidently do this
where you know people know that you know
what you're doing and what you're
talking about but we need to know people
we need to we need to see how teachers
teach I think it goes beyond just asking
them questions and asking them for
feedback you know and how is this
working for you but actually going in
the classroom and observing so you can
see how teachers are interacting I've
been reading a book by David and Tom
Kelly up called creative confidence and
they talk about an idea called human
centered design and I know there's all
sorts of perspectives on design but one
of the things that they are really big
on is that you need to spend time
whatever you're designing you need to
spend time observing the people if
you're dessert if you're designing a
product you need to see how people are
interacting with that product if you're
designing a curriculum you need to see
how people are interacting with that
curriculum and so one of the benefits
that I've had is that I've been a
teacher which has been invaluable and so
I try to like remember like I was saying
earlier those experiences of teaching
and the successes and the challenges and
the things that got me excited as a
teacher and I try to pay attention to
that as I'm teaching and I try to when I
go into classrooms and observe teachers
teaching I try to use all of these
experiences to inform my teaching and
actually we have over the course of our
PD offerings based off of feedback that
we get every single PD session I think
we have more than a thousand feedback
responses that we've gotten from our PDS
and we've
drastically changed some of the things
that we do based on that feedback that
we've gotten and so I think one of the
things that instructional design has
really helped me to focus on in my work
is the value of receiving feedback and
that we can ask for it without the fear
of worrying that people are gonna think
oh they're not they don't know what
they're doing they're asking us to give
them feedback yeah and what's nice is
like that process we just like
continually iterate on what we're doing
every single week but emphasizing that
in PD itself it aligns with standards I
mean if teachers can model that as hey
like everything that we're working on is
iterative we can always improve things
so how can I better help you like it's
it's just generally a good idea like as
an example on Mondays I would have kids
set goals for the week like I'm going to
add four more levels and work on the
physics of this platformer game that I'm
working on or whatever but one of the
questions that I asked that was optional
was directed at me and it was how could
I better assist you with what you're
working on and so like it kind of
provided a way for kids to provide
feedback to myself like I really wish
you would help me with a B or C so you
can integrate this into what you're
doing in the classroom by doing simple
stuff like that yeah and when I was
going to BYU I sang in the men's chorus
there and there was the conductor and
she always had an assistant conductor
and she sent him up he was a voice
teacher and she said hey I'm gonna have
him walking by listening to each of you
he's gonna give all of you some feedback
and so if he tells you to do something
don't be offended don't feel like you
know you're doing something poorly it's
just he's giving all of us feedback and
it's an opportunity to receive free
advice and so I think a lot of times
when we're professionals we don't want
feedback because we're like I know what
I'm doing and if you give me feedback
you're telling me I'm not doing it well
but I think if we take more of an
approach
what I'm doing for some people may not
be working and we kind of always have
that approach and we always have the
approach I can figure if I can figure
that out I can do better I think it
takes away some of our you know being
offended by the fact that someone gives
us feedback on the way we're doing
things and it just is like it changes
our attitude from one of fear and like I
don't want to receive his feedback to
one of I'm expecting to receive this
feedback and the only thing that this
feedback is gonna do is make me even
better at what I'm doing than I already
am and I think if we can feel
comfortable both teachers and students
and designers and PD facilitators I
think if we can have that attitude from
the very GetGo
will be less reticent to receive
feedback yeah and I think that even can
happen in all forms of relationships too
okay so that it's great to be able to
receive feedback and whatnot but kind of
going back to what you're talking about
with some actionable thing what about
some classroom teachers who are
interested in getting started in
professional development like they've
never done it before they don't know
where to start they're not even ready
for a feedback yet because they want to
learn how to do this like what advice
would you give like if you were to
hypothetically just like lose your
memory and didn't know how to design and
fill silt 8pd session what would you
personally do or what kind of advice
would you give to learn how to do
professional development really well let
me answer your question with both the
idea of learning how to do coding well
and learning how to do professional
development well as I see it if I were
to lose my memory and have to relearn
how to do coding it's gonna sound like
I'm being a Salesman but I would start
in the boot up curriculum when I was a
master student when I very first started
learning scratch and I just played in it
and I learned a lot just by tinkering
but there was certain things that I did
that were there were better ways of
doing and if I had just little prompts
here and there I think my learning would
have gone more quickly furthermore
working with teachers there is one
specific teacher that I during the first
PD
she was really kind of hesitant and
reticent about coding and her ability in
doing it and she sent me an email and
was like what can I do to improve and
get better around this and I said
honestly I would spend 10 minutes a day
working on a project and go through the
boot up curriculum scaffolded go through
it so again at the risk of sounding like
am I being a Salesman I'm honestly a
terrible salesman but that but that's
what I would do just spend time doing it
and even if you're like I don't even
know how to do it don't let those
overwhelming feelings let you put it off
over and over and over and over again
just jump in and start playing
I think our curriculum is designed
specifically for people who want to
create things but there are like other
curriculums like code.org which is great
for people who just want to solve
puzzles and things like that through
code yeah what about your response to
learning professional development a lot
of times when I go to a conference
I'll read the title of a conference and
I'm like whoa that sounds so cool I'm so
excited to go to that and learn what it
is and I just for whatever reason I
sometimes can't put my finger on it I
just sit in it through and I'm like
Nanna I could have been so much more it
wasn't so I think sitting through
professional development or sitting
through learning and paying close
attention to ooh what am i struggling
with like do I like this learning
session that I'm doing is it keeping me
engaged am i tempted to check my email
or I think being introspective about how
you would learn and what would be
frustrating to you in a PD
I think is a pretty safe bet that it
would be frustrating to other people so
before you start creating a professional
development writing down the things that
would drive you nuts or have driven you
nuts about professional development that
you sat through and not doing those
things additionally I am like a
proponent now after doing what I've been
doing and I know that this is again just
for the type of PD that I'm doing
there's many different types but I love
the workshop model where it gives me the
time to jump in and start doing stuff
and the person who's running the
professional development is circulating
and answering questions here and there
but it's not the full time
I'm a lecture that to me is really
engaging yeah I definitely prefer those
approaches more so in the case mentioned
workshop model like our approach is like
it's there's six hour PDS and there's
like eight of them spread out over a
couple of years like usually a month or
two in between HPV see I've like time to
implement it but then when it comes to
like PD from a conference presentation
session it's very different like you
just don't have enough time to really
dive deep into things those are also
beneficial to do when you're first
starting out because you get feedback
and you're only having to do maybe as
short as like a five-minute session or
as long as like an hour or even three
hour session as opposed to six so it's
good to go in and get feedback but I
will say that you will get quite the
spread of feedback from people and
having like done presentations where I'm
like yeah I was on my a-game or wow I
was like about to pass out from a sinus
infection and learned a lot from that
session because it didn't go as well so
wanted even on the really great sessions
you'll get like this was amazing I loved
it so much you really helped me out and
then others would be like this was
horrible you didn't talk about the thing
that you actually did talk about for an
hour so just be prepared to get a range
of opinions and perspectives oh yeah and
talking about not being on your a-game
here's looking at you virtual webinar
hey we learned from it but one of the
things you know I was thinking as you
were talking is you know if I were
training to be a professional
development person I think it'd be cool
to have a notepad er in your phone every
time you go to a presentation or a
conference or even watch a TED talk if
you come out of it being like me write
down the reasons why you are met or if
you come out of it being like wow that
was so inspirational
think about it and name like oh why do I
feel the way I feel and I've heard
people talk about doing this even in
like while you're watching a movie like
if you're watching rocky 4 and you come
out of it wanting to be a boxer and
you're so inspired write down what is it
in me that that's triggering being
cognizant of how we learn all of the
different ways in which we learn and
kind of making mental or actual physical
of the things that inspire us and change
us and that we don't like I think can
really start to build a really good map
how we could be good teachers
professional development facilitators
leaders I think that would be good
practice yeah I highly recommend that it
was something that I also did so like I
would go to like a drumline rehearsal or
go to a presentation or whatever and I
would like just sit there and take notes
of everything that was done and like how
much time we spent on this or would they
talk about here and what else did they
not talk about and then I would reflect
on it afterwards like if I were to
design my own version of this how would
I change it and I certainly learned a
lot from it I'm curious what are what's
something that you do in a PD session
that you believe is important to model
but attendees might not be aware that
you're doing it so as an example when I
work with a group of people whether it's
kids or adults or whatever I'm
constantly monitoring like emotional
states and attentional states and I
modify and adjust based off of factors
like that what about for you a lot of
them are activities that teachers do and
that teachers are trained to do so some
of them are like rather than just giving
the answer to a question because I'm
excited about teaching to allow the
learning to happen to students so a lot
of times in PD sessions a teacher will
ask me a question and I don't give them
the answer but I'll try to ask them
questions to help guide them to it or I
will think out loud my thought processes
so they can learn but and eventually to
be honest in our PD we do name those
things but it's later on in the practice
after we've already done that activity
so some of them some things are like
giving assessments a lot of times I just
don't look at their project and say hey
can you share your project with and they
don't recognize that I am looking to see
if it's functioning the way it should
function or if I should give additional
teaching based off of what I'm seeing
also doing all that I can to create an
inclusive environment by valuing the
unique perspectives of each individual
we talked about fostering an inclusive
culture in our class
from as with us is the teacher but it's
it's very similar as a PD facilitator to
foster an inclusive culture with the
participants in the PD right and so to
make sure that if there are any you know
frustrations that people have against
certain teachers or you know I've sat in
multiple teacher sessions where there's
complaints about this teacher sharing
too much or that teacher asking too many
questions and I think there are
constructive ways to address those types
of things but even as a PD facilitator
it's vitally important to foster an
inclusive culture and to kind of create
a community feel saying hey look
everybody is a unique person no matter
who they are and everybody has unique
perspectives that if we are willing to
listen to them and we are willing to put
sometimes our judgement and frustration
on the shelf that we can have a richer
classroom experience and community feel
because we are valuing the ideas of
other people even if their ideas differ
from our ideas and our values we can
still listen to them and learn from them
and so while I'm running a PD I try to
be enthusiastic about all ideas that
people share and let everybody know that
their unique perspectives are valued and
there are things you need to do to make
that obvious but I think there are
things that you can do where that's not
as obvious it's something that you're
doing behind the scenes yeah that makes
sense to me
my favorite learning experiences have
been speaking with somebody who had a
differing opinion and just kind of like
learning a new perspective and it kind
of like reframing my own so yeah I
totally get that yeah so I was listening
to an interview with Tim Ferriss and he
was asking somebody like what are your
scales so like musical scales like the
thing that you practice to get better
but it's not necessarily like the most
enjoyable thing but it's like something
that you just do in order to improve
upon yourself so as a PD facilitator how
do you practice or it
on your own abilities the good thing for
me as I get to teach the same set of PD
sessions to different people over and
over and over and over and over again
and it's interesting even having done
this multiple times teaching each lesson
I feel like I learn something new when I
when I teach at each time and part of
that has to do with the fact that
there's different demographics of people
that I'm teaching it to I've taught the
same lesson to a group of two people as
well as a group to 56 people even though
the content is the same the learning is
very different so doing it over and over
and over and over and over again I kind
of have that repetition that iterative
where I can get practice over and over
and over again it's kind of built into
what I do but I think another valuable
portion is the multiple nodes of
feedback that I get so there's another
facilitator that I work with and we
record our sessions and then we share
those sessions with with each other and
also we share them with Jared and other
people watch what we're doing and share
that feedback with us and then we get
feedback from the teachers for how they
feel the professional development when
and then the instructional coaches that
are the district administrator that's
supposed to carry on where we're passing
the baton to them to make the program
sustainable we get feedback from them
and doing this in multiple different
districts even the cultures in the
different states that I fly to people
have different perspectives and
different things that they want to
stress and different things that worry
them about you know PD and so being
reflective and receiving that feedback
and doing it just over and over and over
and over again has really helped me to
hone my skills and so I think that's
kind of my thought on that so given the
demands and pressures of working as a PD
facilitator you're kind of traveling
across the country or at least were
pre-coated but now there's the kovat
stresses how do you take care of
yourself and like stave off burnout
involved with providing PD or just in
being in education in general I tried
personalized my work projects so that
they are fun for me to accomplish and
for some reason I don't know why in the
education realm the word fun is almost
like the F word yeah
avoid it I have never understood that
like I said if I could at the beginning
if there's a way for me especially with
kids who like our masters or PhDs and
fun if I can figure out a way to not
tell them hey stop daydreaming and say
how can I take this learning and make it
fun and insert it in the things that
they're already wanting to do I think
that's awesome and so I try to do that
with myself I was down in Garfield
School District in Utah and the students
were working on the animated card and
the teacher was saying like they're
making animations but there's no rhyme
or reason for why their characters are
moving can you help them with that so I
taught a little lesson that did try to
do both things give rhyme or reason to
why they're animating the card instead
of just having characters move for
whatever reason but the way I did that
was said hey look I want to take this
animated card and apply it to what I'm
interested in so I wrote down a list of
the things that I'm interested in which
of course included Star Wars and then I
came up with an idea for an animated
card that was a birthday card involving
Star Wars characters and as I was
sharing this idea that it was for the
students but as I was thinking about it
I was like this sounds actually really
fun and so I've been building that
project myself and taking the animated
cardless and that's the boot up lesson
and making it my own and that has really
helped me de-stress as just having fun
with the things that I'm doing another
thing that I do is because I'm traveling
a lot they sometimes work long hours
late into the evening while I'm
traveling so that when I come home I've
got time to be with my family yeah and
so a little bit of that balancing of
work life and home life helps me to
de-stress a little bit and take care of
myself and make sure I don't burn out
yeah that makes sense I mean it's it's
like batching it's making it so that
okay I know I'm gonna be gone I'm gonna
be away from family
how about I get as much done as I can
now so that way when I return to family
I can just focus on the head again yeah
and it's been nice working with Buddha
because I can have that flexibility yeah
for context we all kind of work remotely
and we kind of are able to set our own
hours and days and whatnot to just as
long as we get her stuff done cool and
going back to what you're saying about
fun I had a professor once who asked a
question like why don't we assess
whether kids had fun and what we were
doing and what does that say if we are
not assessing that yeah and I think
where some of the negative emotions
around fun come is different definitions
of what fun is you know it's a lot of
teachers like it's not my job to make it
that you have fun but again that Andy
Gibbons was my instructional design
professor and and I talked about this
with them and he's like why wouldn't you
why wouldn't you make we can say
engaging but I feel like engaging and
fun you know or the same thing when I
have something that I want to learn the
process of researching and learning it
is just fun that's kind of my mantra and
I'm sure people can disagree with good
arguments but part of my goal is to
teach effectively by allowing students
to have fun right now with being late
April 2020 with the stuff going on with
Kovan 19 I'm curious knowing your
background and your understanding of
like online learning do you have any
off-the-cuff recommendations or tips for
educators who might still be doing
online learning at the time that this
podcast release practice go through with
someone and actually like go through the
entire session before you go live
there's a lot of similarities between
virtual learning but there's a lot of
things that you're managing that can go
wrong just as an example I was doing a
teacher training for how to teach
teachers how to teach virtually and I
didn't realize that in the webinar there
was a tool that I needed to use in a
regular meeting session that wasn't
available in a webinar type session and
it was kind of my whole virtual
presentation relied on that
and I didn't practice it in that area
and so I did practice it but if I would
have practiced it with the exact tools
that I was gonna be using I would have
learned a lot of things before I had to
learn them live and so that would be my
suggestion is one get started just try
it and if it doesn't work be patient
with yourself and don't get you know
overly critical of yourself and to
practice it with someone to see if you
can figure out all of the difficult
things before you're live so what do you
wish there is more research on that can
inform your own practices there is
research on this but how to successfully
instigate and guide people through
positive systemic change and I'm talking
about systemic change like you know
institutions school systems that have
just functioned the way they functioned
or years and years trying to be the seed
that helps change practices that might
be good to change so like a lot of the
the things that we teach to teachers is
project based learning and reforming
their classrooms around coding at least
to be pursued through project-based
learning and a different way of looking
at assessments and a different way we
talk about rhizomatic learning which is
the idea that students choose the path
of their learning and that it's not
necessarily a mandated sequence when
there's a you know a system that teaches
certain way it's hard for anybody to
change that and then it's even harder to
change it at a district level or a
national school level and so figuring
out how to do that in in my capacity
that I'd be interested in learning more
about that how to make it stick and
maybe start small with a little group
that I have but maybe you know getting
them to consistently to change some of
these ways of teaching that will produce
more satisfying exciting results yeah
that makes me think of the interview
with under aesthetic I don't know if you
listened to that one yet but it's
fascinating he talked about how language
like a programming language have there's
not a lot of research on the
effectiveness of them
and that when he kind of like randomized
like assigned there's random characters
to different functions that are
typically used within programming like a
for loop or if-else statements like some
languages performed worse than a made-up
language that was completely random
characters oh wow
so it like shows oh we should probably
actually research the languages that
we're teaching yeah another thing this I
guess this will be you know coming down
the pipes but I'm really interested in
seeing the schools that we've partnered
with kindergartners that are receiving
training in coding now I'm really
excited to see when those kindergartners
are 12th graders and they're taking AP
exams a lot of the the diversity issues
that we're talking about the equity
issues I'm really interested to see if
the playing field is leveled a little
bit and if we start seeing more
different demographics than this the
typical computer science and coding
demographic and is the the field of
computer science which is struggling to
find applicants for fulfilling these
jobs will that change due to the work
that we're doing I'll just have to wait
for that I guess yeah and for context or
people are listening we only work with
districts who are interested in doing
district-wide implementation so every
kid in the school and in all of the
schools are supposed to learn how to
code and engage in computer science so
we don't work with districts that are
like well we only want the gifted
talented kids to do this or we only
wanted after-school or whatever what's
something that I personally could do
with this podcast like as a whole to
better assist the CS education community
if you could share with your listeners
that whoever they are they can do this I
think that would be really beneficial
and and I don't know exactly how to do
that because you know there's a ton of
different people and how they think and
feel but I think that's even more reason
that this podcast could be beneficial in
saying that because of who you are and
the way you think we need you to share
that and the more people who participate
in compute
science in elementary school the broader
and the more diversified this activity
becomes and so figuring out a way to
reach the people who are like yeah this
maybe isn't for me I think that would be
really beneficial so I hope that as
people continue to listen to different
interviews and realize that a lot of the
guests don't have degrees in computer
science all my degrees are in music
education and I took a class in high
school and a class in graduate school
that was related to coding like I hope
they understand that like oh yeah I too
can do this thing yeah I'm in the same
vote all my degrees are in education and
I took a class in coding but it was a
very basic class and I did a lot of
research using scratch and teaching
elementary school teachers but I don't
have formal education and computer
science or at least very much of it and
where might people go to connect with
you and the organizations you work with
my contact information is on boot-up but
my twitter handle is at coding mckay mck
a.y please reach out with any questions
or comments I'd love to talk with you
and with that that concludes this week's
episode of the cska podcast I really
hope you enjoyed this interview with
McKay he's been a wonderful coworker to
get to know over the last couple of
years and he has a lot of awesome
insight on professional development if
you enjoyed anything about this episode
in particular all I ask is that you
simply share it with somebody else
that's it so if you can think of
somebody who maybe is interested in
doing professional development or who
wants to learn more about how to do
computer science or coding or later
professional development just having to
check this out maybe they'll get
something useful out of it thank you so
much for listening to this week's
episode I hope you stay tuned next week
for another unpacking scholarship
episode where I'll unpack some the
latest education research and the
following week which will be another
interview I hope you are all staying
safe and having a wonderful week
Guest Bio
McKay Perkins is dedicated to developing creative instruction to make education come alive for elementary learners. He believes that when teachers devote time and energy to insert education into a child’s imagination, it unlocks the student’s potential, and willingness to pursue it. He has five years of elementary teaching experience and has loved every minute of it.
McKay left the full-time teacher role to receive a Master’s degree in Instructional Design at Brigham Young University, where he wanted to learn how to improve the learning experience for elementary children. He found coding. Since then, McKay has worked for three years teaching elementary students, elementary teachers, and elementary education students how to code and how to integrate technology in ways that transform their classrooms. He has led professional development sessions on coding and he understands students’ desire to learn this exciting medium. He also understands many of the stressors that teachers face, and has had practice helping to alleviate them.
McKay is married to Kristen, and has a baby boy named Henry. A few of the things he enjoys are: technology, games and game development, stories and storytelling, family time, Star Wars, music, video editing, barbershop singing, classroom design and setup, and coding. He believes that all of these hobbies and activities can be creatively used to enrich and enliven instruction.
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.
CS for All Teachers with Melissa Rasberry
In this interview with Melissa Rasberry, we discuss making educational lemonade out of lemons, using technology to collaborate in virtual learning communities, how people are learning differently through online communities, CS for All Teachers, suggestions for using different social media platforms to connect with other educators, and much more.
Designing Curricula at Scale with GT Wrobel
In this interview with GT Wrobel, we discuss the importance of understanding your “why” behind pedagogical approaches and curriculum design, the internal tensions that arise when designing curriculum used by people around the world, the potential for standards and assessment to be a form of oppression, how feedback impacts the evolution of a curriculum, considerations when designing culturally relevant curricula that is used around the world, aligning curriculum development with professional development, the importance of taking a break to prevent burnout, where we hope the field goes in the next few years, 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.
Scaling Professional Learning for Equitable and Inclusive Computer Science Teaching
In this episode I unpack Martin et al.’s (2022) publication titled “Scaling professional learning for equitable and inclusive computer science teaching,” which is an experience report that shares lessons learned from three iterations of scaling professional development around equitable and inclusive CS education.
Check out "#24 Carve a Pumpkin with Code" to see the pumpkin carving project we discussed
Check out some of the resources from the presentations I’ve done
Creative Confidence by Tom and David Kelley (the book McKay mentioned)
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter
Free CS Resources I Have Created
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