From Mathy McMatherson to Codey McCoderson: An interview with Dan Schneider
In this interview with Dan Schneider, we discuss how Dan transitioned from math education to CS education, designing spaces for educational experiences, suggestions for expanding and diversifying CS programs, how pedagogical approaches evolve over time through experimentation and reflection, the importance of listening to and working with kids one-on-one, and much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
if you're new this podcast every week i
alternate between an interview with at
least one guest
and a solo episode where i unpack some
scholarship this week's podcast is an
interview with dan schneider
in this particular episode we discuss
how dan transitioned from being a math
educator to
computer science education dan's
recommendations for designing spaces for
educational experiences
some suggestions for expanding and
diversifying computer science programs
how dan's pedagogical approaches evolved
over time through experimentation and
reflection
the importance of listening to and
working with kids in one-on-one context
and so much more as always there are a
lot of links in the show notes and you
can find them by simply clicking the
link in the description
for the app that you're listening to
this on or by visiting jaredoleary.com
in this particular episode you're going
to want to check out the show notes
because there are links to
all the posters that dan mentions that
you can get for free
and these posters are excellent for
demonstrating how diverse computer
science
stem mathematics engineering etc can be
so make sure you check those out but
let's now begin this interview with
dan introducing himself my name is dan
schneider i am a computer science
educator for the last five years i
taught
high school computer science in tucson
arizona started with ap computer science
principles and then i built our program
out from there
and added an introductory course that
built off of code.org computer science
discoveries curriculum
i taught ap computer science a using
several different platforms
i taught another sort of advanced level
computer course that was really just
what
i wanted to teach and so we did some
a-frame things in there with with
web-based virtual reality and we did
some github things and
tried to do some like game design things
in unity did some other virtual reality
things with co-spaces
so i did a lot of things there and then
one year i also taught an electronics
class
where we messed around with arduinos and
circuit playgrounds and that was really
fun too
before that i was a math teacher and so
i transitioned from being a math teacher
to a computer science teacher
pretty much because the ap computer
science principles course became
available and i could teach that
and as a math teacher i focus on math
intervention and so students who
you know under traditional settings had
not really been successful in math and
then trying to find these alternative
ways
to get them successful and i also worked
a lot with english language learners and
particularly refugee students
that the school i was at had a high
population of i currently
as of like a week ago i've started work
as a curriculum writer for code.org
but i feel like nothing i'm going to say
here is reflective of that it'll all
just be
my work as a high school educator and
that's some things about me
your mention of the electronics course
it made me think of this so i happened
to receive
like a physical copy of this book where
i contributed to chapter two and it was
on
electronic circuitry using circuit
bending techniques
to make music and sound with children's
toys i don't know if you're familiar
with that
approach to electronic circuitry or if
you've heard of it
no that is brand new so what you do is
you take like a children's toy
you pull off the case essentially and
this needs to be like something that's
not plugged into a wall so you don't
like
electrocute yourself it needs to be
battery operated and small batteries
and so you take like a wire you tap one
end of the the circuit and you just
start touching other parts of the
circuit to see if it makes a sound
or if while the the toy is making a
sound you try and see if it changes the
sound
and so you can do this to like change
the pitch to change like add an echo
reverb like all sorts of like
interesting sound effects
on it so what i'll do is i'll put some
like links to that in the show notes if
anyone's interested in it's a really
like interesting nerdy way of looking at
electronic circuitry through music
that's really cool i love that that's
great
i wonder what that would look like in
the classroom
pulling apart children's toys just like
roald dahl's worst dream we're just like
ripping faces off of bears and things
like that
so yeah that'd be really good that's
really cool knowing your background i'm
curious
how did you get into computer science
education in particular because you
didn't start there
yeah so i was fortunate enough to go to
a high school that offered computer
science courses and so i was able to
take
ap computer science a i think when i
took it was a b
they had like the second level of the ap
course and i had a teacher
who was just like he had like seven
different classes in the schedule that
only fit like five different periods
and he was super overwhelmed and a lot
of empathy for this teacher
trying to deliver computer science
instruction to students and
differentiate in the types of areas they
wanted to go
into whether it was programming or
networking or computer hardware and
maintenance like there was just one guy
for all of that
and so i saw that there was sort of like
this need for more computer science
teachers
and tangentially at the same time like
i'd also had a bunch of teaching
experiences
i had worked in summer camps and i had
worked with students and had like
tutoring experiences and really enjoyed
that so i had teaching was
something that was of interest to me and
i also really like programming i really
like computer science it
vibed with me this idea of like solving
puzzles and starting with nothing and
making something really creative so all
those things came together for me to be
like
i would love to teach computer science
and then i went to
uh the university and there was no way
for me to become a computer science
teacher
like that pathway did not exist when i
went to the university of arizona so i
started as a computer science major
and i finished that i got my major in
computer science but at some point i got
an email that was like hey if you take
two more credits you could be a math
minor
and then so i was like okay that's cool
and then i got another email if you take
two more credits you'll be a math major
and i'm like oh that's cool
and then they're like hey if you do this
other thing you could be a math teacher
and i'm like well i guess i'm going to
do that
so i became a math teacher sort of in
proxy of being a computer science
teacher if i could have i would have
started as a computer science teacher
but that pathway doesn't exist at a
university and it doesn't really exist
in a lot of places like
at my alma mater there still is no
direct way for someone entering
into that place to leave with a computer
science education degree
so that's how i started in math and then
once the
ap computer science principles course
came out started to be offered by the
college board
and i saw that it was a no entry level
introductory experience
meant to draw in as many students as
possible
and it was very rare to have an ap
course with no prereqs i wrote the
course proposal for my district and said
we should offer this and i want to teach
it and then from there it just blew up
and exploded
so what advice would you give for people
who are in another subject area who are
just now coming into computer science
i think first of all like you're not
alone there are so many folks
entering from all sorts of different
areas a colleague of mine who i really
respect here in tucson
he was a former english teacher and now
he's teaching computer science you have
a background in music education and
doing computer science
so it's that you're not alone and
because you're not alone it's important
to like find your community
and so whether that's through like a
facebook group somewhere or whether
that's on twitter
or going through a professional
development experience and then keeping
in touch
it's like scratch has meetups and
code.org has their forums and cs awesome
has their google groups you know like
finding your group of how you want to
keep in touch with people
and then just relying on those lived
experiences of teachers in the
classrooms
it's hard to find other like more
professional resources this was like a
struggle i had going from a math teacher
to a computer science teacher is
resources for math teachers are very
robust you know it's the national center
for teachers of mathematics nctm
has a journal and they have conferences
and they publish books and they do all
these things
and it was very hard to find an
equivalent thing for computer science
recently like csta has started to kind
of fill that bubble and like offer
resources and
and their conference was really awesome
but at the time it was really hard to do
that i just had to find other teachers
that was like the number one thing yeah
for me there's this like
approach of just grasping at whatever i
could so i'd find like random youtubers
who would talk through
like a language or how to code something
in particular and like i'd
while i'd take a bath i just like watch
youtube videos of people
explaining how to code in a different
language or id or whatever and like that
was one of my ways that i learned or
signing up for like udemy course or
some of the online free courses from
like mit just things like that
you know i think that's like a
double-edged sword and like back to your
other question about like you know
people transferring from these these
other disciplines into computer science
you know the way that computer science
has been traditionally taught for a long
time
is not the best way to teach like
anything so when i think about
my experiences as a student in computer
science at the college level
like it's all teacher centered it's all
direct instruction it's all
it's all these things that like don't
translate very well to a high school
classroom
but pedagogy in science in math and
english like those types of strategies
that you learn in these other
disciplines
like you gotta hold on to those you
gotta figure out a way to translate
those
into computer science which i think is
like the really interesting question you
know like
you can give general advice of i think
pear share is a teaching strategy that
works really well with students so
jigsaw works really well with students
you know things that you've done before
your grading style in your previous
classes but then how does that map
onto a computer science classroom is
something that's hard to think about
and the struggle is that when you look
at other folks who may have found
success in teaching computer science
it's in environments that don't map into
like the high school classroom
like something that's attention for me
is that
a lot of computer science research
happens at 60 and it happens
around like university classrooms which
are very different than like k12
classrooms and so
translating some of that research like
doesn't always work i mean frankly like
the students that you get
as you do those research studies are not
represented the students that i have in
my classroom
you know like there's gender imbalances
there's racial and ethnic imbalances
like
just a lot of those things don't
translate and so you really just have to
kind of like trust your instincts from
those previous
pedagogical experiences like your your
role in leading discussions and figuring
out how to put that into the computer
science world
because if you just trust like you know
the old professors of ways that's been
done before you're just gonna lecture
the whole time your kids will be bored
yeah that's really important so i'm
curious
if you're applying these different
pedagogies and whatnot
in your classroom pre-covered what would
have
have looked like in your math class
versus in your cs class
in terms of what would be similar what
would be different
or just in general what would people see
or experience if they were to walk into
your class
so i think pre-covid if you walked into
my computer science classroom
i really value
like the social interactions that are
available between students
and creating like a collaborative
environment that's just like the default
so you would probably not see
silence like you would hear things you
would hear students talking with each
other
you would see students like kind of
moving around if the classroom is
capable of doing that
you would see at times it would be hard
to tell where the teacher is
that's my favorite thing of like when an
aide would come with a pass they'd have
to like scan the room and it's always a
game of like are they going to figure
out who's the teacher
and sometimes they don't they just give
it to another student they're just like
i don't know what to do with this i'm
going to give this to someone else
so that's like a really great piece of
the classroom and so a lot of that comes
from just like my experiences
working in like academic summer camps i
think everyone should have the
opportunity like teach
at an academic summer camp because the
things that you value are
so different than in a traditional
classroom because
no one has to be there so everyone is
just there by elective which means that
like you kind of have to motivate them
coming back like you want them to have a
positive experience
which means creating like engaging
lessons is
tantamount like if you have a whole
afternoon where all you're doing is like
lecturing because that's like the most
efficient way you thought about of
presenting the material
that you're going to lose all those kids
like no one has to be there i don't want
to go home and complain and be like we
didn't have any fun today
and then the other piece of it is like
summer camps really emphasize the
relationship you know both between you
and the student and the students with
each other
so you really start to emphasize this
idea of how do i get to know my students
and
leverage that into the classroom
environment and then also what
situations can i create where students
get to know each other and interact with
each other in ways that like help build
these social skills
and you're also not thinking about like
standards or tests
like you're only thinking about how do i
know my students are learning what they
need to do
and how do i make sure that they're like
progressing in a way that feels valuable
to them personally
and all those things are so different
from like a traditional classroom
so all of that to say like i carry a lot
of that into what my class looks like
and so
finding ways for students to interact
with each other finding ways to be like
playful
at times finding ways for them to do
projects that are like meaningful
all those kind of come from my
experiences working at like academic
summer camps
so i have multiple questions related to
that so
one going back to what you're kind of
saying how it's it's difficult to apply
research on university classes into like
the k-12 setting
like it's they're apples and oranges
there's a huge difference in terms of
if somebody's electing to take a class
versus if they're paying tens of
thousands of dollars a year in tuition
to attend a class
versus when they're mandated to take a
class so i'm curious
how have you approached like when you're
a math educator i'm assuming
students were mandated to be in there
because of the math requirements to
graduate from high school
how did that approach differ from
your elective classes where kids are
choosing to be in your computer science
classes
well so some things are transferable in
a way so for example in my experience as
a math teacher
i will accept the premise of you know
they're there mandatorily because they
have to be
and i will raise the stakes so the types
of classes i taught
these were students usually the year
that they had to take the high stakes
test in arizona so it was very important
they passed this
and they were already in another math
class so they were in one math class and
then they also had me
separately so they had two math classes
that year and i taught this extra math
class and i was taking away
an elective spot so if they really liked
band
i got to yank them out of band and they
were now in my class
teaching math and math is not they have
like a very negative self image about
math and so they don't like it anyway
and now we're saying you're in two math
classes one of which is taking away an
elective spot
so not only were they like mandated to
be there there was like a lot of
anti-everything you know like they are
not interested in being in this class
and nevertheless i got to work with
these students and they're all you know
regardless of their own personas both
projected on them externally and that
they've internalized themselves like
they're all brewing kids and they're all
great
and so a strategy that works really well
in that environment that i carry with me
in other places
is realizing that like traditional
methods
just don't work and you have to find a
different way to go around it
so like if teaching math traditionally
as the textbook prescribes or as i
remember it
if that had worked these students
wouldn't be in this class
which means that by the nature of them
being here i need to find something
that's like tangentially related
almost tricking them into like doing
math i kind of anecdotally called it
like teaching sideways so it's like they
have like this brick wall
that if you teach it the regular way
they'll just crash into the wall but if
you can find like the sideways path
around the wall
then all of a sudden you've moved past
it and so that is
transferable and applicable in
especially like very abstract concepts
in computer science it's like tricking
them into doing something that doesn't
feel necessarily concretely related
but is now this activity or this task
that we can reference
that has all these tangential side
effects of being related to this task
that we're looking at
like there's lots of ways to do like
boolean logic like ants and ors and
truth tables and things like that
without just doing a truth table because
truth tables are boring but you can find
lots of ways to do that that still
get the point across of how this type of
logic works
whether that's with cards or dice or 20
questions or things like that
you can still get that point across and
then have this tangential effect of like
surprise you've been doing this the
whole time right
so that is like something that's like
transferable from that environment
and so like in those situations where
students are are kind of being forced to
be in the class
another thing that's like super
important is well it's important all the
time it's just like building
relationships you know like
having a teacher who like believes in
you and trusts in you and is willing to
start fresh
in so many different ways is super
important for students in that context
and also in any other context whether
they've been mandated to be a part of
the class or they've elected to be in
the class
that part stays the same my classes were
always elective classes like students
could choose to take them but also
students needed full schedule so
sometimes students would just get placed
into the classes especially like my
introductory classes
so in that sense it still kind of feels
like a mandatory class like they're
there
because they get the high school credit
they need and they don't have as much
sort of like
motivation there and so then it's i see
it as like an opportunity to surprise
you know it's like this is computer
sciences is unique and interesting
i think in that at the high school level
or even the middle school level
you haven't formed an identity about it
necessarily so like by the time you get
to high school you think of yourself as
like either a math person you're not a
math person
you're an english person you're not an
english person you're this or that you
have like your own sense of identity
based on your prior experiences
and computer science is a place where
because it's not offered
so often all over the place it's a
chance at the high school level to like
really reframe some of those identities
and students can create a whole new one
of like i can be successful at this
even though i don't think of myself as a
math person i can do
math in the context of computer science
and not even realize that i'm doing it
and have this positive association with
myself being creative and solving
puzzles
in a way that is like empowering and can
build self-esteem and just be really
cool for
students that we have in the room so
that's like the opportunity i see
when it's a mandated class i can
definitely see that with kids in
particular they haven't had experience
with it so they don't have
positive negative experiences with it so
you can kind of build off of it
but what's interesting with the
experiences doing
cs professional development teachers
because they don't have that prior
experience with it
a lot of them start with this negative
self-image where they're just like
because i've never done this before how
do you expect me to teach this thing
that's true so i've also like
facilitated professional development for
teachers so i've seen that too like
teachers who walk in
but i think if you you can create that
same sort of moment for teachers as well
and those are i think some of like the
really powerful computer science
teachers
like the ones who have gone through that
process themselves and then are excited
to bring that process to their students
those are the teachers i'm most excited
to see what they do in the classroom
the ones who you know found their own
like new sense of identity of just like
oh this is really cool and this is what
i want to do and i want to keep adding
programs and keep doing more things
um those are the teachers i'm super
excited by to and the impacts they'll
have on kids
so we've previously talked about the
importance of like the design of a space
and how it kind of facilitates
engagement and whatnot so if you have
like rows
where every computer is all facing the
front like a screen then that's more
conducive to like lecture based versus
like pods or whatever like
how was your classroom space set up or
open
and how did it kind of facilitate the
engagements that you've been describing
yeah so i like this question so this is
like something that i've kind of thought
about and written
about before both of my parents are
involved in like interior design in some
way my dad's in construction and my mom
did like interior design so like
attention to space is something that
like i grew up with and
the sort of like subtle unintended
consequences of like how space leads in
certain ways
and i bring that into my classroom and
just thinking about like what
opportunities are available
depending on how the room is arranged
versus what opportunities aren't
in my ideal classroom all the computers
would be around like a ring
around the edge of the room with open
space in the middle
that sometimes could have they really
could have tables tables would be like
the best thing to have in there
then i could facilitate either like
unplugged lessons that happened sort of
in the middle of the room
or i could facilitate like you know pair
programming plug lessons that happen
around the edge of the room
and having the freedom to kind of move
between both of those
is like my ideal environment
in terms of just how that facilitates
like lessons and things like that
my classroom was not set up like that my
classroom was set up in like pods in
like a very confined space
and because we're so confined one
student sat down it was hard for them to
like get back up like the chairs would
back into each other
we even we had a rule where you couldn't
like i didn't let them bring their
backpacks into the classroom because it
literally just took up too much space
like they would like trip over them and
things like that i had a very defined
path of where i could walk in the
classroom that's another really
interesting thing
like when i was becoming a teacher i had
like a mentor who one day
watching me teach all they did was just
draw where i moved in the room
and that was so insightful like if you
ever get the opportunity to have someone
do that for you that's just like
you learn so much about like your your
presence as a teacher
of just like what paths you get to and
what places you don't get to at all
so because of these classroom
limitations i started to adapt i
invested a lot in creating like these
little
you know like supply stations at the
tables for students so that they never
needed to stand up
you know it's like you didn't bring your
pencil with you well there's a pencil in
this little box that you can grab you
don't have paper with you and you need
stubble there's scratch paper in the
middle you can grab you need white
boards it's in the middle that you can
grab
and i even brought that into like
distributing and collecting
handouts which is something that we lose
like so much time for and like if you
add up all the minutes in the classroom
just i'm passing out a paper to every
single student
big waste of time and so i started
having like these folders in the middle
of my pods
where if i knew ahead of time that i'd
need to give them something i just put
however many copies i needed in that
folder
and it's like all right you're gonna
need this handout open the folder and
grab it there you go everyone gets one
or if i need to collect papers it's like
all right put them in the folder and
then i can just like grade them in the
folders and put them back
that's like a nice little classroom hack
if you have pods and things like that
and so that's sort of like what my space
necessitated
but the other big thing that i started
to focus on and realize
um it had to do with my desires to sort
of to get as many students as i could in
the room
and there are some students who are more
inclined to enroll in a computer science
course
mainly just like white males if you let
everything fall the way it may
statistically you're more likely to have
a classroom full of white males than you
are of anything else
and i didn't want that i wanted like the
students in my classroom to represent
the students in my school
which was a lot of like latinx students
and black students and some native
american students and so
i really wanted that to be part of my
classroom and so in looking up
ways that that happens nc wit has a lot
of like resources behind that and like
girls who code published a report about
it
and like microsoft has like as like a
guide where they gathered a bunch of
resources
also mostly from nc wit on ways to help
do that and in reading over all those
the biggest thing that i saw was just
how impactful it can be for students to
see themselves in computer science roles
and how to see themselves in the space
that they want to move into
when you walk into my room there's like
a wall on the left side as soon as you
walk in
and i just started covering that with
posters of diverse computer scientists
you know
black computer scientist native computer
scientist uh pacific island computer
scientist and not just computer
scientists just like
scientists and mathematicians and just
like important folks in general
and so i pulled from like code.org has a
set of resources csta
just published some posters cs in san
francisco csn sf
has like a cultural heritage page that's
really great there's a podcast called
nevertheless that did like this
beautiful poster series
that's like eight women that like did
all these like great things
in like may jemison's on it who's like
the first african-american female
astronaut
and so what's cool about those posters
is they were they were just like stem
posters so there were some computer
scientists also mathematicians and
scientists and i got my school to make
copies of them
multiple copies and i got them laminated
and then i just gave them to other stem
teachers it was like you should put
these up in your room too
and i have my room you have them in your
room and like students noticed
that all of a sudden there was this
better representation showing up on our
walls
um and showing up in our schools and i
have these great pictures of some
students just like
staring and reading the wall and all
these different posters i had just
showing all these different
black computer scientists american
computer scientists
native computer scientists and it was it
was very cool
so that's great for people who are in
the classroom
but what about the people like if
there's computer science educators who
like have a small number of kids
want to increase the size of their their
classes so like
maybe they're only teaching one unit
they want to teach like their entire
course load
on just computer science so how do you
recruit kids to even want to
consider that as an elected class again
this idea of like
you know you can't be what you can't see
and like using like representation to be
a part of that so like
getting the students you currently have
to help go out and recruit for you
and then adding on to that the power of
like a personal invitation and so like
that's part of like the research too is
that
having like a personal touch and a
personal contact
and extrapolating that to this idea of
like mentors like there's research in
there that shows that like that is super
impactful too
and one of the biggest reasons i think
about those is just because like for me
they're like low
lift you know like printing out a bunch
of posters and putting them on my wall
did not take me very much time but has a
huge impact to the students who walk in
and see those
asking some of my students to say hey
you know here's like a little flyer
about my class like think of five of
your friends who aren't in this class
and go invite them to this class and
give them this little flyer
that's very low lift for me and arguably
low lift for those students
yet it potentially has like this huge
impact on the students that i want to
recruit into the class
the other thing is like being
intentional and like leveraging your
your fellow teacher connections
so i like would ask like some of some of
the math teachers and things like that
if i could go into their classrooms
and recruit students and like make my
pitch and things like that and something
i did
that not a lot of the other elective
teachers would do
is i also went into like the resource
classrooms so we have like students who
have ieps
students who are part of like the
special education program they're
sometimes in resource classes
for whatever their specific learning
disability is and they still take
electives and they're
great and i had noticed that like
students who have ieps in my class when
i was teaching computer science
would do amazing perhaps in contrast to
the experiences that other teachers had
and so that was like this really amazing
resource
that i could bring those students into
my classes and so i went and recruited
in those classrooms
and a bunch of them signed up the next
year and it was
great like again that idea of like you
know
who you are as a student like what's
your self-perception to step outside of
that and make something creative in
computer science
is super validating and super expanding
and
the courses that you had you had several
different options that
people could kind of self-select into
what they're doing so when you're
sending out the personal invitations and
whatnot did you list like hey if you're
interested in this
here's a course related to that or if
you're interested in this other thing
here's this other course
as opposed to here's one course offered
five different times throughout the day
yeah and so the way that my school is
structured there's kind of like two
entry ways into like an introductory
course and one of them was like this
introductory
computer science discoveries-esque
course where we also did we did more web
design stuff
and this last year i added in like some
virtual reality augmented reality stuff
that was really fun
and we do 3d printing because that's
really cool so there's that class and
then there's also the ap computer
science principles class and so
you know i'm really grateful that i had
a class that
wasn't labeled ap because that's also
something that's triggering both the
students
and unfortunately the counselors you
know so like when you see that ap label
that sometimes boxes in students you
know it just like says like this is for
this type of student
and not for these other types which is
not true and so trying to change that
perception was was an ongoing process
but
in the meantime i had this other non-ap
introductory course that students could
jump into
and that was one i pitched as like more
of kind of like creativity and coding
and problem solving
and then the ap course is one that's you
know with with computer science
principles like we focused on like
real impacts of technology and we still
do like programming and like impacts on
society
and that was like the two kind of areas
where i pitched those courses
and students could enroll in both and
this last year i had one student role in
both of them and that was really fun too
so i'm curious going back to like the
way that you facilitated classrooms and
whatnot how did it change
when it went to virtual or online
experiences
with covid yeah so that was
tough to think about so
i think says that the biggest struggle
was just
the inherent inequity of it all purely
in terms of just like access to
time to work on things access to
technology to work on things access to
like internet access
and then access to like kind of like
individuality you know like so many
students like shared computers with
with siblings and things like that oh
i'll also say
this important context i think arizona
ends school
much earlier than the rest of the nation
so when kovitz started to hit
and the impact started to really be felt
we only had like a month left in school
we had already finished most of the
third quarter and like kind of like
halfway through the through the fourth
quarter and so
a lot of the concerns that other folks
had regarding like grading and things
like that
weren't as pressing it was more just
about managing
this impending trauma that was coming
through
and so some ways that my course changed
is like i just tried to be as
available and empathetic and continue
those relationships with students
that i developed throughout the year and
keep in touch with them
the project shifted to things that were
like more creative and more
that you could complete kind of
independently several students didn't
have access to computers so i put
together like packets like unplugged
activities that they could
they could complete at home we did a lot
of things with like pixel art
that you could kind of color in which
was really cool and then for my ap
classes they had those ap exams to just
get ready for that was a whole big thing
that we had to get through
so like in terms of how my classroom
changed i just became a lot more
focused on the relationship piece
because i knew that some teachers would
not do it very well
some teachers would not adjust at all to
what was happening
you know it's like we did something
different every single day and you were
going to do the same thing every single
day
and i knew that not everyone could
handle it as gracefully as i had the
capacity to because i had already built
up the infrastructure of
kids on google classroom and having ways
to keep in touch with me and
i just gave them a lot of grace to deal
with perhaps
other situations that they couldn't
control and for context for why arizona
ends earlier than others
we're in july right now and it's 116
here in phoenix
so we also start earlier like we're in
we're at the end of july and some
schools are already back in session
oddly enough
so i'm curious with the different
pedagogies and approaches that you
described
are there any like philosophies or named
pedagogies or like even just experiences
that kind of
informed why you do the way that you do
like you mentioned for
design your parents having a background
in design and whatnot but what about
with
facilitating educational experiences or
even designing
the experience itself so
i think that's a tough one for me to
reflect on because
the things that i've like emphasized and
like where
i've wanted like what philosophies or
pedagogies or things like that i've
prescribed to
they have shifted as i've matured as a
teacher
and so like i almost think of it as
there's almost like like a maslow's
hierarchy of teaching
you know it's like maslow's hierarchy
for like human existence you know you
got to start at that base level of like
shelter and food and water and then and
then i forget the other levels
like there's there's a level above that
that's like i don't know i remember like
like some of the higher levels are
things like personal relationships and
like you know
being social and things like that and
then it's it's sort of like this like
higher level like meditative like
fulfillment but there's like this
hierarchy of like
human needs and desires and things like
that when you've accomplished one level
then you internally are motivated to
like move on to the next level so once
you feel sufficient with like food and
water and things like that
you start looking for like personal
fulfillment and then when you feel good
with that
you start looking for like social
fulfillment et cetera et cetera
i feel the same way about teaching where
it's like you have
at the bottom you know when i was first
starting off as a teacher
i found myself just cute like i needed
to know classroom management
and then once i knew classroom managed
like nothing else mattered until i had
classroom management
so i would read things that had to do
with like classroom management and like
and interacting and so like i remember i
like someone gave me like the hairy wong
like first days of school
and i was just so overwhelmed like that
was a terrible thing to give to like a
first year teacher because
it's just it makes you feel like if you
don't set the tone right in the very
first day the whole year
is ruined the way i would design things
really based around just trying to get a
handle on my classroom management
and then after that once i felt like i
had to hang it out i would start
thinking about like instructional
designs like how am i delivering lessons
what scaffolds am i giving students
during the lessons how am i
sort of interacting with students
creating like social environments and
things like that
and then once i got to hang it out i
started to think about like assessment
like how am i assessing students
how does the things i value my grading
system impact the way that students
complete assignments and things like
that
and one difference i think between like
maslow's hierarchy and this that i'm
describing is like
every time i move up a hierarchy as a
teacher i have to like
totally revisit and re-evaluate
everything that i had done before
so like when i'm grading when i was
looking at like grading and what am i
valuing with grading
you know maybe for a long time i had
points related to just like compliance
and just like showing up and
participating because that helped me
with classroom management
and then as i evolved as a teacher i
realized oh that's terrible thing for
grading because then
like my assessment systems like don't
really value those things
so all of that to say in my most recent
sort of
like reflections on being a teacher and
if i were to start building things into
my pedagogy
now it has to do with like kind of like
culturally responsive teaching
and like honoring like student identity
and pieces like that
and it's tough because when i look at
that i realize how many things from like
my prior experiences i have to dismantle
so like for example when learning how to
like interact with students
and like do discussions and things like
that teach like a champion came out when
i was still like learning to be a
teacher
and so for a long time that was like how
i based things and now when i look at it
from this lens of like student identity
and like culturally responsive
it's not that great of a book like
there's things to look at that really
deserve like a critical lens
and so i have to like undo those things
and change the way my lessons were
and change the way my assignments were
and like unpackage all of this
machinery i built up when i was focused
on different things so if i were to
to think about like what pedagogies i
ascribed to were philosophies
at this point it would be like ways to
like honor student voice and student
choice
not shying away from tough conversations
that have to do with like
student agency and identity and bringing
their world into the classroom
like the things we do in the class
should be directly connected to things
that
they experience in the world especially
in this computer science context like
this idea of like identity and bias and
how the work that we do as computer
scientists is sort of related and a part
of that work
and those are things i was not focusing
on in the earlier parts of my teaching
and my assignments did not
leverage those pieces and i feel like if
i was still in the classroom i'd be like
unpacking all of that
so i don't know if this will make you
feel any different about your
reflections on that what you just said
but
so i took a teacher education research
course for
my doctorate like six or seven years ago
or something so
i forget who it was that studied this
but there's
a lot of teacher educators who research
identity development of teachers over
time and how it changes
and like the things that you focus on
when you first start is typically like
you said like the classroom management
stuff
and then eventually gets to okay the
content and then it gets to the delivery
of the content and then eventually it
gets to
okay you're working with human beings
and you focus on them as individuals
months if not several year process to
get from focusing on the classroom
management to
actually realizing that you're working
with human beings
so your mention of like books that like
may have been helpful at the time
it was for that place where you were and
like myself that very resonated with me
i
like it was the book teaching with love
and logic like that one when i first
started teaching like i went with that
and was like
oh this is cool but then eventually like
i look back on that and go
no i wouldn't do that again and here's
why so
yeah that definitely relates to it and
there's this music ed
scholar who wrote a a chapter and coined
the term methodology and it's where you
like buy into a method of doing
something and like you only will do that
thing
at the cost of like everything else and
so like
there's this problem where some people
when they go into education like they
buy into like
constructivism or constructionism or
something and like that's all i'm going
to do and i'm going to ignore everything
else out there and it's like but our
understanding of how we learn
in education is constantly evolving and
whatnot so like on that
like general theme one of the things
that i like to ask is like
when you first started what was
something that you first believe that
you now look back on and go
okay no i don't believe that anymore
it's that
if you put a lot of work
into thinking really carefully about
your assignments in terms of like how
they're categorized and how they're
weighted
and how they and like how frequently
you're going to do this like you do a
lot of
preparation in terms of being very
systemic
about how your you know your grades are
set up and your tests are weighted and
things like that
if you do a lot of prep work in that
then you can be confident that you have
an objective
system for how grades
are like measuring students you know
like if you've thought very
intentionally about
how much i'm going to wait tests and
quizzes and how many opportunities i'm
going to have for this and with that
like confidence that like you have like
some sort of like objective
system yeah and i do not believe that
that's
true ever and an experience i have that
like relates to that that if i could go
back i would do again
i would do differently 100 was in my
very first year of teaching
i was teaching like a sophomore level
math class and i had a senior in that
class who was like retaking it
and the senior like had lots of other
stuff going on and could only come to
class like
inconsistently and so would miss lots of
things and things like that
and then like the last week of school
came back and was like you know like hey
i you know i need to pass this class
like what can i do to pass this class
and i looked at my gradebook which i
thought had i'd set up in this perfect
way and i'm like well
if you get a minimum of like these two
high scores
they were like close to a's on like
these two tests and the finals
then that will bring your grade up to a
passing grade
and then you'll be able to like pass the
class and graduate and that student did
not get a passing grade on those tests
instead he got like mid b's on those
tests
going in cold having like missed most of
the semester
and i said this i've set up this grade
book to be objective
it did not measure it right i'm not
going to give this person a passing
grade
and in retrospect that's like the
stupidest thing i could have done
because like yeah they didn't get like
this arbitrary point that i'd set but
the students still got like high b's
on knowing the content and knowing what
needed to do
and i think that actually like that was
like a turning point like my reflection
of thinking about grades but like that's
something that for a while i thought
about it was just like
if you pay if you do a lot of things to
set up the system the system could be
objective
and as i say that right now that just
sounds so wrong
there's so many things about that wrong
both in terms of teaching and just the
world that we live in
i laugh because like i had a very
similar perspective on it
and for me the catalyst was a
professor who asked a question something
like what happens
when it takes somebody 11 weeks to learn
the content in a 10 week course
so like they achieve complete mastery on
the 11th week
but the course ended on the 10th week so
what do we do about that
and like just realizing oh well we're
all learning differently and like
talking about the more like social
emotional learning involved
like what's going on with everybody
right now with kovid and even before
that just
life in general people needing breaks
and
time away from school even when they
want to be there they can't etc so
i'm curious like that teachable moment
for you how have you tried to replicate
that
in your own teaching with kids it's both
like
providing opportunities for flexibility
and then also providing opportunities to
like
listen to students and hear context like
that i think was definitely a blind spot
for me in that moment is that
i didn't have the capacity to like
really listen to the student and hear
everything that was going on like
to me it was you're like a number on the
paper like these are your absences and
this is your grade
and i just did not have the capacity for
empathy just being overwhelmed with
everything i was doing in my first year
so i really listened to that student and
so ways that's translated now
is like trying to find opportunities to
like listen to students
believing that they want the best for
themselves
and if there's actions that are being
taken that don't go
in that direction believing that it's
just because like they don't know like
the right stuff to take they don't know
how to communicate it they don't know
how to bring it up with someone they
don't feel safe telling it to me but
they feel safe tonight to someone else
like
ultimately everyone wants to like move
forward and do well in their own like
sense of doing well
and just finding opportunities for me to
like listen to students and honor that
and then being flexible in my grading
and writing opportunities to make things
up
even past the semester like to your
point about like the 11 weeks versus the
i was fortunate enough to work at a
school that like very much so honored
this idea of like
you know you can go back and do a great
change if someone has like made up that
work and shown progress
at that particular time that's very much
so like a real thing deadlines are just
like arbitrary
you know most of the time if like we set
like a deadline a lot of it's just for
us so we don't have to like go back and
create extra work
and it's very real but that doesn't mean
that like you can't listen to a student
make some other type of plan
around that another very tangible thing
that happened is like i
started adding a category in my grading
system that was just everything else
so instead of trying to like categorize
everything it's like we have quizzes and
tests and projects then everything else
i don't know what that is
maybe it's homework maybe it's classwork
maybe it's you know stuff we do maybe
it's something i haven't even thought
about yet but you know
that's that's just a piece of your grade
two is this like everything else
so i'm curious we've been talking a lot
about like your changes and approaches
over time how have you
like iterated or essentially practice as
an educator
or as a computer scientist
so this is another plug for like summer
camps because there's like no stakes in
summer camps
so if i wanted to try out a particular
like pedagogy strategy or something like
that
i could do it with like these kids and
if i messed it up we'll go take a break
and come back in and we'll just try
something else
and so like i would test a lot of things
and get things wrong
a lot kind of working at these like
academic summer camps which was like a
real thing so for example i wanted to
try out this
teaching strategy called prim which is
like predict run
investigate modify make and it's for
like teaching new syntax and things like
that
i thought it was really cool and i
didn't want to just like plan
like lesson after left lesson after it
so i happened to be teaching at an
academic summer camp and i was like
i'm gonna try teaching this to you this
way let's see how it goes and then i
could like iterate from there
so like having like safe spaces to do
that you know throughout the academic
year that could be like a coding club
that you run with students
or it could be sort of like weekend
workshops or something like give
opportunities for students to learn
computer science outside of the
classroom
and then you get to practice you know
your pedagogy as well which is like
super cool
me being a musician like i'm constantly
thinking of like ways to refine my
abilities as a musician but
that also can be applicable in my
abilities in computer science or as an
educator
a lot of like reflecting and also like
data gathering like asking students like
how is this going how have you liked
this so far like how does this feel
and like check-ins on like new pedagogy
and like reflecting on that
and like the place that i do a lot of
that is like i've kept like a blog for a
long time like i had it when i was a
math teacher and now i have it like a
little bit of computer science teacher
and i don't really like promote it a
whole lot anymore because it's not
necessarily for like other people like
it's there for me like that's where i'm
like
reflecting on and compressing and it
serves as like a
time stamp for me as i'm like working
through different things
and that's been really important for
like my practice of just like reflecting
on
how things have been going and ways to
improve
and sometimes in writing those
reflections like i figure it out i get
unstuck
same thing with coding like when you
talk to a rubber duck i'm just talking
to a blog post
yeah and the idea of experimenting with
your pedagogies and whatnot that really
resonates with me
one of the things that i would
constantly do is be like hey i'm going
to try out this new thing today let's
just see how it goes and give me your
feedback and we'll experiment
another thing that i really valued was i
had the opportunity like in music
education in particular to work
one-on-one
like we're gonna play drum set or i'm
gonna teach you how to do marimba
and then all all the way up to like i'm
working with 150 kids
all in a marching band setting and like
i'm running the entire rehearsal
kind of a thing so like knowing the
different approaches when you're working
with somebody one-on-one versus when
there's 150 kids
in front of you like having that ability
to kind of like go from small to large
group and whatnot
that has also been helpful for me and
experimenting in
all those like in-betweens you know and
i think you know he said something
that's important too is just like the
the ability to be vulnerable and just be
like i'm gonna we're trying this out
we're gonna see how it goes
and depending on like the relationships
you have with students and the culture
you've created like
sometimes folks are into that and
sometimes they're not
i usually don't do that with like my
intro classes first like usually
students i've had for a couple years i'm
comfortable being like hey
we're gonna try this thing out and like
we'll see how it goes maybe we'll do it
tomorrow maybe we won't we're gonna
figure this thing out together
and that's how i've landed on like some
of like some things that i think have
been really successful in my practice
by like iterating with response from
students
and hearing students and them knowing
that they're a valuable part of that
feedback process too
yeah and a lot of the experimentation
that i've done has
been based on research but also another
good chunk of it has just been
based on like intuition and like the
kids that i'm working with and just like
let's just try this thing i just came up
with this idea let's just see how it
works i've never seen anyone do it
before
but we'll see how it goes you know and
like the other thing that makes me think
of is my first year teaching
i taught geometry and that's all i
taught five sections in a row all
geometry and because it was my first
year teaching
the way i taught the lesson the first
period was usually never the same
as when i taught at the last period like
by the time i got to the
end of the day is when i was like oh
okay i figured out how this lesson goes
so that was like a big part of iterating
when i was like teaching geometry was
just like oh
like i know immediately this lesson did
not go very well and so i can start
making adjustments as i repeat it
and that's also one of the things that i
think is like tough about computer
science is a lot of times you're siloed
and you only teach the lesson like once
and then you just have to like go with
that and you don't have that chance to
iterate on it like that was something i
missed transitioning from like math to
computer science is like so often
you just have one class of one type and
then you have to like mentally code
switch
after you teach a lesson into like the
other lesson for the other type of class
and so you don't get that like iterative
and reflective moment
as easily you have to really work at it
to try and do that
yeah that's a good point so like when i
taught general music if there were five
fifth grade classes i would teach the
same lesson that week
five times and sometimes i would teach
it in the same way like literally one
class and then i teach the exact same
lesson to the very next class that walk
in the door
and it'd be night and day in terms of
reception and so that's when i realized
like
oh well if they have a pizza party right
before coming to your class that's going
to change things and if they don't
so like having that like a b test like
really helped me out to understand that
it's not always my fault if a lesson
doesn't go well even though i like to
think of the things that i can do to
improve it
even when it's like heading down that
path it's still it's sometimes it's out
of control
so speaking of like moments where i wish
i could go back and change things and
also like
moments when i should have listened to
students and didn't was like in one of
like my math intervention classes
we had like a quiz scheduled that day
and so i was like all right here's how
we do quizzes you sit here and you do
this and you do that and you're going to
carceral pedagogy and you're going to
sit here and do it like this and
a kid came in late and he had like a
little bag
we had a photo class at our school and
usually held like a camera
and there was just something very off
about what was happening
and like everyone kind of noticed and i
didn't care
i was like you're late we're taking a
quiz sit down you're gonna take a quiz
and just everyone was distracted and i
was annoyed because everyone was
distracted
and come to find out like a little later
in taking the quiz
this kid had like found a kitten on
campus and the kitten was in that little
bag and so
no one was like paying attention and
if i just stopped and like had a
conversation with that student
and been like what's going on what
what's happening right now
we could have like done better things
for that kitten and like i could have
just like
salvaged that moment and then we could
have actually taken the quiz like that's
me just feeling locked into a way of
doing things that i didn't have to be
there's no reason for me to do that stop
and listen to kids that's all you got to
do
yeah i've got many examples similarly in
terms of just things i reflect on and go
oh i wish i would have done that
differently like if i only knew then
what i know right now
so a lot of educators don't actually
stay in the field after like the three
and even like five year mark
and so i'm curious how have you kind of
tried to
stave off that burnout and the
overworking that comes
with being in education and especially
when it comes to
being in something like computer science
where you can
always learn more there's always another
language another ide another platform
etc
you know for me personally i think a big
part of that is just within within my
nation within my field
just always finding for like a new
opportunity like a really good way to
get me to do something is say like hey
do you want to do this thing no one's
ever done before and so like in my
career
like i started with teaching just
regular math classes and then after a
couple years of the opportunity to teach
like intervention math classes
and then after a couple years i had the
opportunity to teach like english
language learners and refugee math
classes which was a whole other amazing
thing
and then after a couple years i started
teaching computer science and after a
couple of years i started like
expanding the program or throughout that
time expanding the program
so i was always able to like jump to the
next thing and i think that's how i
survived
because if i had continued to teach the
same class
over and over again i would have gotten
bored
okay yeah and like that's tough
i mean the the students are new every
day and i love that every day feels
different like
no matter what every class is different
every student is different like
that unpredictability is very exciting
of being in a classroom
but you feel like you lose out on
problems to solve you know it's like how
do i teach this one concept in a way
that students get it and like after a
couple years it's like
oh yeah i can just like rely on these
lessons like i started to feel it with
like my ap computer science principles
course after taught teaching if like the
fourth year
you know i could just glance at the
lesson plans and just like oh yeah
that's right here is how i do this thing
and so i wasn't always like motivated to
learn to like
adjust that but i do think as i was
saying like as my
focus shifted into things like student
identity and cultural responsive
pedagogy like
that would have motivated me to go back
and like stay in the field to do a
better job
that way like that's a regret i have
right now that i can't like retool some
of those lessons to
just be better at like honoring students
but if you never
are forced to confront those things and
make those adjustments like if you never
move above that
like hierarchy of what you're focused on
like if you spend your entire teaching
career just focused on classroom
management
yeah you get burnt out you never evolved
and then you never have a reason to like
you know puzzle and unpuzzle yourself in
how do you create the best lesson that
there is
yeah that's a good point when so when i
was in the classroom
in the coding classes in the maker space
like every week i'd be
exploring something new every day there
was something new and i'd be sharing
like hey here's this new project that i
worked on this past week what are you
going to work on this week
but when it came to music classes the
district that i was in for general music
in particular
the lessons were mandated if one of the
five administrators that i had walked in
and spot checked and i wasn't teaching
the specific lesson on a specific day
i'd get like slapped on the wrist or
written up for it and so like
that i would have gotten burnt out on
very quick and i did
but when it came to computer science
like it was refreshing because like
every day it could be this new
thing but what about like outside of
that like because that can be
overwhelming
in terms of it never ends like how do
you take a break from that
or do you not so the other piece
that kind of kept me going and kept me
again it's this idea of like
this isn't always very appealing to like
some teachers but
teaching in a different context than
just the classroom
so things like running a girls who code
club
or doing like a two or three week summer
camp like academic summer camp
environment where you're like
teaching things that you hopefully like
you know to students who want to be
there and like you get
again because it's not in the classroom
it's more fun like you can
you get to build those relationships
with students you get to focus on the
things you want to
like something that i was doing and
would still do to like avoid burnout is
teach in context outside of a classroom
and i think that's very refreshing like
if you're in teaching because you love
teaching and you love working with
students and things like that
those contexts help remind you of those
things i think that's super
important i also think like in the world
of just like
you know all these computer science
educators like folks you know who've
just gotten into computer science
and they're teaching some courses and
they want to get better at computer
science themselves
or they want to get better at teaching
computer science like
the spending at least one summer just
like teaching in these programs
folks will pay you to do this which is
pretty good that's like the best
professional development i think you can
do
is just having this opportunity to teach
in different ways to different students
in different contexts and see how that
feels
and see how you grow from that i think
is really powerful what research in
particular
do you feel like would help you grow
right now or do you feel that is lacking
in the field
i think any computer science research
would help me grow
because it's not something that's ever
been
on my radar know like as a math teacher
there's things you can read
about like constructivist math
techniques or five practices of
mathematical habits or like
five practice mathematical conversation
like there's things you can read about
in the math world of like
what research is and what that looks
like that you see when you become a math
teacher
and you're exposed to by like the
professional organizations you're a part
of
i don't see that i have to find it as a
computer science teacher
so like on twitter i'm working with
behind the scenes i'm working with
another educator named jen manley and
we're starting these like
talk cs ed research chats where every
week we like read a piece of research
and like talk about it with other
educators and that's been super helpful
for me because it doesn't matter
what we read it's all new it's all
something different tangentially also
like listening to your podcast when you
like break down those research articles
has also been like
super useful it almost doesn't matter
what it is that i'm looking at
just anything because i have my own
intuitions of what good teaching is
and i don't know if those are correct
and if they are correct i don't know why
those are the types of things that i
need to be like a better cs educator
you have listened to the unpacking
scholarship episodes and it has helped
with that but are there other things
that i can do have intentionally
shifted directions and focused on equity
and inclusion for
several episodes that either have
already released or will be released
soon and that's going to be something
that's going to continue to happen while
talking about other topic areas but are
there
other areas that i might not
realize are blind spots that could help
the community
pivoting to a focus on like equity and
inclusion and like getting diverse
voices
on these podcasts like black educators
latinx educators
native educators like getting those
folks here
i think is important i think we both
went to we saw like leon tynes another
arizona educator just did that cs for
all teachers
computing while black webinar which was
really great so the way i always talk
computer science
is not the way that i would like to
teach computer science anything that
helps to shift that narrative i think is
good
so you mentioned like getting students
to recruit and
the one-on-one connection and like
connecting with teachers and counselors
who can kind of help you out do you have
other suggestions
related to improving like equity and
inclusion in cs
that you might give as advice to other
educators i don't have immediate
thoughts in this moment regarding
recruiting students into the classroom i
think some of the things i said before
are big there's so many things that
are when you think of low lift high
impact
like those are the things i look for and
so like representation
is something that like any teacher can
put posters on their wall and have that
available for students
any teacher can have like a meaningful
conversation with students to try and
get them into the classroom you know
like
versus like like trying to convince your
administration to like expand the
computer science program you know for
like these reasons that's a harder lift
it's valid but it's tougher like what
are the low lift things you can do
that's generally how i think about
recruiting but your question made me
think about like what are some other
things
i recently had like the opportunity to
like speak i presented like the csta
conference
a couple of times and i'm gonna like
present in like a couple of other places
and i think something that like cs
educators can do
who are in those spaces of offering
workshops or presenting or being
asked for these things is to take a step
back and ask
you know who is the audience that this
is being presented for and
am i the right person to be saying this
message are there other people
who can present this message better and
can i invite them
up or make room for them so like i
co-presented with two people at csta
and i'm so happy that i did because one
they're friends and they're amazing and
they're awesome
but also then folks who didn't know who
those educators are now know who those
educators are they're kelly lockheed and
jeff olson and they're amazing
and they are folks that folks should
check out and go see
and so if i'm now asked to like
present or speak somewhere i'll ask you
know if i'm on a panel like who else is
on this panel if it's all
like white males i don't think i want to
be a part of that or who's being invited
to this conference
like how is space being made for like a
diverse group of educators to show up
here
how is space being made for like this
equity and inclusion effort and how can
i contribute to that
and in some ways i think it's like
creating space to have like a
co-presenter who comes with me
or just declining and recommending other
people in different places
that is something that i think we as a
cs education community can think about
and that's also reflective of like
that's been like a problem in the method
community
as we're speaking right now like there's
lots of little like things that bubble
up all the time on twitter of just like
these panels that are meant to be like
folks talking to math educators and it's
like all white folks and there's no
teachers on the panel
and things like that and we
can do better do you have any questions
for myself
or questions for the field sure here's a
question for the
field for folks who are involved in like
cs educator like teacher training and
preparation
things like that you know so there are a
lot of amazing cs educators who have
recently come into cs education
from other backgrounds they used to be
english teachers math teachers business
team
teachers music teachers and they are
presented with in teaching courses
that they can follow along with and work
with along with students
and they can take on these roles as
facilitators and help develop that
understanding like along with students
what are the next steps for those
teachers
how does someone increase your
pedagogical knowledge or
your cs content knowledge what spaces
are there
in the cs education professional
development field for that to happen
in my experience when i was looking for
similar opportunities
i had gone through like professional
development
that was focused on a specific
curriculum and then if
i wanted to either be better at pedagogy
or better computer science
i either had to take pd from another
curriculum provider that i didn't care
about because i already knew the
curriculum i was going to teach
or i had to take like graduate level
courses
at my university in computer science or
i just had to take undergraduate courses
in computer science to just learn more
computer science and neither one of
those
are good choices for teachers in the
field
so like what opportunities are there for
you to become
a better computer science teacher beyond
your first introduction to like
here's the scratch curricula here's the
cs awesome curricula
here's the whatever curricula like what
opportunities are we creating for those
teachers
that's a question i have for the field
yeah i like that it would be interesting
to have more opportunities for pedagogy
rather than focus on content and
platform in terms of professional
development offerings
so before going into computer science i
was looking at micro credentialing and
just
thought it was a fascinating idea and
whatnot like demonstrating competency
but then also thinking of it well it
doesn't really get at the point of
education in terms of growth it's not
just can you demonstrate understanding
it's are you
developing a deeper understanding of
starting wherever you're at
and going to somewhere else but when it
comes to like certification and whatnot
with computer science education i
totally understand how like myself being
a classroom teacher coming from one
subject area to another
doing micro credentialing like arizona's
doing and wyoming's doing like things
like that that makes things a whole lot
easier
to be able to kind of like pick and
choose a la carte the things that you
want to focus on
maybe you'll study pedagogy more maybe
you'll study specific languages or
platforms and whatnot but
yeah i like that question so where can
people go to connect
with you and the organizations that you
work with i'm on twitter
my twitter handle is at
matthewmcmatherson
there's no n at the end but if you start
typing it twitter will cut off the
characters i had a blog a math blog
that's still up for a long time that i
don't update anymore but it's like four
years of me being a math teacher that's
matthewmcmatherson.wordpress.com
and when i became a computer science
teacher i started another blog called
codymcoderson.wordpress.com
like those are all very transparent
places i feel very fortunate that my
math blog
i will still get people who find
resources there that are useful for like
new teachers
so that's actually another thing i would
plug i wish more
computer science teachers blogged like
in the math world there's a huge
math blogging community and twitter
community and ways to share resources
and really amazing like crowd driven
projects have come
out of that and there is not as strong
as sense in the computer science world
there are definitely like some folks who
who blog out there have been doing it
for a really long time like alfred
thompson someone who's had a blog for
like a really long time
but i would love to see like new voices
in the cs blogging world of just like
writing about
you know things that you're trying out
in your classroom you know how certain
lessons went
you know strategies that you're using
and building that community i think is
really
cool there's another teacher i really
like and her blogs is really funny
it's feminist in the classroom that's
katie o'brien and she's got a really fun
blog name too
so yeah i would also plug blogging like
folks should make blogs and
build that sense of community around
writing and get on twitter if you're a
new computer science teacher i would say
get on twitter 100
sarah jets said that too i was just
listening to that episode and i would
echo everything that they said
and with that that concludes this week's
episode of the csk8 podcast
i hope you enjoyed this interview with
dan so i've worked with dan over the
last couple of years
through arizona's csta chapter we're
both on the board of directors
and i have certainly enjoyed getting to
know him and learn from him
if you got a friend or colleague who
would benefit from listening to this
interview please consider sharing it
with them
otherwise stay tuned next week for
another unpacking scholarship episode
and two weeks now for another interview
i hope you're all staying safe and
healthy and are having a wonderful week
thank you again
Guest Bio
Dan Schneider is a former high school mathematics & computer science teacher. He is passionate about creating connections between a students' personal experiences and computer science, empowering them to use computer science to create change in their own communities and as a creative medium for self-expression. He currently works as a Curriculum Development Manager for Code.org and is president of the CSTA-Arizona chapter. You can read about his teaching experiences at https://codeymccoderson.wordpress.com/ and https://mathymcmatherson.wordpress.com/.
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Learn more about circuit-bending
Read more about circuit-bending from my dissertation
Posters that can help with representation
Blog posts that Dan recommends as relevant to this episode
Connect with Dan
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter