Designing Curricula at Scale with GT Wrobel

Designing Curricula at Scale with GT Wrobel
Jared O'Leary
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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.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    in this week's discussion i am chatting

    with gt roble

    gt is somebody that i've known for a

    couple of years and have a lot of

    respect for in the field of computer

    science education especially when it

    comes to curriculum development

    in this episode we're going to discuss

    the importance of understanding your why

    behind pedagogical approaches

    as well as curriculum design the

    internal tensions that can actually

    arise when you are designing curriculum

    used by people all around the world

    reference gt has helped developed

    curriculum for code.org

    we also discussed the potential for

    standards and assessments to be a form

    of oppression which builds off of

    previous episodes on

    paulo freddy's book pedagogy of the

    oppressed

    we discuss how feedback impacts the

    evolution of curriculum

    as well as considerations when designing

    culturally relevant curriculum that is

    used around the world

    we also discuss aligning curriculum

    development with professional

    development

    importance of taking a break to prevent

    burnout and where we hope the field will

    go in the next few years

    as well as many other topics that are

    relevant to cs educators

    there are a lot of references in this

    particular episode in terms of

    prior podcast episodes and other

    resources outside of

    this podcast so make sure you check out

    those show notes to get links to all of

    those

    you can find those by going to

    jaredlery.com or simply clicking the

    link in the app that you're listening to

    this on

    no ads nothing for sale on my website

    all free content

    and with that being said i do want to

    say that this interview is a little bit

    different gt specifically asked me to

    make sure that i shared my thoughts on

    topics

    so rather than spending the majority of

    the time listening to the guests

    i was also including some of my own

    thoughts on some of the topics we were

    discussing

    so that was definitely intentional and

    is one of the reasons why this is a

    longer episode than usual

    however it's got a lot of great content

    from gt but i highly recommend people

    listen to

    all right so i ramble too much so let's

    start with an introduction by gt

    hey my name is gt roble i am a

    former high school educator i think i'm

    here primarily because i worked at

    code.org for several years

    as a curriculum developer for our cs

    principles course and cs discovery so

    primarily middle and high school

    and i currently work at microsoft

    as a onboarding expert and continuing

    learning expert for software engineers i

    live in beautiful seattle washington and

    for fun i love to go outdoors and hike

    and play guitar and do innumerable

    things but computer science education

    seems to be the

    kind of the nexus of my interests and

    i'm very excited to be here today

    can you tell me the story of how you got

    into computer science education

    this one is really interesting to me my

    journey through cs education

    i have a really hard time separating

    from the place where i spent my most

    time working on it which was at code.org

    i was a curriculum developer there

    for five years full time and as a

    contractor for a year before that so a

    pretty good stretch

    but what most schools don't teach video

    came out

    i had no background in education and i

    had taken one computer science course

    my experience with it was all through

    college i studied math and economics

    and i was adjacent to the computer

    science department and convinced myself

    that even though i did math and econ

    computer science was for

    the real nerds and i could never go over

    there and then my second semester senior

    year

    i had to take a computer science course

    to

    get the major the bachelor of science

    for math and they made me take one

    and i just fell in love i was like this

    is awesome it's so cool and i had a

    fantastic professor

    and so at that point i went into the

    professional world and i was an

    economist for a couple of years i was

    doing data analysis but

    in the back of my mind i was thinking

    like i'm gonna get back to computer

    science

    so i stayed in touch with that professor

    and eventually decided to make

    the leap to education and started

    working in a school

    in chicago which is my hometown as a

    math tutor

    and i started taking courses at night at

    the university of chicago in a master's

    program which was fantastic

    in computer science and so i sort of

    started my journeys into education

    and computer science at the same time

    that was the beginning of it

    i'd say the first foray into what i'd

    call formal cs education

    was a talk that was given at my graduate

    program given by

    long-time colleague and friend baker

    frankie about cs education

    still at code.org and he gave that talk

    having been a computer science teacher

    for a really long time

    and that's when i first said oh i can

    take this passion i'm developing for

    education and what i'm learning in my

    master's program and

    he'll be a computer science teacher and

    so at first i applied for his job he was

    leaving to go to

    code.org so i said oh there will be an

    open computer science teacher position

    in the city that'll be great

    didn't get that job but did get a

    different one that was my first

    full-time computer science teacher job

    at a school in chicago and then got

    involved as a piloter

    for that course that baker was going to

    go write with others and

    very quickly afterwards they said we

    really need people to be contract

    writers because curriculum development

    it's a lot of work they need a team

    that was kind of my i call it big break

    in terms of curriculum development i had

    known that that was something that i was

    looking for but

    when they offered it i was really

    excited and

    after that ended up working full-time at

    code.org there was a position open after

    that and that was kind of the

    i would say the end of the journey into

    the field so kind of a long one and

    not one i knew right away was exactly

    what i wanted but kind of kept pulling

    threads and

    opportunities came up yeah it's

    interesting how i tend to have be the

    kind of person who has like a five and

    ten year plan

    but it almost never pans out the way

    that i plan it it's like

    always i look five years back at my plan

    oh wow this is completely different than

    i was anticipating

    yeah well that's interesting for me to

    hear because you do have a phd

    right yeah so do you feel like even

    going into your phd you didn't have like

    this vision

    well yeah i mean the vision was okay i

    was going to be a professor of

    music education and now here i am

    full-time in computer science education

    jared what are you doing you missed

    that makes sense and that does resonate

    i hope we get to talk more about that

    because i do have a passion for music as

    well

    and it was something i was hoping to

    when i was originally thinking well

    where will i go next i was looking at

    like the intersection of music

    and computer science it wasn't a plan

    and it did feel very

    serendipitous those several years of

    eventually becoming a curriculum

    developer

    so it's interesting that you say that

    you were basically looking forward to

    doing the curriculum development and

    enjoyed it i also

    obviously really enjoy it and have been

    doing it full time at boot up but

    a lot of people hate writing lesson

    plans like with a passion just

    can't stand doing it it's a waste of

    time don't want to do it

    so i'm curious like how did you know

    going into

    computer science that you really wanted

    to do this curriculum side of things

    let me give a side story which is

    i don't know why i knew i liked it but

    when i look back

    i remember a talk that one of my

    professors in college gave about a

    statistics textbook

    he was the first professor who would

    ever explain to the class why he picked

    that textbook and it was

    very thoughtful it was like an

    explanation of why he liked the way the

    content was presented and ordered and

    how he considered this book versus

    others and i just had such a respect for

    the thoughtfulness that went into course

    design that was expressed just through

    these few minutes

    and i didn't know it at the time that

    type of idea resonating with me might

    lead to thinking curriculum development

    was interesting but i think that

    if anything i really just respect

    teaching

    and thoughtful teaching i've definitely

    felt an awed by

    people who have just had more teaching

    experience than i have

    and i think that it's a way to express

    that respect for the discipline i don't

    think it's an excitement about

    frankly even computer science i have so

    many different passions

    i think it is really just sort of this

    respect for thoughtful teaching

    and yeah and i think also being able to

    do it on a team of other people who

    share that passion really helps so i'd

    say that's the other thing i think if

    you get locked alone

    in a room to write curriculum it's very

    different than if you're working

    collaboratively but trying to bring a

    vision together

    yeah that makes sense how did you go

    from

    not having degrees in computer science

    and not having degrees in education

    to where you are now so how did you

    iterate on your abilities over those

    years

    to get to the level of depth and

    conversations you're able to have on

    these subject areas like curriculum and

    computer science

    the easier answer there is going to be

    for computer science which is i got a

    master's degree in computer science

    i'll quickly say that because i knew i

    was so passionate about education

    i took courses broadly with an idea that

    i wanted to have a really

    i didn't want to spread myself too thin

    but i wanted to take courses and lots of

    topics

    especially because i was involved with

    cs principles i had this very holistic

    understanding of computer science and i

    wanted to be able to

    have a view at least of what the field

    was like and i think what was cool about

    this program at the university of

    chicago is that while i was designed for

    professionals

    the school has a bit of a reputation for

    being theoretical

    and so i kind of got to split that

    difference between the more theoretical

    sides of computer science and the

    professional sides of computer science

    or the applied sides

    so that's the first part of your

    question going to a graduate program

    i would say a little bit reading just

    trying to keep up with the field that's

    easier than the other part of your

    question

    i would say that a lot of my

    understanding of pedagogy and curriculum

    is through experience

    and it's very applied i'm far from being

    an expert on

    what research there is in cs education i

    try to keep up with

    blogs i would go to conferences i would

    talk to people but a lot of it really

    was

    working with people who had more

    experience than i did and trying to

    listen and learn from them

    and a lot of it was talking directly

    with teachers or visiting classrooms and

    just sort of saying like what works

    if i'm being totally honest i certainly

    don't feel like an authority on

    education at this point i definitely

    feel like i can share what i know

    from going through that learning process

    but i would never say i know

    what's best for learning it feels so it

    feels so big

    the computer science stuff despite the

    field being so big and rapidly

    developing i feel so much more

    comfortable

    claiming a small modicum of expertise

    there yeah that really resonates when

    i'm engaging with conversations

    with our like pd facilitators at boot up

    like several of them have decades worth

    of experience in the classroom

    like very well known and good at what

    they do and when they ask a question

    like i'll answer well

    here's what we're doing and why we're

    doing it based on like experience and

    research

    however here's like four or five more

    other options that you could also do

    that also resonate with like experience

    and research but we're doing this one

    because of a b and c

    there's so many ways that you can do

    education or pedagogy that there's

    really

    not one better or worse way to do it so

    i understand

    that like not wanting to claim that

    expertise what you said really does

    resonate which is that i think

    in pd and one working with colleagues

    clarifying the why

    did feel really important to me and i

    don't know if that's just because of

    maybe that feeling of discomfort

    is what i'm saying really correct and so

    saying well at least here's why we're

    doing it

    was really important but i found in pd

    you're designing curriculum

    you're working with teachers who have to

    bring things to the classroom they're

    going to make choices

    but if they at least know why you made

    choices they can

    pivot from there if something you made

    doesn't work you should know that

    but at least you can say i know why we

    did this we communicated it to teachers

    and so they can make decisions to adjust

    from there as well

    yeah when i did my student teaching i

    was in an elementary

    band in general music position and then

    a high school position or split between

    the two

    times when i was in elementary school

    the

    music teacher would vocalize why he was

    doing

    what he was doing as he was in the

    middle of teaching it to me

    and so like he'd be in the middle of

    like teaching a song to kids and like

    turn to me i'm like blah blah blah

    i'm doing this because of a b and c and

    i'm like oh that makes sense and like

    suddenly it wasn't just

    modeling what he was doing but it was

    understanding oh the reason why he's

    doing this as opposed to these other

    things is because

    of what he just explained and that was

    an invaluable experience

    i'm wondering as two curriculum nerds

    if we respond extra well to those sorts

    of

    we'll call them teacher moves my first

    story was about exactly what you're

    talking about i think everybody responds

    well to knowing the why

    but as you were talking and i was just

    nodding like yep that works for me

    pretty well

    like if somebody tells me that you get a

    lot of buy-in from me i do think that

    that's a good practice in general but

    i'm just reflecting is that something

    that

    make their way into the world of

    curriculum really resonate with is that

    why

    yeah so i talked about this in the

    interview with

    kristen stevens martinez in teacher

    education research there's this idea of

    apprenticeship of observation

    and so the idea is like even if you

    don't get degrees in education

    you are essentially being an

    apprenticeship with teachers

    you're going through your decade plus in

    school you're learning how to teach

    through it

    but the thing that is missing the

    crucial thing is you don't know why

    they're making those decisions

    so if people go and try and replicate it

    like politicians like

    oh well i had this teacher who did this

    really great thing that worked really

    well for me

    they don't understand why they did that

    and how the teacher may have shifted

    things in different contexts so they try

    and apply it without

    having that understanding and it just

    creates more problems than it should

    i believe that i think it is true maybe

    we have an early theme to this

    discussion but i do think knowing why

    is super important but it's also very

    hard to communicate especially in text

    developing curriculum you really want

    teachers to know the why

    not just the what yeah because you know

    it's not going to go the way that you're

    developing it

    it's never going to look the way that

    you have this picture in your head so

    you need to empower the teacher with

    kind of the ethos of the course as much

    as the

    step-by-step that you may have written

    out you know do this do that

    but if they don't understand why it's

    going to be really hard to make

    decisions on the ground

    yeah i like that and connecting it to

    like scholarship on

    curriculum there's like these different

    avenues or layers of curriculum

    and one of them being the intended

    curriculum and that's so like well i

    really want the teachers to teach a b

    and c

    in this way but the top curriculum is

    often different like

    for boot up the resources that i create

    like i want to go with rhizomatic

    interest driven

    you can pick any one of these 40

    projects and work on it at your own pace

    but then when teachers actually teach it

    they might pick one of the project

    everybody going at the same pace as

    everybody else and like that's not at

    all how i intend people to work on it

    but that's just how it was taught so

    it's weird like designing for

    all use cases with it and knowing that

    just because you intend for something

    to happen is not going to happen unless

    you clearly communicate the why behind

    that

    something that you just said really

    reminds me of my

    experience this year which is that i

    spent the last two years leading up to

    the school year

    updating code.org cs principles

    curriculum with a really intentional

    focus on making it

    more hands-on more collaborative take

    advantage of that classroom space those

    would have been phrases that the team i

    was on was saying of course now in this

    world of remote learning

    it's very different you know when we

    spent two years developing it so

    team over there since i left i know

    they've made modifications but i'm a

    teals volunteer and if you don't know

    what teals is it places volunteers in

    high school classrooms along with

    teachers and i'm a teals volunteer for

    the course i wrote

    i think the team is doing a great job

    we're working really hard but it's so

    funny seeing exactly what you were just

    talking about the difference between how

    the course was designed

    then the realities on the ground change

    because we're all virtual

    things would have been implemented

    different than i was imagining in my

    head anyway and i always knew that but

    seeing it in person or virtually is

    pretty interesting yeah it's certainly

    shifts some perspectives or provides new

    perspectives on it i'm curious about

    like one of the things that i really

    like

    discussing is like development or

    evolution of ideas over time

    or even just abilities i'm curious about

    when you first began working in

    education what was something that really

    resonated with you that you

    bought into but now you're like no i

    don't buy into that anymore or i don't

    do that anymore

    this is a really good question i had a

    relatively short time in the classroom

    and so i think i

    feel more comfortable answering this

    about curriculum development

    and i would say attention i don't know

    that i'm going to give you a black and

    white answer like it used to be this and

    now it's that

    right but attention that has been in my

    mind for a long time is how to go about

    the curriculum design process

    a lot of people say in particular

    understanding by design you should do

    ubd

    you know start backwards from your goals

    determine how you're going to evaluate

    them or assess them and then go and do

    your lesson development

    the group that i was originally a part

    of i think tended a little bit more

    towards

    building stories which i wouldn't say is

    exactly activity focused but it was more

    let's build a story up through this

    concept let's string things together in

    a way that makes conceptual sense

    and sometimes that would be at odds with

    what i'll call

    a more ubd style approach and

    you might find gaps later and have to

    staple them on to the story that you had

    created

    and i will say that i am still torn

    on in practical reality which leads to a

    curriculum that i'm more happy with

    at the end which maybe is just a matter

    of taste and not a matter of how things

    work

    so i'll fully admit that but i think

    that i've built good

    courses in both mindsets but i think

    that at least in the world of curriculum

    development ubd

    is something that anybody who has spent

    time in the weeds on it knows that it

    never goes exactly the way that you

    planned it it's a good framework to have

    in the back your mind

    essentially boiled down to does it lead

    to i hate to say like fun curriculum but

    like coherent curriculum or do you feel

    more like you're checking off boxes

    for what your goals were and it's maybe

    it's taboo to say that in this weird

    narrow field that we're in but at least

    that's been my experience there's a

    tension between those two i think it's

    important to acknowledge it and that's

    definitely like a

    question that i've pulled one way or the

    other on over the like

    six years that i spent doing curriculum

    development yeah i'm told the game to

    talk about taboo stuff

    so what do you think have you tried to

    write in both ways does this resonate

    with you

    yeah it's difficult i have chosen an

    approach to curriculum that has a lot of

    compromises in it

    it is not like the curriculum that i

    write for boot up is not what i would

    write for myself it has a bunch of stuff

    in it that

    quite frankly i don't care about and

    the connections to standards and whatnot

    honestly i don't care

    like i just want kids to create

    something that's interesting to them

    and what standards they learn are the

    standards that they learn now one of the

    guiding things that kind of has informed

    that this hasn't come out yet but

    the chapter four discussion on

    paolo freire's book pedagogy of the

    oppressed

    i would argue that the standards and

    even like the backwards design model

    is a form of epistemological oppression

    on students

    in that you are saying that certain ways

    of knowing and doing and experience

    education are the correct ways of doing

    it and it is designed by the knower for

    the unknowing

    individual the student and that is

    basically a form of oppression

    so that being on one in the continuum of

    a response

    and having that in the back of my mind i

    also know yeah but you need to create

    something that kids

    and teachers can use so there's that

    conflict that goes on in my head in the

    resources that i create

    so yeah that's something that i'm

    personally kind of struggling with

    and always thinking through when i

    create this stuff yeah but

    how can we make it so that even if you

    are using an understanding by design

    approach where it's backwards design and

    you

    have these standards and whatnot is

    there a way that you can design it

    that still makes it so that kids can

    express themselves

    and be creative with it and are not

    limited to a narrow scope of

    understanding

    within that approach that's fascinating

    i appreciate you saying that

    and i think it speaks to something i've

    felt and

    i was going to add i spent a lot of my

    time working on cs principles in

    particular which is a

    college board ap course and so there's a

    high stakes test at the end there's like

    a very robust framework

    so high stakes test they have to submit

    a project with very specific

    requirements

    but i was involved through the early

    life of that course

    not as something that was in development

    that happened for a decade before i

    showed up

    but i was there for like the early

    implementation of this course

    actually in the classroom and i think

    there is this tension just even in the

    spirit of that course between

    this bold vision of what computer

    science could be with the fact that

    kind of underlying this gamble that i

    think the whole cs education community

    made was

    scaling out computer science broadening

    access we're going to

    partner with the college board we're

    going to partner with an ap program

    and i think that it speaks to exactly

    the tension you're talking about and i

    think maybe was part of my tension as a

    curriculum developer was

    i knew i had to hit these standards i

    knew that the teachers that i was

    supporting

    really were going to be held to account

    for them and maybe the reason that they

    were able to offer this course at all

    was

    because they existed yeah and that's

    something that

    i have the privilege of the resources

    i'm designing i don't have to worry

    about those high-stakes standards

    so i can focus on making things

    interesting rather than making sure

    oh i introduced variables at the correct

    time or conditionals at the correct time

    whatever

    yeah and then one of the other things

    that has really heavily influenced my

    own approach

    is again i think that like standards can

    be

    a form of oppression when you are

    forcing everybody to learn only one

    way of understanding and engaging with

    computer science

    what i tend to prefer is individualized

    expertise and cultivating that

    rather than having it so that everybody

    knows the same thing so like if

    computer science constantly talks about

    jobs jobs jobs it's all about career and

    what you can do with it okay well if a

    bunch of people are applying for a job

    and they all have the exact same

    understanding who's going to stand out

    it's going to be the person who doesn't

    have that same understanding and can

    bring something new to the table they're

    likely the one who's going to be hired

    over everybody else who knows the same

    standards and whatnot

    so for me like if we're going to treat

    teachers as professionals

    and have their own expertise and treat

    the communities that we

    serve like the students as having their

    own expertise then we need to cultivate

    the expertise

    among kids and adults and make it so

    that they can express themselves through

    that

    but having like a unified set of

    standards makes that a little bit more

    difficult to do

    not impossible but it at least guides

    well these are the things that we

    consider to be

    worth knowing whereas the things that

    are not considered standards are things

    that are

    unsaid as not being as valuable for

    understanding

    but that's my little standard rant and i

    know we could go deeper on it

    and i think it's worth acknowledging

    that clarifying what we think

    is important at least going through the

    exercise

    is valuable in some ways i think

    clarifying what is the field

    so the difference between what's in the

    csa course

    and what's in csp is really different

    there's all these new topics that are

    being included and i could make an

    argument that there is a different

    vision for what

    computer science could look like in that

    course and so i think that the process

    of trying to

    go through that i will say that that

    feels like an improvement

    i don't know if it's still built on a

    shaky foundation

    i'll give an example let's even go

    beyond standards assessment

    you can have the standards and then if

    only half of them are being assessed

    those are secretly the only standards

    that matter even within that so you have

    a subset of knowledge that is

    deemed worthy of a standard and then

    there's a smaller subset that's actually

    deemed worthy of assessment

    and in a national scale that will lead

    to

    i think eventually that's where gravity

    is pulling and if things aren't pushing

    away

    against gravity then yes i do really

    think that there are some

    undesirable patterns that arise i'll

    give a really concrete example i don't

    know that i blame anybody for this

    i want to be careful i think there are a

    lot of people trying very hard in

    computer science education but a very

    concrete example that i think is true

    in cs principles the way that the

    framework

    talked about data which is a field that

    if you remember i used to be an

    economist i had like a data background

    the way they talked about data and the

    way they assessed it felt really

    different

    and then the amount that it showed up on

    the test

    was even narrower the vision for data

    that was in the standards versus what

    really actually got taught or

    eventually because teachers became wise

    to this pattern

    really really different and i think that

    maybe something that could play out and

    we'll have to see especially because

    it's such a strange year but the explore

    pt no longer being part of your grade it

    is a curricular requirement for

    cs principles now but because it is no

    longer submitted to the college board

    and part of your final score my

    prediction is we'll see fewer classrooms

    doing that activity even if it's in

    curriculums even if it's

    deemed to be important so this is me

    kind of going back and forth on your

    statement but i'm agreeing with you i

    think that like some things are deemed

    worthy of

    being the standards at all and then if

    they're not assessed

    i think that it's naive to think that

    teachers will become wise to that

    there's a lot of pressures on them right

    districts will districts will become

    wise

    well and how specific the wording is of

    the standards one of the things that

    we got into a discussion about when i

    was helping with the wyoming standards

    is

    i wasn't a fan of the

    it was described as represent data

    visually like that was one of the

    standards from csta something along

    those lines

    and my argument was there are many ways

    that you can represent data and it

    doesn't just have to be visually so for

    example there's sonification

    where you can represent data through

    sound so why

    do we need to say represent data

    visually when we can just say

    represent data through visuals sound

    whatever

    and broadening it so that way it wasn't

    just now a narrow slice of how you can

    represent something so that's something

    that

    some people might think is thinking a

    bit too much about it but the

    type of wording that you use narrows

    down the types of engagement

    and then like you're saying with the

    assessments if that's not on the

    assessment then all right i don't need

    to teach it

    my sort of cynical but hopefully joking

    answer is if there's not a question

    about sonic representation of data on

    the test jared

    people aren't going to do that right

    maybe some will and i think you and i

    probably would in our own classrooms

    because we'd say this is cool this is

    interesting important or maybe from an

    accessibility standpoint because i have

    seen some really interesting work for

    blind or visually impaired students like

    how can we use sonification

    to still allow people to interact with

    data in a way that

    they can understand patterns but yeah i

    think there's a very real tendency that

    if it's not on the test

    it slowly may fizzle as you mentioned

    i think that's something i experienced a

    lot in the land of ap

    and preparing ap courses yeah which

    they have their place and their benefits

    like i benefited from

    entering college as a sophomore because

    of the dual enrollment and ap courses

    that i took so like

    that helped me out it set me up for

    certain advantages

    so i was able to focus on music specific

    courses and then

    take other classes outside of my

    discipline because i had

    open elective time to do that and that

    really benefited me

    i'm curious like looking instead of

    broadly

    looking more at individual experiences

    what comes to mind when you think of

    what an engaging learning experience

    looks like or sounds like

    i would talk about this in pd that the

    classroom we were writing for had a

    little bit of a low

    rumble of noise so not chaos

    not things flying through the air though

    there are some lessons where things are

    moving around and there's manipulatives

    but there's a low rumble of

    collaboration between students

    and between students and their teacher

    and that is something that

    we really tried to invest in for the

    most recent update that we were working

    on for cs principles

    in particular for our most recent update

    for cs principles

    we were trying to take on a really big

    challenge which was

    programming pedagogy and how do our

    classrooms look

    what do those learning experiences look

    like and when we wrote the first

    version of cs principles

    at code.org we were really in a tough

    spot because we knew that

    we were asking so much of teachers

    already we didn't want them to have to

    lecture we wanted it to be these

    collaborative experiences but how do you

    support that how do you support that at

    scale

    and so i would say that people who have

    interacted with the code.org platform

    you know there's a lot of bubbles

    some of those lessons have too many the

    old ones had way too many bubbles and

    you would kind of slowly but surely see

    students would get to different points

    in the course because they could work

    independently

    and the teacher might not know where

    they were at and

    collaboration maybe would happen but it

    would be hard to facilitate exactly and

    so it just started to feel like

    the types of classroom community that we

    wanted to develop or sort of that

    cohesive sense that we're moving through

    this learning process together

    weren't there and so i'd say that it was

    a hard balance because i think

    a lot of students i think did benefit

    from moving individually through

    progressions and being able to move at a

    pace that worked for them and the

    teacher could be a facilitator to that

    learning or a support or more like a

    guide

    but the updates we made we were adding

    more hands-on activities

    we were adding more discussions where

    students would read code

    talk about it i think the collaborative

    aspect of it

    is the ideal that we had in our head it

    doesn't mean that there aren't moments

    when you're working on puzzles or

    sitting down and chewing on a problem on

    your own or maybe with a partner

    but we really were envisioning that this

    more like a learning journey you go on

    with a class

    that being one of the most valuable

    assets you have in the classroom

    i would say that that's part of the

    vision and i just talked a lot about

    programming

    early courses that we developed so many

    of them don't start with programming

    they start with digital information we

    build like widgets that let kids explore

    ideas do

    invent concepts on their own discover

    the way things work try things out

    there's this

    awesome tool that we have called the

    internet simulator where students are

    forced to communicate with one another

    using like a bit sending device that

    slowly builds up the layers of the

    internet so

    they get you know they add like ip

    addresses and then they add like sort of

    tcp and then they add http and there's

    this wonderful sequence and videos that

    go along with it i think it's a little

    tricky to implement but

    the vision really is sort of this

    combination of creating

    and collaborating which i know are words

    that get used so much in our field but

    how do you actually make that happen at

    scale was the question that haunted me

    let's say but it's tough it's really

    tough to do when it's not your classroom

    or even your district

    so you mentioned learning at scale and

    for anybody who just happens to not

    be familiar with it code.org curriculum

    is used around the world

    so you're getting feedback and data

    points from

    everywhere just implementation and so

    many different contexts and whatnot

    you mentioned the educational journey

    i'm wondering what about the journey of

    curriculum over time so for example the

    cs principles course

    how did that develop over time through

    the different feedback and

    experiences that teachers and students

    were having around the world

    so i would say that there are probably

    three phases of that course that i can

    speak to

    and the first one was everything that

    went into the original piloting of it

    up through maybe the first year of

    running it as a

    ap course then there was a set of i'll

    call them

    heavily targeted tweaks to turn it into

    something that a well-established system

    and then

    the ap framework got updated and so we

    went through a major overhaul

    so three phases phase one was really

    heavily influenced by

    the experiences of the teachers who were

    part of the different writing teams so

    there were a few

    different iterations but i would say in

    total it ended up being

    six to seven people getting in a room

    together talking about their vision for

    the course

    and then piloting with teachers around

    the country and

    part of that meant that pd and

    curriculum were always really tightly

    coupled

    and so we're developing the course but

    we're also really thinking about how do

    we

    share through pd the vision for how this

    course

    is supposed to be taught it's that why

    that we were talking about this first

    phase also really parallels the early

    csp framework which

    is very aspirational it's recently

    gotten updated the first version

    is very aspirational in the vision of cs

    classrooms and

    field of cs that it describes it's more

    of a web

    of concepts that are all intersecting

    which i think

    reflects the reality of knowledge in

    general it usually doesn't fit into

    these neat buckets

    but sometimes it's hard to do coherent

    curriculum development around it because

    little

    standards are all reaching out to one

    another and things are not exactly where

    you thought they would be

    so i would say that there was a lot of

    creative freedom and i would say because

    there was this small group that

    was involved that group got to express a

    lot of creative freedom people were just

    really excited about the

    interest that computer science education

    was getting and i didn't realize this

    because i was fairly new but it was more

    than it had been getting for some time i

    think we were seeing change it felt like

    we were part of that change it felt like

    the focus on

    broadening what the field looked like

    broadly who was part of it meant that we

    had the power to envision

    creative lesson types creative unit

    types creative

    we're growing really hard on what we

    consider like discovery based learning

    or we'd say like inquiry based learning

    really focused on that in that first

    phase i would say that the second phase

    was really defined by

    the realities of running an ap class at

    a national scale so we developed

    the pt guides the performance task

    guides because people basically realize

    that these performance tasks and if

    you're unaware there are two projects

    students work on them during class time

    they got 20 combined hours of class time

    to work on a

    research project and a programming

    project and they're tough

    i think this was an experiment for the

    college board as well some of our

    updates were focused on

    updating our assessments after that

    first phase was so focused on what is

    this aspirational classroom environment

    what are these

    pedagogies that we want to introduce

    saying hey if we want this program to

    continue to

    operate we're going to need to make sure

    that we support teachers in terms of

    just running assessments preparing

    people for the pts

    i want to say like fundamentals because

    that's not exactly right i hope pedagogy

    is the fundamentals but

    that was definitely a phase was just

    realizing like we need to take care of

    this part of

    our product our teachers and our

    classroom experiences too and then the

    third phase was this major update and i

    think we had a chance to be

    informed from previous experiences

    and there were some targeted tweaks we

    made across the board so we got to

    develop some really cool new

    tools i was really proud that we

    implemented some

    work from researchers actually like in

    the field of cs education

    and i would say the most important part

    of it was trying to take another crack

    at

    programming pedagogy and do some of what

    we were talking about before

    trying to make our classroom activities

    less like uh

    independent study go through the bubbles

    every now and then talk to your teacher

    your classmate and more like this shared

    classroom experience but again

    doing that at scale doing that with

    teachers who might not feel comfortable

    around programming them i know they

    don't feel comfortable around

    programming themselves

    so how do we try to empower them to

    and the worst case like put the kids on

    code.org and come back in an hour and

    instead say i can do this

    i can run a classroom that looks more

    like what we want it's really hard to

    say whether or not we accomplished that

    because i think in piloting we found it

    went pretty well but

    it was designed to go live this year a

    lot of it we had to keep secret because

    of

    the changes to the test not being public

    yet and

    yeah this was going to be the year we

    found out how it went in the classrooms

    around the country and of course it was

    designed to be in person and so i think

    in the virtual world we'll see some of

    it the data for so many educational

    initiatives this year is going to be a

    little bit odd

    yeah to say the least might not be

    representative i assume that we will see

    more in-person schooling in the future

    and we may

    learn more accurately how this course

    actually serves classrooms at scale at

    that point

    i'm curious when considering how to

    serve classrooms at scale

    how do you account for something like

    culturally responsive

    or culturally relevant curriculum and

    pedagogy when

    culture is ill-defined so it's literally

    anywhere

    in terms of where it's being implemented

    around the world so like when i was

    designing lesson plans

    for kids in my school i had different

    factors to consider for that than when

    i'm in designing something that i know

    is being used around the world

    so what did you do for that particular

    area

    well jared i came here because i thought

    you were going to know the answer that

    question

    and that's the big question easiest

    answer first

    don't try to be funny with something

    that i discovered

    pretty quickly sounds like there's a

    story behind that

    not exactly but i think when i was

    talking about the phases of

    writing i think early in the course it

    really felt like the personalities of

    the individual writers like i could read

    a lesson and know who wrote it

    i think humor is maybe an example of

    something that is probably not going to

    translate so i don't think

    that doesn't mean don't be fun or like

    try to make it

    have a little bit of a shimmer of whimsy

    or

    excitement or something like that yeah

    but i think

    that's my easiest first answer don't try

    to be funny if you're like this will be

    funny

    i don't think it will be certainly not

    for everybody but i think

    beyond that a really tough thing for me

    and i think for a lot of people is just

    remembering that once you enter this

    field of writing at scale

    it may not help that much to have spent

    you know

    five years 10 years 15 years with one

    group of students

    because you're writing for such a

    breadth of people and i think you really

    have to open yourself up to

    feedback and piloting and yeah it's

    disorienting practice you can't always

    be there so i would try to visit

    classrooms i live in seattle i used to

    live in chicago

    it was a little harder to find

    classrooms here well and it was a little

    harder to find classrooms that weren't

    at first at least that weren't i'll call

    it privileged or wealthy schools

    basically i worked in one of the schools

    everyone's fantastic but it wasn't who

    we were targeting

    and i think knowing you really need to

    be getting feedback

    from teachers and students in classrooms

    that the ones you're saying you actually

    want to target

    if you're saying you want to support

    black students are there black students

    in your pilot classrooms and what is the

    feedback you're getting from them

    and i give that just by way of example

    i'm being like very narrow sometimes you

    use terms like underrepresented

    minorities or whatever

    you see they think it gets back to your

    why like this our goal is we want to do

    you need to make sure that's part of

    your

    piloting did you get your question of

    how do you design culturally responsive

    curriculum at scale

    i think it's a combination of piloting

    pushing yourself really hard about what

    your assumptions are

    over and over and over again and being

    very open to hearing that they're

    wrong and then i would say that i do

    think there is a little bit of a tension

    with

    writing for hundreds of thousands of

    people and the concept of culturally

    responsive curriculum design

    i don't want to say that to give

    curriculum writers everywhere free pass

    but i think what it does mean like oh

    you don't have to do it like

    write for yourself i don't think that's

    the point it's not just a burden we got

    in this field because we want to do it

    it may not make sense

    i don't want to make people do things

    that don't make sense so i think

    empowering teachers to understand where

    the space is

    to make curriculum culturally responsive

    and

    explaining to them how they might do

    that or creating spaces for them to talk

    about how they're doing that

    is important i think it is possible but

    i am a little bit suspicious as to

    whether a class that is taught by a

    teacher

    can be culturally responsive if that is

    not a priority of the teacher

    there were things we did we really tried

    to be intentional who was in videos

    who was in examples who do we feature

    try to spread that out

    but i still think the classrooms where i

    think it landed

    it was because the teacher thought this

    is a priority and i think i'm going to

    try to

    call out those parts of the curriculum

    emphasize them and

    make sure this is a part of the

    experience in my room so if you were to

    be able to wave a magic wand and get it

    so that like new to cs teachers

    understood something what would you wish

    they understood or

    knew more about we really focused and i

    think this was the right focus

    on a combination of pedagogy and equity

    and so i would say

    i do believe that computer science is

    something that every student

    should learn and i have at times

    wondered about that if i'm being honest

    sometimes there's so many other

    priorities there's so many things and so

    i say why what is the lie but i really

    do believe it

    and i think that the question for

    teachers is what is that actually going

    to look like in their school

    and in their classroom and i think that

    the fastest route there

    typically is pedagogy and classroom

    environment

    and we would really emphasize what is

    that going to look like

    and that is in part because we knew that

    we designed materials to help

    a classroom designed in that way so we

    could take care of relatively more of

    the content support

    because of the way that we design

    materials and i think that part of that

    means

    assuming you've built a program in that

    way

    freeing up teachers from a mindset of

    having to be the experts

    on everything i think there's a ton of

    pressure to be the expert when you're a

    teacher

    and so i think moving that mindset

    and often we would accomplish that in pd

    by showing them what that might look

    like running lessons talking through

    what was that experience like

    having them take the role of being the

    learner i saw some pretty powerful

    experiences that way

    so i would say that was the ultimate

    goal of kind of the combination of our

    pd and curriculum

    for csp and cs discoveries which i

    worked on as well was

    you don't have to be the expert we have

    this equity goal we have this vision

    that all students should learn computer

    science

    pedagogy and classroom environment

    actually may be more important than

    other considerations so how do we

    empower teachers in that way and i think

    that's a huge mindset shift for a lot of

    teachers and i sometimes have to remind

    myself

    you know if you say that every day for

    years and a new teacher walks in the

    room reminding yourself like this

    teacher might still be in that

    you know i need to lecture about the

    content on an expert in mindset

    right you know because you've said so

    many times like you don't need to do

    that it's okay and realizing like

    structural change like this it takes a

    long time

    generations i think so i mean going back

    to the

    apprenticeship of observation like what

    people

    seen modeled for potentially i don't

    know

    day one of a pd which one are they more

    likely to go with

    probably the thing that they see modeled

    one way for their entire tenure in the

    classroom and whatnot

    it has a huge impact and i agree with

    you like one of the things we focus on

    with boot up is pedagogy like

    we could teach you how to use scratch in

    a day and you know the majority of the

    ins and outs but it's not just how you

    use it it's the ways that you teach it

    and introduce things

    and the approaches from a pedagogical

    standpoint that really have a huge

    impact on

    whether or not kids will actually be

    creative with the tools that you're

    teaching them how to use

    one of the things you mentioned earlier

    was aligning the

    pd with the curriculum i'm curious if

    the curriculum

    is evolving how do you ensure that the

    pd is in

    alignment with it and complements the

    curriculum

    usually the way that we would accomplish

    this is those teams coordinate pretty

    closely throughout the process of

    curriculum development

    i think if you have two teams let me

    give that example let's say you work

    somewhere there's a curriculum team and

    a professional learning team or

    professional development team it's

    really important for those teams to be

    really clear on

    what the high level vision or goal is

    for moving forward

    i think if the curriculum comes off the

    line it's a surprise and it's totally

    different it's not just the problem that

    the pd might look different but i think

    that that's a challenge especially if

    we've been telling people

    this one thing's important and we're

    going to start maybe either shifting or

    updating

    in terms of how you accomplish that some

    of what we were doing

    a lot of people moved back and forth

    between teams

    some people had been facilitators for

    years when then they became curriculum

    developers i

    sort of had a path like that and so i

    think that

    in some instances though not all

    instances i think they were more like a

    tribal understanding a shared vision

    and in other instances it did mean being

    really explicit about

    these are the goals for the next six

    months these are the goals for the next

    year here's how we're going to do them

    do teams need to be having conversations

    with one another make sure that we stay

    in sync

    it goes both ways basically curriculum

    could do something and then professional

    learning

    doesn't line up with it anymore it

    doesn't really make sense with the

    courses it's been written but i've seen

    the other where we say

    there's a practice we really want to

    introduce in classrooms it's not

    really there in curriculum to the degree

    we'd want it to be but maybe we can fake

    it with a pl

    session focused on that and but we could

    emphasize it in pl

    and i don't think there's anything wrong

    with saying we're going to emphasize it

    but you sort of have this feeling in

    your stomach like

    if we really really valued it it would

    show up in all the lessons or at least

    some of them there you know more

    frequently and i think that

    bring that up more as an example of like

    where this can go awry

    is if you're say too much like oh we'll

    just fix it with pd or

    it'll just be in the curriculum and it's

    not emphasized in pl i think both of

    those create issues

    so it really does take close

    collaboration if you want to be happy in

    the long run

    and if you don't want to confuse

    teachers you tell them something in pd

    and they don't see it in the course it's

    going to be strange if you

    put something in the course and you

    never talk about it it might not get

    used or

    the mystery so yeah yeah that makes

    sense definitely having to have that

    collaboration

    when i took over in my previous role as

    director of curriculum and professional

    development like

    the reason why it was a combined

    position is because we were initially

    looking at me just continuing to do the

    curriculum

    and then hiring somebody else to do the

    pd and what we realized is

    it make a lot more sense if i was kind

    of overseeing both

    then there was that continuity between

    the two because i wrote all the lesson

    plans i know the professional

    development is going to align with that

    because

    i know the lesson plans since i wrote

    every word of it it does help

    but you can't always do that forever now

    we're talking more about like how do you

    run teams it's less about you know teams

    for anything like if it's one person

    doing something

    it's easier to keep things coherent and

    it definitely has

    stretched and not in a negative way but

    it's stretched teams i've been on if you

    need to start broadening that vision out

    so yeah it's easy to say like

    collaboration and like everybody has to

    collaborate but i think

    writing down what your goals are saying

    what it would look like to actually

    do them and even little things we did

    like we had somebody on our professional

    learning team

    essentially managing the pilot and we

    would attend those calls and so we're

    all kind of hearing the same feedback

    together but

    you could imagine having the curriculum

    team running that for example and saying

    the curriculum is getting all the

    knowledge about how things are actually

    going the curriculum is the team that's

    sort of like driving the development of

    the product

    and then they'll just drop it off at the

    end of the day and say here's the

    curriculum

    write pd for it you're not going to be

    happy with the results there and it

    really puts your professional learning

    team in tough spot because

    they've got to wait until you're done to

    get started so yeah

    one of the areas that you mentioned was

    developing widgets that's an area that

    i'm not familiar with what have you

    learned

    while developing these like tools and

    platforms that teachers and students

    have

    used in the classroom settings yes i

    have a lot of thoughts on widgets

    especially

    i think when i visit classrooms for

    people who don't know

    widgets are part of some of our

    code or courses there's a lot of them in

    cs principles they're little tools that

    let you play with a concept

    a fairly popular one i was just using it

    today with students is the pixelation

    widget you like type zeros and ones to

    actually draw

    images on a screen they translate them

    into the pixels of the screen so

    there's gonna be clear this was not my

    idea most of these i didn't come up with

    it's very cool

    but i have been like in the room when

    we're talking about building and

    developing them

    part of it is that spirit of playing

    with ideas letting students come to

    their own understanding of how things

    work

    and a lot of times you know on pd we

    would say if there's a widget and a

    lesson

    get out of the way teachers like you

    have a warm-up prompt you have a bell

    ringer

    you know do now whatever you call it

    sure spend a couple minutes

    great here's what we're going to do

    today but then we really wanted to get

    students

    interacting with concepts themselves

    because

    both for engagement and for their

    understanding we thought that these

    tools would allow them

    to do that so we had other ones for

    cryptography

    the internet simulator i was talking

    about before we sometimes talked about

    like a

    widget that grew up and became its own

    tool or something but the same core idea

    you're playing with

    you're getting hands-on with a concept

    and getting to experience for yourself

    how things work and deepening your

    understanding in that way

    and i would say that another way it's

    been presented to me a lot of times we

    talk in computer science about like

    unplugged activities

    sometimes those unplugged activities

    have rules and if you don't enforce the

    rules

    you don't see the concept that's being

    displayed so sometimes these widgets

    were just a way to

    enforce the rules and maybe make it a

    little more fun a little more

    professional looking

    but of what might have otherwise been

    unplugged activities

    sort of the same spirit can i play

    around with the idea and understand

    the relationships that are trying to be

    demonstrated so

    recently you've shifted over to working

    with microsoft and so

    you have this experience working with

    professionals within

    the cs community within the field how

    has that experience kind of

    informed like by reinforcing

    or changed your understanding of the

    k-12

    and k-higher education cs pipeline

    that's a great question

    and to clarify yes i am at microsoft and

    i'm doing

    onboarding and continuous learning for

    software engineers

    and i think that right away i

    immediately had a lot of thoughts most

    of my career in

    computer science education has been k-12

    and i think

    some people they studied it in college

    you know they had jobs and they switched

    out and i never really was in that

    i'll call it pipeline and so i think i

    have a really clear view

    on one reason why we want people to take

    computer science courses

    because we want them to study in college

    and then we want them to either go

    become

    you know researchers or we want them to

    go get jobs and there are these jobs

    that pay six figures and they sort of

    set you up for this

    this idealized lifestyle you have a

    stable career you make certain amount of

    money you get to do something kind of

    interesting

    so i would say that one thing that's

    just been interesting for me is i had

    never seen that part of the

    pipeline quite in this way one thing i

    really hadn't experienced

    and hadn't thought about it as much is

    internships

    and how important they are for landing

    professional opportunities when we

    talked in k12 about

    creating opportunities and i run a cs

    principles course

    i didn't really have an appreciation for

    the fact that maybe

    were

    in an internship that very likely could

    just be a stepping stone to a career

    i don't know if i had a sense for that

    how close in time those two things were

    i would say that there's a really

    interesting tension that

    is not new at microsoft but so many

    people talk about how the things that

    you learn

    in college may not be particularly

    relevant for what you do as a

    professional in the tech world

    it's not even a dirty secret at this

    point

    it's sort of like i think if anybody's

    paying attention in this field it's just

    sort of something that i think people

    say

    yeah i think many people who are tech

    professionals

    engineers in particular yes those

    courses that they took in the university

    setting matter

    but i think so much more is about a

    different set of skills

    and that's something that i've been

    thinking about a little bit which is how

    do you figure stuff out

    you know when you're working in a large

    company there's probably a huge system

    that you're interacting with

    and so you're never going to know the

    whole thing how do you learn the skills

    of

    navigating a system where you're not

    going to see it all it's not this little

    project you're collaborating with lots

    of people

    many of whom you'll never meet so how do

    you find experts how do you figure out

    how things work

    i figure out how to be helpful here

    vibing on my ability to bring that

    perspective i think from the world of

    education where

    when i was helping develop a middle

    school course it really helped wide my

    eyes to really emphasizing process

    like clarifying process and skills as

    opposed to like concepts

    it's a different context but i see those

    opportunities

    in order to help people because i don't

    think it's a course called like

    compilers too

    or the technical component so much of it

    really does seem to be about

    figuring out how to find information

    unravel the way a system works or find

    the right contact i think some of it

    honestly

    especially remotely it's just how do you

    maintain

    i think part of any large engineering

    system is people it's relationships

    and and certainly the knowledge is

    contained in people it's not in the code

    it's not the documentation

    it's in people those are at least a

    couple areas where

    i feel like things are cross-pollinating

    i think

    my third and final one is tech companies

    are thinking

    very hard about at least the ones that i

    observe are thinking really hard about

    the diversity of their staff in much the

    same way that i see

    k-12 and i think to some degree at some

    places universities thinking about it

    i don't want to disparage universities i

    definitely see like a very focused force

    in k-12

    i think universities have this really

    hard problem right now i don't have

    space in classes

    i see the pressures in the other

    direction so

    yeah i can't help but think about those

    diversity equity inclusion there's a

    million words for it but

    it's a field that remains fairly

    monolithic in terms of gender

    though it's getting a little better and

    racially and i think these are things

    that we need to be able to talk about

    urgently and comfortably but i feel like

    i see the same problem talked about

    across the pipeline

    as well i see the same challenges if

    anything i do feel like

    schools and teachers that i worked with

    at code.org maybe people like you in the

    fields like there's a broader

    willingness and understanding that kind

    of get to the core of the issues

    quickly i see them working on the same

    problems

    i can't help but think about the whole

    pipeline that led up to it as well

    do you have any recommendations for

    educators to kind of assist with

    that pipeline in terms of the equity and

    inclusion

    yes i think some awareness of what it

    looks like

    for k-12 educators if this is a goal

    that they have for their students and i

    think some of them

    absolutely should i want to be clear i

    don't think everybody should be a

    software engineer i don't think

    everybody

    they get a good crack at it they like it

    they don't like it but

    i think an awareness of what those

    opportunities look

    like in the university setting in the

    professional setting

    and i don't think it's just internships

    but certainly that's a part of it

    i think understanding how to maybe just

    help clarify that pipeline

    for students especially like a cs

    principal student i think is a perfect

    example

    and saying you're about to leave maybe

    you're really excited about this yeah

    i'm here in seattle i i

    super competitive to get into the

    computer science major at the university

    of washington

    probably lots of places however if you

    went and got a degree if you think you

    want to do this and you study it at any

    other university you'll probably get a

    very good

    education you just might not get it from

    one of the top

    five or ten departments in the country

    or something like that and i'm around

    people who feel pressure to do that kind

    of thing

    i think understanding the hurdles to get

    to that

    tech job and how professional experience

    is probably important

    some amount of navigating a enrollment

    crisis

    at the university level i think that

    that could be useful information to give

    people if they say this is my dream

    because i think they could have the

    dream

    i guess is what i'm saying if a student

    loves that computer science course and

    they want to do it i think they could

    have it

    but the hurdles look really different

    than they do in high school and so even

    just having somebody who's like an

    advocate at the high school level to

    share that i do think that that could be

    helpful and just a source of

    encouragement because i think it can be

    intimidating at times and maybe a little

    bit impersonal

    so yeah i would offer that i think

    there's still things you can do after

    students graduate from high school

    to help with that part of the pipeline

    yeah that podcast episode that i

    mentioned earlier about the

    chapter four of pedagogy of the

    oppressed a

    discuss how it's interesting

    what is and is not discussed in terms of

    representation diversity inclusion and

    whatnot so as an example in a lot of

    tech fields stem

    cs there's a huge discussion on race and

    gender

    but what's missing from that discussion

    one is like non-binary individuals like

    myself like aren't even included in a

    lot of those organizations but two

    we don't talk about the issues in the

    elementary space

    so being a former elementary teacher the

    stats are in the us at least like over

    so why is it that we talk about like

    those huge disparities

    in some fields but we don't talk about

    it in other fields

    and to me it's just weird jared i have a

    weird relationship with the field of

    computer science

    in general and in part i think it's

    because i think

    the reason we care is because we realize

    how much social power

    is connected to the field of computer

    science right now or at least for me

    an economic power frankly and maybe even

    just social

    like influence are we all interacting

    with one another right now especially

    this year

    i always say i think computers are

    pretty cool i also play music

    i like to run i like to hike i like to

    do so many things

    and some people i think really really

    love computer science and they want to

    share like

    this top love of their life with other

    people and i get that

    but i don't expect that to be true for

    everybody we're not all the same

    yeah my own reflections on it there is a

    serious concentration of

    power and wealth in this field and i

    think it's naive to pretend that that

    doesn't impact the lives that our

    students are going to live

    and so i think that is not like here's

    why you know so you're wrong about

    bringing that up and i think there's

    lots of types of diversity

    that are important and matter and i

    think it's also cool

    to say money and social power affect the

    way that many people live their lives

    whether it is the way that they're

    making money or the way that their

    products impact the world

    and technology is having a massive

    impact

    on our society and you know in the city

    that i live in seattle i think it's

    having a massive impact on the

    literally the landscape what does the

    place look like who lives here what do

    the buildings look like

    and that may not be true everywhere but

    i think that a little bit

    it does come down to power and i

    sometimes i'm like am i suiting kids up

    for battle

    you know like an economic landscape that

    has some conflicts built under at the

    very least

    i don't think that the barriers that

    exist to being able to participate in

    that

    and i also don't think that every

    student needs to spend time doing

    computer science if they can find

    another way to

    make their way through life if that

    makes sense it's an opportunity but

    i don't think everyone will love

    computer science just like i don't think

    everyone will love any subject but i

    think there's opportunities and i think

    it is

    i think power i don't know any other

    word to call it i think

    power is connected with tech right now

    it is part of the

    fascination with it as well as the field

    yeah that makes sense

    given that this is 2020 and life has

    been interesting to say the least

    and then also take into account the fact

    that many educators and people in

    education

    tend to leave within three to five years

    of being in the field

    how have you over time and in this year

    in particular kind of

    stayed off that burnout or that

    frustration that is inherent with the

    field i think this

    is a challenge for educators no matter

    what

    and my initial answer is community i

    felt

    so much solace with people frankly like

    you

    i think with collaborators at code.org

    and just

    feeling like there's somebody else who

    understands

    sometimes it's just the pressure

    especially the contrast between the

    vision you have for how

    you want things to be and how things are

    so sometimes i get tired because i have

    a lot to

    do be like i gotta make an activity

    guide then a vocab list and then a

    video script and then whatever but i

    think it was more exhausting if it felt

    like my aspirations for

    you know what we wanted to achieve for

    students or you do think systemically

    you think big it can sometimes feel

    overwhelming like are we going to get

    there

    so i was going to say that i think

    community helps i think

    something i'm finding this year i'm

    volunteering at teals

    you and i are doing a project at csta

    and i think

    i feel reinvigorated picking things that

    put me in touch with individuals again

    and making it specific

    and i think having about 50 kids and

    working with them and they won't turn on

    their cameras but it's okay because i'm

    slowly getting to know everybody and i

    think they're getting to know me

    i'm excited i want to do it and i do

    think i reached a point

    as a curriculum developer where i said i

    don't know if i can write

    another lesson right now about

    introductory computer science topics or

    at least not this year

    i don't know if i can do it and part of

    that i think is

    you know when you've written a few

    hundred of them

    right i don't know if i have anything to

    say anymore you know or maybe i need to

    do something else but i think that

    people will say things all the time like

    give yourself grace

    or take a break or find a community but

    i've really i don't know

    they're doing yoga i often was the

    people would say like do yoga and i'd

    say

    what are you talking about like this is

    just papering over like an unsustainable

    other

    circumstance education is not going to

    get fixed by me doing yoga

    right and if i give myself grace that's

    not going to write that activity guide

    [Laughter]

    right you know or i could even say the

    words but i don't know if i could feel

    them

    so maybe for people who think like me

    like go do some stretches if i were

    going to summarize

    community focusing on specifics and the

    big picture can sometimes be

    overwhelming so saying i'm working with

    these 50 kids and i'm trusting that

    it'll influence the work i do

    and then i'd say if you're like me and

    people have said things about

    burnout and they say things like give

    yourself grace or like do some yoga or

    like set up a schedule or whatever

    it's easy to ignore and i think i

    actually did

    if i'm being honest i don't want to

    pretend to be an expert at this i think

    if i were to be truly honest i think i

    hit

    a tough spot earlier this year i think a

    lot of educators did that feeling of

    man this vision we had is falling apart

    and so i think

    leaning back towards just sort of like

    the

    things people often say to you but like

    give it a shot

    all right what do you do does any of

    that resonate with you oh definitely

    like a plus one to yoga

    for sure when i first went in to see a

    therapist this was when i was like

    at the point where i was either going to

    commit suicide or do something

    to get better and so i decided okay i

    might as well give therapy a shot see if

    there are things that i haven't tried

    that could help and one of the things

    that she recommended was doing yoga and

    i ended up doing it

    twice a day hour in the morning hour in

    the evening and

    like between that and then like working

    on breathing some more mindfulness

    stuff like it really helped me to just

    chill out and actually take time for

    myself to just

    breathe and be as opposed to like myself

    being a

    go go 24 7 if i didn't have to sleep i

    wouldn't

    kind of a thing it really helped out so

    that was a big thing and then i

    eventually found just

    getting consistent sleep was a big thing

    for me eating healthier

    i started learning more about nutrition

    and diet and eventually

    became vegan over time just like by

    learning more about that

    exercising every day like all these

    little things that i do

    that make me seem regimented in terms of

    like my diet and my lifestyle like

    all of that is about trying to not be

    depressed and not have those suicidal

    thoughts

    and like it helped me to get off the

    antidepressants that i was on

    they were having all these like adverse

    side effects and whatnot that i was like

    okay

    it's making so i don't want to kill

    myself but i have all these other things

    that i now have to worry about so what

    can i do to

    make it so i don't have to be on

    antidepressants and i'm not depressed

    if that makes sense yeah it really does

    i was curious your thoughts on whether

    cs education in particular demands some

    of that go go go

    i wonder a little bit if like the

    current moment we're in for the field

    and i'm sort of saying this because i

    imagine a lot of the listeners to this

    podcast

    are watching the people on twitter

    they're going to the conferences they

    realize that's such an important moment

    but i think that may contribute to the

    problem you're asking about

    and i think it also attracts people who

    want to make an impact it is something

    i've been reflecting on

    but i'm curious your thoughts on it like

    do you think there's something

    it's true for all of education i think

    in many ways but do you think

    specifically just the moment we're in

    for cs education like is that is there

    an additional layer of pressure right

    now

    certainly and especially with all the

    remote learning but even before

    covid was a thing like programming in

    particular

    software development you could learn a

    language and then in five years that

    language is obsolete like nobody uses it

    anymore so you're just constantly having

    to learn new things

    and just everything that you knew the

    week prior okay now

    there's this new way to do it or this

    better way to do it and on one hand

    that's great

    because it's like if you want to learn

    cool tech cs like

    this is a field for you i happen to

    thrive in that environment

    but that being said it can also be

    overwhelming if you don't take a break

    from it so one of the things that i've

    been having to remind myself is like

    rest is to the mind as sharpening is to

    the axe like you have to take

    a break from something and i say this to

    somebody who literally taught seven days

    a week

    i teach a full-time gig during the day i

    teach part-time at night and then i

    teach

    all day saturday and sunday like private

    lessons or drumline and things like that

    so

    having done that and experienced it i

    also see the value in taking

    a break from it so that when you come

    back to it you can have a clear and

    focused mind to be able to focus on that

    learning and whatnot

    yeah i think it's important i don't

    expect the dream vision of work

    that i think maybe my generation in

    particular was sold but sort of just

    like yo if you love your work you'll

    never work a day in your life and like

    that's not true like

    you're gonna work a lot of days of your

    life right but there should be some core

    excitement and i think if you feel like

    it's getting dulled i like the metaphor

    of a dull acts like

    and not everybody has the freedom to

    make choices to

    step away or recharge or something like

    that that definitely resonates for me i

    told you i really appreciated you doing

    a show like this because i think a lot

    of passionate educators

    are feeling really deflated this year

    yeah

    the one thing i was going to say about

    that i actually see it my new role as

    well

    i think letting go of how it used to be

    is so important right now and i'm

    actually being in a new space is giving

    me the ability to see that

    which is that if you knew how you wanted

    it to be

    or how it used to be right now hurts

    because it's not like that

    that can be a needless distractor from

    how good could we make it

    given the realities and i don't say that

    to be naive

    i i know there's a lot of challenges but

    i do think that there's this extra layer

    of

    kind of like mourning every time

    something doesn't look the way it did

    pre-covered

    and i want to validate that's real

    and then also say if we can put it aside

    and say like all right here's the new

    reality how good could we make it

    i think there's space to rediscover that

    motivation

    and excitement i don't say this to foot

    like extra pressure but if you're aiming

    to help people

    and that's i think what motivates a lot

    help them learn help them teach whatever

    it happens to be

    i think the morning process or the

    sadness is real you want to make sure

    you're listening to people when they're

    talking but if you can kind of bring a

    more excited

    or a calm version of yourself to

    whatever it is you're doing

    you'll be happier i think you'll help

    people more and i think that does mean

    letting go a little bit

    and i've struggled with that so i don't

    want to pretend it's easy but it is

    something that i think being in a new

    space

    people will tell me it used to be this

    way but we can't do it anymore and the

    halfway virtual version like you know

    wouldn't even be close

    and i think if somebody knew i think

    it'd be pretty good i'd rather

    do the halfway virtual version than

    nothing at all like so let's give it a

    shot

    yeah i like that it really resonates

    with why i went into education in

    particular

    before i decided to go into it for my

    degrees and whatnot i

    had worked some like office jobs and

    even worked as

    like a professional stainer and finisher

    for closet doors that cost like more

    than i paid for my house

    so like this like range of experiences

    where

    either was interacting with people like

    as a manager at blockbuster or

    interacting with closet doors that

    wouldn't talk to you so like

    having that experience and knowing what

    it's like to go in every day and be able

    to expect the same thing

    i didn't like that one of the things

    that i loved about the volunteer

    teaching that i was doing

    was every day it was something new there

    was some new

    challenge or problem solve or some new

    thing that i had to learn and so i guess

    if you

    are able to frame 2020 in that way then

    there can be at least a positive framing

    of that

    that being said there's a lot of things

    going on in the world that we still need

    to acknowledge

    that are problematic and that are

    troubling a lot of people but if you are

    able to at least reframe some things as

    a positive

    then hopefully that's beneficial for you

    i think finding community to help you do

    that

    is really useful too both to say hey

    let's do five minutes or we all say

    all the things that are really hard and

    then here's the candles that were

    we're holding on to of the shining

    lights of

    optimism or hope and yeah i think that

    finding people who are willing to do

    both with you

    can be helpful especially if you

    acknowledge that they're tied to one

    another

    in my opinion like i'm hopeful because i

    want this thing

    to happen i want to do it together i

    want it to be good

    i'm saddened because i see all of these

    obstacles and challenges and they're

    very real

    right but the other thing it's not like

    education used to be

    this easy field where everything was

    working exactly how

    everybody wanted it to work which is not

    i don't want to be glib i'm just saying

    like

    if you're working side by side with

    educators this is a tough group

    there's a group that has had to look in

    the eye a lot of difficult situations

    i would say by and large when i get

    together with educators i'm really

    i see the optimism i see that that's why

    they're there and i think that

    being able to continue to kindle that

    with one another

    possible i think it's possible to do in

    communal settings yeah i like that

    especially the framing of is we've

    always had challenges now it's just

    different challenges

    i think it's true and i can also fully

    say that i feel like a manager said that

    to me

    i know that a little part of me would

    say oh but come on like we all know this

    is rough like this is

    way different like it is worse and

    that's what i'm saying i think you need

    to be able to do both

    i think you need to be able to have like

    five minutes of like

    and then say and say yeah but

    this is pretty good we made it better

    than it was we're getting closer

    it was always tough you know there might

    be two steps forward and one step back

    so yeah i want to be real i know this is

    a difficult year it's a particularly

    difficult year for education

    but i think that we all serve ourselves

    better if we try to find that

    communal hope what do you wish there was

    more research on that could inform

    your own practices research is an

    interesting question for me

    i was thinking about this question a lot

    so i'm admitting you shared it with me

    before and i sat and i thought about it

    i said what did i want to know

    i think in my new role i am really

    interested in

    longitudinal studies we were doing one

    at code.org but it's ongoing

    and part of it is there are these

    aspirations that are really big

    in computer science education right now

    it's like what will the life outcomes

    broadly speaking be for people

    and so i'm really interested in the

    degree

    to which we can parse that out in a

    meaningful way long term in terms of

    professionally

    is a very narrow version i think that

    that's one angle that i feel like

    we have a lot of theories about right

    now like we're doing all these

    interventions they're happening at the

    elementary level or the middle school

    it takes a very long time to see those

    happening but i do think that that is

    the

    scope of the vision that a lot of states

    have when they're introducing policies

    i think that's the scope of the vision

    that a lot of curriculum teams have

    that's a huge investment that needs like

    the national science foundation probably

    to do something on that scale

    and make sure that a research study is

    maintained i think

    something that is very hard to do in

    social science research but

    disentangling socioeconomic status

    is something that i often ran into when

    looking at research results on like the

    impacts of computer science programs

    i don't think that this is always the

    case

    i think part of the promise of cs

    education is sort of this like

    opportunity to enter the middle class or

    the upper middle class

    again i think programmatically like big

    picture long term

    what are these goals i will say that

    some of the discussion seems to sway

    back and forth between pedagogy and i

    was focused primarily on high school

    though i worked on

    middle school so i think a question that

    i was running into

    and i'd love to have been more informed

    on

    this push and pull between direct

    instruction

    and more inquiry-based pedagogy or more

    active learning

    i think that i was starting to see a

    little bit of a movement towards like

    i think the field of cs education was

    very

    gung-ho about increased learning 100 of

    the time and there was starting to be

    this trickle of like well direct

    instruction sometimes makes sense or

    like we should be clear about

    what we think happened and i think that

    balance is something that i would have

    loved to explore a little bit more

    i think those are the main ones i was

    going to say that an important thing for

    me

    and again because my work was framed at

    code.org the scale was so big

    and a lot of times research studies were

    small and i would go to

    conferences and i would say what do you

    do when you know a hundred thousand kids

    everywhere are going to take your class

    next year

    and i think often when we say research

    what we're saying is somebody tell me

    what to do

    right please tell me that i'm doing the

    right thing

    you know there are there just aren't

    that many programs at that scale

    and so there were different questions

    that arise when you're working in one

    school or a district

    or maybe even a state and when you're

    looking internationally it doesn't mean

    that you can't be informed by it but

    sometimes i think the decisions that i

    was trying to make

    if not unique they had a sharper edge on

    them just because i knew

    the scale and also to some degree the

    distance between me

    and the people that were going to be

    using the course so i don't know if it

    makes sense for researchers to

    research that exactly and i don't think

    it means that

    in a role where you're working at that

    scale you can't use research but i am

    saying i think

    that often was the question that plagued

    me i would say yeah but

    this can be so many different places so

    many different situations

    i don't know if that answers your final

    question but i think it's getting to the

    core of the question sometimes you want

    research because you're saying what

    should i do

    that's why you would want to read a

    research paper what should i do

    sometimes it was hard to find answers

    that resonated for the specific problems

    i was often looking at

    which were building programs that were

    going to be used in such a diverse set

    of circumstances

    yeah all three of those main areas

    really resonate the idea of

    scale is really resonating because

    like this year alone we're going to be

    working with about a million more

    students

    with boot up so that's a million

    students who are going to be using

    resources

    that i developed that teachers are going

    to go through et cetera

    and to think through that range of

    implementation

    i'm having a look at a bunch of

    different research in a bunch of

    different contexts and apply well in

    this scenario it might make sense to do

    this but in this scenario might make

    sense of this

    so trying to design for that open-ended

    implementation

    it is difficult but it's also kind of

    like an exciting thing for me or it's

    like well how do i figure out how to

    make this thing work because

    this is no longer just my school of like

    a thousand kids

    now it's quite a few more than that your

    discussion on the

    direct instruction versus inquiry-based

    learning it reminds me of the

    conversation that i had with

    john stapleton one of the earlier

    interviews that i did he's also a fellow

    music educator who's gone into cs

    education

    and when we were talking about it one of

    the things that i

    brought up was that when i worked with

    pre-service music educators

    they would often think that direct

    instruction was like

    to be avoided at all costs and i had to

    like come in and just politely be like

    it's okay to lean more towards

    one area than another but you need to

    understand that you're not just

    only going to do that so if you want to

    do inquiry based cool

    at some point you're likely going to do

    direct instruction

    and you don't need to go confess your

    sins

    for having done that it's okay to engage

    in other approaches

    and for my own philosophy it's

    preferable to have multi-perspectival

    approaches

    and engage in multiple ways of learning

    and understanding within the classroom

    but that's my own rant on that and then

    your first point about the longitudinal

    side of things it reminds me of the

    interview that i did with andreas stefik

    who

    brought up that it is not rewarded in

    higher education

    especially as a junior faculty member to

    do longitudinal stuff

    because you're not going to get as many

    publications out of it it might take

    several years before you actually get

    data to write publications on it

    therefore you're not going to get tenure

    doing it so it's just

    interesting that the design of how

    people go through the tenure process

    within higher education

    is basically preventing a lot of the

    longitudinal studies that would honestly

    beneficial because multiple guests have

    brought that up as i wish there was more

    longitudinal data

    but it's not going to happen unless

    you're a tenured professor and have the

    ability to do that

    that is fascinating i didn't know about

    that incentive structure

    but yeah i can see how that would be the

    case and it is just to be fair

    a large undertaking keeping track of

    people over years

    and just an organization keeping a focus

    on a single problem for

    the amount of time that it takes but

    that is really interesting

    it's this mentality of publisher parish

    which is like

    often discussed about for junior faculty

    members so

    there are some people who will lean

    towards some methods that allow you to

    publish more frequently

    and this is not to demonize any method

    or anything but like survey

    research is a whole lot easier to send

    out get data back within a week

    cool now i can publish on this thing

    compared to like ethnographic research

    where you spend

    a year multiple years within a

    particular

    culture embedded within it writing all

    this rich data and then

    you eventually write something several

    years later like one of those is

    rewarded more than another in terms of

    being able to publish more frequently

    and whatnot so

    people who are going through that

    department you're in they may or may not

    reward different kinds of methods

    by the design of how you get tenure i

    have one more

    wrench to throw into the works of our

    discussion here which is that once we

    have all of this research

    what we were just talking about is that

    the distance between

    an idea that's discussed in research and

    what actually eventually will happen in

    classrooms is not automatic you don't

    say oh we read this paper

    it's perfect now we know we were talking

    about it before even if you have

    really good ideas or you think you have

    a better way to do it

    there are so many other systems that

    play between

    that feeling of confidence about what

    should happen and actually making sure

    that that's what does happen

    in classrooms and i think it's kind of a

    conversation

    i'm not deeply involved with it but i

    think the research practice partnerships

    that i'm seeing more of

    in cs education i think that

    practitioners and researchers

    should be working closely in this moment

    that makes a lot of sense

    right because things are developing so

    rapidly

    i've sort of lived right at that

    intersection probably a little bit more

    on the practice side

    i am excited at least on a high abstract

    level about those types of initiatives

    because i think that we can't just be

    like doing research in the abstract like

    we need to be thinking about

    what's actually going to happen when we

    go to implement right yeah one of the

    reasons why i do

    every other week as an unpacking

    scholarship episode is because there is

    that huge disconnect between

    theory and practice and trying to like

    bridge that with here's this research

    study what does this potentially mean in

    terms of implications

    and because there isn't that dialogue

    like if you go to six c

    which is mainly professors with some

    k-12 people

    that is a very different audience than

    if you go to csta which is mainly

    practitioners k-12 individuals and some

    professors

    and again going back to the 10-year

    review process

    you typically get rewarded for

    publishing in

    peer-reviewed journals that are for

    other professors you don't really get

    rewarded for communicating your results

    to

    practitioners the fact that there is

    that disconnect

    is fascinating and then there's also the

    disconnect not just between

    practitioners and researchers but

    researchers and policy makers

    so we have policy makers like lawyers or

    politicians or whatever who are crafting

    all this stuff

    but is not based on actual research or

    practice

    so we get all this like wonky stuff in

    the u.s where it's like

    why are we doing this and then we look

    at other countries that are scoring

    higher on some of the tests well

    why are they doing that well part of the

    reason is they're actually applying

    the research into their classroom and

    going oh the research says we should do

    this how about we do it

    we don't really do that here that's my

    little rant it's a good rant

    that part of the world always felt so

    big to me and i think partly because of

    my

    introduction into the world of education

    and computer science sometimes i feel

    like

    i've spent most of my time as a computer

    science curriculum developer

    which is a very niche specific role not

    as an educator not as a researcher

    not even as a computer scientist i

    actually spent most of my time as kind

    of this like in-between role

    right yeah i think that is where it

    becomes

    you're like a boat on the ocean you kind

    of know which direction you're going

    with the waves hit you know there's a

    new policy here's some research oh

    there's like a new

    we're going to slightly change course or

    something but i actually like that

    metaphor a lot because

    as a curriculum developer you kind of

    know your boat you know how you can kind

    of like adjust the things in your course

    you know how you can kind of adjust

    the things in your pl but yeah it is

    such a big system and i sometimes have

    to fight against having to

    feel like i understand the whole thing

    before i can do something you're like

    well i think we're headed in this

    direction

    about a weakness of mine a growth

    opportunity but it's so big

    and the influences are coming from

    everywhere

    you know fighting back saying like oh

    policymakers don't get it

    you say like well i still kind of think

    i know which direction we're headed

    i try to work with it and i try to

    design something that fits this

    changing landscape i'm curious do you

    have any questions

    for myself or questions for the field at

    large

    what are you excited about in the next

    five years i think there has been a ton

    of energy around

    computer science being a subject that

    maybe it's reasonable to expect schools

    teach

    i'm seeing a huge shift on that do you

    think that momentum continues are there

    other things you're excited about should

    we be nervous

    that you know kovid sets us back like

    how are you feeling about that

    what's going to happen next jared what

    makes you excited so

    having my feet in two different

    disciplines simultaneously

    it's interesting seeing the reactions of

    music educators who are like

    legitimately freaking out

    like what do you mean we can't sing what

    do you mean we can't play instruments

    like

    you're not allowed to make music in the

    ways that we've been doing it for

    over 100 years and then seeing what's

    going on in computer science where it's

    like oh well

    we just got to figure out how to make

    this work remotely

    and focus on the individual thing i am

    optimistic that computer science will be

    fine

    i am also optimistic that even like the

    field of music education will be fine

    it's just going to look differently than

    what people expect

    it's going to be more of the kinds of

    music making that

    i've been exploring in the last decade

    where it's technology enhanced

    individualized

    like instead of the large ensemble 150

    people on the same space

    blowing into an instrument or whatever

    now that being said

    one of the things that i think is going

    to be a big

    discussion in the field of cs is okay

    now that everybody's doing it

    now we need to actually talk about well

    how are we going to do computer science

    if we get the majority of the country

    doing this thing

    on the continuum of fixed

    and one right answer to creative and

    open

    and many different answers to many

    different questions

    where as a field that we're more going

    to align

    and i'm personally hoping it leans more

    towards let's create let's apply our

    understandings

    let's do more than just solve a given

    problem the same way that's already been

    solved let's actually get at

    these unsolved things that can have an

    impact on

    the world because we've talked about it

    for multiple years like

    well with computer science you can do

    this cool thing to help out with your

    rural community or your farm or

    your local urban community or whatever

    but that's not the norm that's just like

    an example

    of what could be and what i'm hoping is

    five years from now

    everybody's doing this there's actually

    creative applications of being able to

    help

    others outside of the classroom but

    maybe that's a pipe dream i don't know

    don't cut yourself off at the end i

    share that vision

    i share it i think it's fairly real i

    think computer science education as it

    scales

    is running into this all over the place

    we talked about it with the cs

    principles course

    i think just the existence of the create

    pt there's things i like and don't like

    about the course but i have to remind

    myself like

    they turn in a project and i want them

    to feel like that project

    can be unique and creative and that was

    a huge focus of the updates

    that's really interesting i'm glad that

    that's how you're thinking about it

    because

    there's a little bit of hope in there

    and then i think the tension you're

    sharing is

    the right one to be feeling like let's

    say we win

    do we win by turning this into a

    different version of math or something

    for you and you know what i think people

    are working on this in math education as

    well but

    i have one other question for you which

    we didn't get a chance to talk about but

    i wanted your impression from another

    curriculum developer

    have you observed the pattern of

    creating

    acronyms for your pedagogy in order to

    kind of

    process size it is this a thing that

    you're familiar with

    and what are your thoughts on it and in

    particular i want to acknowledge

    i have been a part of doing this too

    i've created acronyms or i'll create

    kind of like

    buzzwords and i was curious your own

    reflections on

    creating systems to help scale out good

    ideas with them sort of developing a

    life of their own

    and so i'm wondering if you've

    encountered this i certainly see it and

    sometimes i find myself doing it because

    it

    feels in the moment like i should but

    then it can kind of become

    jargon or anyway i'm telling you my

    answer i want to know yours have you

    experienced this what are your thoughts

    on it

    it's funny you say that earlier today i

    interviewed chris woods

    who does dailystem.com a bunch of

    resources and whatnot and so one of the

    questions that i asked was

    what are the affordances and constraints

    of the acronym

    stem and what i was getting at is

    stem we have a very narrow set

    of disciplines within that and during

    the interview with chris we talked a lot

    about

    well you're not just engaging with

    science on its own or technology on its

    own engineering

    math all separate silos you need to find

    these connections within

    them but also outside of that acronym

    so in the arts making it steam or in

    computer science making it stem plus c

    or any other discipline but if that's

    the case

    why do we even need the acronym to begin

    with and

    one thing that like resonates with me

    being somebody who's non-binary

    pansexual etc like the lgbtqia plus

    has grown over time to acknowledge the

    fact that

    the acronym was limiting when it was

    just

    a few letters now it's several letters

    but now it's getting to the point where

    it's like

    why don't we just have a term that is

    all encompassing or are we just going to

    get to a point where it's the entire

    alphabet

    with some characters and stuff to

    actually acknowledge the diversity of

    gender and sexuality and whatnot

    so going back to the original question

    when it comes to acronyms

    i typically tend to try and ignore them

    because it narrows the focus and it

    doesn't take into account

    being able to usually adapt to

    application

    so you have this great idea and it works

    great in your context

    but when you apply that acronym or that

    concept outside of your context

    then you're taking in new bits of data

    new feedback and you need to iterate on

    it

    so what do you do then do you change the

    acronym to add more to it

    like lgbtqia plus or do you just

    maintain

    the acronym stem but then talk about in

    a way that's not just stem it's

    connecting everything to it

    so i don't know if that answers your

    question i think it does

    and it's something that i run into maybe

    you do too as somebody who might be in a

    position to create the acronym stem

    because you'll say in boot ups materials

    we're going to use

    i'm making it up you know the xyz method

    and you might decide to do that

    because you think it helps communicate

    an idea this tension between simplifying

    ideas to try to make them easier to

    communicate with knowing that you're

    never really capturing all of it

    i think you did speak to it but his

    attention i felt as a curriculum

    developer because you're trying to

    communicate with

    many people you never meet you kind of

    have to boil things down

    into digestible bits so it feels like

    you need to

    and maybe stem the acronym the example

    we just gave that was successful because

    it was a rallying cry for people

    to say let's focus on kind of this set

    of things we want people to learn

    but i think there's always a cost you

    haven't fully communicated the idea

    there's always a deeper level

    but not everybody is in a position to

    create the acronym i guess is what i'm

    saying and so

    being aware of it as a curriculum

    developer or you know the phrases or the

    values or the chance

    you go to pd and you're like what's the

    most important thing like you might do

    that

    because you want people to learn it but

    you know it's more than just that

    and i think that's a tension that i see

    in roles that

    you know we've shared so i appreciate

    your reflection i hadn't thought of stem

    it was a great example thanks i had

    thought about it in the context of

    lgbtqia plus

    either i love expanding it there i think

    it's the same thing

    everybody everybody's making the acronym

    yeah and it's important to acknowledge

    like the power that you have when you

    are creating these lessons

    the things that you are explicitly and

    implicitly teaching

    through resources like you have to be

    aware of that

    and one of the things that informs my

    response to you

    was this chapter that i read by an

    author last name rygelsky

    it's called like on methodology or

    something and so methodology for this

    author is

    you take a method and it becomes an

    ideology that you do not question

    you only adhere to that and you do not

    follow any other ideology

    and that's when it becomes a problem so

    again going back to our discussion on

    well direct instruction versus inquiry

    based learning or project based or

    whatever approach you want to go with if

    you're only like i'm 100 inquiry based

    learning

    well then what are you going to do in

    the moment where direct instruction will

    be really beneficial

    in that two minutes that you have with a

    kid who could really benefit from it are

    you just gonna sit there and keep asking

    questions for two minutes and then they

    don't get to an answer

    that actually helps them move forward or

    are you gonna take two minutes to do a

    different approach

    and so for me that multi-perspectival

    approach is important

    and so if we're going to do

    multi-perspectival we can't necessarily

    have acronyms because the acronyms are

    going to need to change

    one please send me that that sounds

    fascinating and i'd love to read it

    and two i was going to say man did i

    agree with everything you just said when

    it turns into sort of an ideology or you

    know unquestionable

    you know what it's hard to do when

    you're i mean you're sort of in a

    leadership position

    so if you're like okay the boot up

    course this is the things that they

    think are important number one two three

    that's the most important thing

    being able to balance saying that's true

    with also you jared saying

    but it's not always true right because

    people are looking to you for that

    confidence

    right and they're looking to you for

    that stability or simplicity

    and so right i think it's really hard to

    push back against that sometimes

    and say i have made it simple for you so

    i can welcome you in

    so you don't have to understand

    everything but i'm going to teach you

    some concepts that are not

    perfect they don't apply in every

    setting so i think that's an interesting

    balance there's a place for those

    conversation starters like as an example

    outliers by malcolm gladwell it is a

    good book

    for getting you to understand the idea

    of deliberate practice and its long-term

    payoff things like that

    but a lot of people miss a tribute to

    malcolm gladwell

    the idea of the 10 000 hour rule that

    well all you got to do is just 10 000

    hours and then all of a sudden you're

    going to be a genius at this thing well

    if you actually read the research that

    malcolm gladwell is citing

    by kay anders erickson there's a lot

    more nuances to it than that

    and anderson is not this like

    fixed every single domain is ten

    thousand hours like

    wrestling is like eight thousand music

    is like 21 000

    like all of these are all different and

    they all have different scenarios and

    cases that you need to point to

    it's fine for some people to latch on to

    something and like get a broader concept

    but we also then need to dive deeper

    into it and go but there's all these

    specific cases where that doesn't apply

    it's not generally applicable

    outside in every single domain etc i

    think something that i

    end up doing subconsciously

    to avoid this is

    at least when i'm talking about ideas i

    end up making them

    very conversational in the way that i

    talk about it because i think

    acronyms or academia

    language and saying and trying to turn

    it into

    approachable words that sound more

    conversational so it's less about

    the term and more about the idea that is

    being expressed

    but it's a challenge it's one that again

    i think there's pressure

    i think there is pressure towards terms

    i think there's pressure towards

    trying to come up with something

    essential or an acronym or whatever it

    is

    i think in the end it actually gets in

    the way of communication being honest

    there's certainly a danger of it if you

    don't maintain the practice of saying

    this is trying to make it quick to

    communicate about something that we

    should already have a shared

    understanding through discussion about

    what this term actually means otherwise

    we could be talking past each other but

    just know how to use the same term

    i mean i heard a professor once say that

    there's a lot of benefit in creating

    your own term because then you're the

    one who gets cited for

    creating that term even if it's very

    similar to other things so that gets

    into one of the problems

    but one of the things that you said

    about like the simplicity of language

    there's an interview i did with brian

    brown

    who's a associate professor at stanford

    in the school of education

    and hasn't been released yet but he

    talks about his research on

    comparing using expert domain

    language in like science and then using

    simplified version

    of the discourse in the same

    lesson same everything's just you're

    changing the way that the words are

    consistently the simpler the language

    you use the better kids are going to

    understand it and be able to actually

    not feel overwhelmed and whatnot

    so that lines up with research and i can

    sit here and

    and use lots of big words that like a

    lot of academics would understand but

    like what's the point in that if

    all of a sudden gonna obfuscate what i'm

    trying to say

    so like why not just say it simply oh

    this is going to make things confusing

    so a lot of the way that i talk i

    intentionally engage in a dialogue that

    is trying to

    simplify things even though i can engage

    in those conversations i choose not to

    generally speaking at least i'm curious

    having listened to some of the

    episodes do you have suggestions on how

    i could better serve the cs community

    with this podcast yeah i think that if

    you were able to bring in

    multiple guests at the same time i've

    always wanted to get a lot of people in

    the room

    something i did a few years ago and we

    were trying to do is a provider's

    component to csta just people who are in

    kind of this role of developing

    materials

    or thinking at the district level or it

    could be teachers too but

    multiple perspectives at the same time

    and i think that what you were doing

    with

    recent episodes where you went back

    through

    multiple people speaking about the same

    topic in a row

    i think that clicked for me i really

    liked that and i think if you were able

    to do some of that live

    that would be fascinating and i think

    there might be an opportunity to do it

    when you're talking about creating

    dialogue between

    policy and a researcher or you know a

    teacher and a researcher or something

    like that or you know any combination

    they're in

    i think it'd be really interesting i

    could see this being a space for that

    yeah i like that i do have one upcoming

    panel on the topic of rhizomatic

    learning with like three other people

    but it would be good to get more

    different panels and whatnot i

    especially like the idea of research and

    policymaker

    that we can actually get some change

    that is actually informed

    i would be fascinated by that i'd love

    to listen where my people go to connect

    with you in the organizations that you

    work with

    you can find me probably most easily on

    linkedin

    if you want to reach out it's gt roble

    should be easy to find or john thomas

    roble my name is italian so to spell

    g-i-a-n

    space t-h-o-m-a-s you probably won't

    find that written most places on the

    internet but

    when i i'm in professional circles

    that's where you'll find me i actually

    don't maintain much of a twitter

    or social media presence professionally

    so i think if you want to

    contact me professionally you can reach

    me there if you happen to be listening

    to this podcast and you really want to

    reach out to me on email

    it is gtroble gmail.com and i'm more

    than happy to talk to you about

    anything related to this education and

    with that

    that concludes this week's episode with

    csk8 podcast

    i hope you enjoyed this interview with

    gt i know i learned a lot from him

    and always continue to learn more the

    more we discuss cs education pedagogy

    curriculum development et cetera

    if you'd be so kind please consider

    sharing this with somebody else sure you

    can think of somebody who would benefit

    from hearing

    any of the topics that we discussed in

    this particular episode

    stay tuned next week for another

    unpacking scholarship episode and two

    weeks from now for another interview

    hope you're having a wonderful week and

    staying safe

Guest Bio

GT.jpg

GT Wrobel is an educator and curriculum designer fascinated by the challenges of designing high quality learning experiences to meet the varied needs of learners. GT began his educational career at Little Village High School on the southwest side of Chicago where he tutored 9th and 10th grade boys in Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry as part of the Match Education program. He continued on to the Latin School of Chicago where he was the founding teacher for their computer science department and taught CS Principles and independent studies in computer science topics. He subsequently joined the curriculum team at Code.org and helped develop their AP CS Principles and CS Discoveries courses. He has facilitated professional learning opportunities for thousands of teachers around the country and worked closely with CSTA, CS education researchers, and other curriculum developers to ensure a healthy ecosystem of CS education curricula and PD options are available to K - 12 teachers and students. GT recently began a position at Microsoft where he designs onboarding experiences for new software engineers with a focus on bringing his passion for high quality and equitable learning experiences into the professional sphere. GT is a proud Chicago native and currently lives in beautiful Seattle where he loves to get outside whether it's our notoriously rainy winters or our gloriously beautiful summers. You can reach him at gtwrobel@gmail.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gt-wrobel/ to talk about any and everything at the exciting intersection of education and computer science.

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