#CSK8 Visions by Vicky Sedgwick
In this interview with Vicky Sedgwick, we discuss Vicky’s journey into CS education, how Vicky’s pedagogy has changed in virtual environments, advice for designing learning experiences in CS, the importance of integrating CS in other subject areas, recommendations for improving equity and inclusion, building online communities in an age where people are questioning the value of social media, and much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast
my name is jared o'leary in this week's
episode i'm interviewing
vicky sedgwick who has been the host of
most of the csk8 chats on twitter
which was actually the inspiration for
the name of this podcast
in this discussion we're going to talk
about vicky's journey into computer
science education
as well as how vicky's pedagogy has
changed in virtual environments due to
kovid
and what has stayed the same advice for
designing learning experiences in
computer science
the importance of integrating computer
science and other subject areas
some recommendations for improving
equity and inclusion in the classroom
and building online communities in an
age where people are questioning the
value of social media
and so much more there are many links in
this particular show notes and you can
find
those by simply clicking the link in the
app that you're listening to this on
or by visiting jaredlery.com and
clicking on podcast
all right so we're now going to begin
the interview with vicky introducing
herself
i'm vicki sedgwick i'm a k-6 computer
science teacher in
the los angeles area and i'm on the
computer science teachers association
board of directors
i'm also involved in writing the teacher
standards and
i helped write the csta student
standards back in 2017
and i'm involved with the ai for k-12
project as well
so if you were to write a story about
your journey into cs education
what would the titles of the chapters be
they would probably be something like
i always wanted to be a teacher the
influence of a college roommate
me a programmer and a serendipity
we'll just go with those four so
what are some of the key things that you
learned in each one of those chapters
that inform your own approach to cs
education
so when i was a child i always wanted to
be a teacher in fact that's what i
played all the time with school
as the teacher and i actually majored
in elementary education in college
that's what i was going to do
so i learned a lot along the way about
you know how to teach and all of that
because that's what i majored in and did
that but then
my college roommate was a huge influence
in that
she introduced me one to computers this
was way back when i'm
fairly old this was in the 70s and she
actually majored in
i don't know if it was called computer
science then but she was a major in
computer science
and i got very interested in what she
was doing even it's a programming on
punched cards and everything back then
and she lived out in california and she
introduced me to someone
who i ended up dating for a while so i
ended up
moving to california and kind of getting
into working with computers
rather than getting into education right
out of college
there weren't as many jobs available
then and i found better paying job
initially as a computer operator and i
worked at the same company my college
roommate did then
that company that i worked for did
operations on many computers
and then we ended up getting a deck
system 20 and all of the programmers
wanted to work on the new computer so i
ended up having to teach myself to
program to fix
the programs that were still running the
actual programs we were working on we
worked at a
medical center and was running those
programs actually on the mini computers
and it would break so i had to teach
myself to program in order to fix them
because the programmers wanted nothing
to do with it they wanted to work on the
new computer
so that's kind of how i fell into
programming and i was a programmer for
years actually
i worked for that company then i went to
work for a software company where i
wrote application software
for many different industries and i kind
of got
back into teaching then but more adults
at that point i did a lot of the
training for
not the customers that bought it but the
people who were trying to sell our
software
i was the trainer for them so i had to
you know create all the training
materials and train them
and i kind of got back into the teaching
bug
but then i got married and i had kids
and
eventually my job ended up ending and i
ended up just being a stay-at-home mom
basically because the company had moved
and wanted me to move to connecticut and
i wasn't going to do that
my husband was in california so i became
a stay-at-home mom
and then serendipity kind of stepped in
because my daughter's computer teacher
left the school at the school she was at
and i was asked to fill in
as a computer teacher just until
december
i was at that school for nine years ten
years something like that so
it wasn't just until december did they
not specify which december
apparently not i guess it was
initially like an applications course i
was teaching you know it was
come in and watch them keyboard for 45
minutes or teach them how to use
word and things like that and i found
that i was bored with that
and so were the kids right i mean they
didn't want to type for 45 minutes
and having been a programmer i went i
wonder what kids could learn about that
and that's when i kind of found the csta
site and found the existing standards at
that point which were the 2011 standards
and went okay this says i could teach
them to do these things let's try that
and i
discovered scratch and started actually
incorporating more and more
computer science things into what i was
teaching
until by the time that school closed
last year
i was doing about half the year in
applications in half in
cs kind of fell back into teaching and
now i'm at another school
as a cs teacher i'm curious your
experience is
in industry how has that experience kind
of
provided perspective for you while
working with kids in particular like
young kids or has it not really
made that much of an impact on you it
hasn't except
that i found even with the adults i was
teaching
i had to be pretty explicit in the
lessons i created
because these were sales people that
were trying to sell
our product but they needed to know how
to run it
in order to demo it but they weren't
people that knew
these industries so i had to be really
explicit on
how to run things and how to do things
and i've even drawn on some of
how i created those lessons even in some
of the lessons i
started creating for the kid you know it
was like you shouldn't say you treat
adults like you know a five-year-old but
sometimes you have to explain
like a five-year-old even to adults
right so and i try not to do that now
when i
talk to teachers and they would tell me
don't tell me like i'm a five-year-old
or a six-year-old how to do this and so
some of that has influence but the
approaches are
pretty different when i'm teaching kids
versus
adults even now when you teach them i
mean you know you like to treat adults
as if they have some knowledge of things
for sure going in though
if you're trying to teach a cs concept
and they have no cs background
it can be helpful to say hey it's okay
if you don't know anything we'll get you
there
so how has your experiences with covid
either like
changed or solidified some of your own
beliefs around
education cs education or just like a
general philosophy of education
i've always believed any kind of
education but especially cs
education should be you know really
hands-on
and incorporate you know student
interests in student choice and that has
not changed with coven in fact it's
affirmed it even more because
if you're not meeting those student
needs and interests they're not going to
show up for your class
you know if they can turn the camera off
they'll turn the camera off
if i want them engaged i have to give
them engaging things to do
and let them do it you know if i'm just
talking to them
they're not going to be interested right
so but the other thing i've
always liked to do in cs classes since
probably the second or third year i did
it was incorporate
physical computing that i've had to pull
back on because
with kovid you know do we have enough
things to send home for kids to do
not necessarily we don't have those
one-to-one physical computing things
we actually are lucky and that we do
have one-to-one micro bits so
if we stay virtual later in the year
sixth grade will be doing that and we
can send them a micro bit
but not all schools do we don't have one
to one makey makeys
you know we do some making making stuff
with younger grades we use ozobots with
the younger kids we don't have
one-to-one those
so we can't send those home so i've had
to pull back on some of what we do
from a physical computing perspective
which is disappointing for me
because i just see a light bulb go off
when they do that physical stuff right
the fact that you know blinking a light
is so much more effective than
you know hello world i don't know why
but it just is you know the kids just
they light up when they're making that
physical thing
do something and i think it also helps
to teach those concepts of how hardware
and software work together
when you're working with something
physical that you're touching
so you know that i've had to pull back
on i still believe it's important
we can't do it because of the
restrictions of kovid but i think the
biggest thing
is student choice student interest
and as hands-on as it can be bless me
more them
for sure yeah that resonates with my
approach in the classroom and then
in the curriculum that i've designed and
then in the pd and whatnot like it's all
about just getting people engaged
around their interest and just diving
deep into that
one of the interesting things that i've
kind of observed over the last few
months is the change in questions and
problems that teachers have had
with going virtual since covid basically
shut down schools
so i'm curious how have your questions
or problems
evolved or changed over the last few
months while you've been
dealing with online environment in march
when we went virtual
i was teaching fourth to sixth grade and
those classes could pretty much continue
other than the physical computing part
because at that point we didn't have
one-to-one devices so
we didn't send those home so we had to
kind of change what we did but so much
of what we did was on scratch
or platforms like that that they could
just continue doing
so they kind of stayed the same in those
grades but then i was asked to take over
the primary grades k to two and you just
have to approach it differently with
them how do you deal with the kids
online you know
engaging you know kindergarten student
online
when their attention span isn't that
long and
it's just a difficult thing to do and
now this year
all our kids have ipads all over k to
two
so they can't be in zoom and somewhere
else at the same
time right so it becomes this issue of
how do i do what i used to do
right it's evolved more now into how do
i do what i used to do because at the
end of the year
we were just kind of trying to keep it
going right trying to
finish out the year with k to two we
actually even pulled back and said cs
was optional
so i had less kids engaged and they
wanted it to be totally asynchronous in
k to two at the end of the year
so i just had to create things that they
could do
if they wanted to do and they wanted it
to be
as offline as it could be so the lesson
was
online i did a lot of things actually
with this hello ruby books
where i read a chapter in the book we
used the
first hello ruby book so i'd read a
chapter or two and then they would do
some kind of sequencing thing
on paper offline then take a picture of
and turn in
this year it's changed in that we're now
it's not optional anymore
i have to engage them in a zoom meeting
as well
as provide lessons and the things they
do can be online
we use see-saw and so i can have you
know actual things that they can
manipulate
in seesaw to you know fill out an
algorithm or something
it's changed slightly this year in terms
of our focus
but for me my bigger concern overall
always has been the big picture of cs
because we kind of continued you know
i'm in a school that
we still kept cs going but i heard so
many schools
say well when we closed in march well
we're not going to do cs all we're doing
is the core subjects and
no cs classes anymore and i've even
heard this year
that a lot of schools are struggling to
where to put it
they've had to move cs teachers into the
classrooms because they need more
teachers because they need
less kids in the classroom and it's
become an issue of
trying to keep cs alive in a lot of
schools that go on the way you know even
teachers that i know that are
enthusiastic about teaching it they may
have been moved into a classroom so they
may be teaching it in their classroom
but the whole school's not getting it
anymore
you know so i struggle more with the
bigger picture like
my school i'm happy to say is still
phil's cs is valuable and is still
teaching it
and i wish that were the same everywhere
but because it's not a requirement
for a lot of schools i think it's been
put on the back burner
what have you tried or are you seeing
other educators in any subject area
in terms of how to keep k2 in particular
engaged
in these virtual spaces when it's
difficult to
like they don't have multiple screens
and they are trying to navigate using
a platform while also like figure out
how to use like scratch junior while
also being in zoom like
have you seen any tips or tricks
regardless of whatever subject area
that might be useful for listeners and
it's tips or tricks for any grade but
especially for k to two is if you're
going to be
teaching a lesson or doing anything it's
like
continually interrupt it with things the
kids are doing
like put a poll up you know have them
volunteer to answer
in fact we did your lesson on
fidget spinners on scratch jr and one of
the things we did was we talked about it
in the middle actually had them hit the
home button and go to scratch
junior and tell me how many times it
took to rotate
the scratch cat around for example and
so they went and experimented in scratch
junior and then came back and typed an
answer into the chat on how many times
they thought it took
until he made one whole revolution
around so it's
interrupting and letting them actually
go off camera and go do something else
and then come back
they can still hear you and i think it's
being
comfortable with accepting that even
though you can't see them
you have to assume they're actually
doing what you told them to do if you've
made it engaging enough so it's now
something they have to discover
you know they had fun going over there
and making it spin around and coming
back and telling me how many times
you know and then give them another
little spoon fed thing that they go and
try because i can't
like in a real classroom be showing it
on the board and having them trying at
the same time
i found i have to spoon feed it into
smaller chunks now
that they can then go try you know it's
not like you have it all there
long term my thought is i'm gonna have
to do more on paper that i send home
that they could actually look at if it's
longer code they have to figure out or
do something with
because they can't see two screens at
the same time if they're on ipads for
example
and you can split screen on ipads and i
could teach especially my second graders
how to do that
but the problem is scratch junior is a
full screen app
so it doesn't really split screen zoom
ends up
sitting on top and hiding part of what
you're trying to do like it hides the
background or it hides the characters
it's a lot more awkward for them to try
and
use it i do know cs teachers that are
doing that with their kids with scratch
jr
they're having them put the zoom on top
and they're you know trying to demo
but it's a pretty small little screen
and i don't know that there is one right
answer and i think it depends
on the kids you know
one of the things i really miss with
something like a scratch junior is
the sharing aspect right i mean if i'm
in a classroom with all the kids
we do a gallery walk and we try one
another's projects and
they show them off or they come to the
front and they present them or something
harder to do now because scratch junior
isn't easy to share out of
right i mean it'd be awesome if you
could just create
a video of your project that saved the
camera roll you know then
we could share all those but now it's
teaching your kids to share their screen
and zoom on an ipad and demo their
projects and we're working on getting
them all to be able to do that
my kids aren't there yet but we're
working on getting to there
so because to me that sharing aspect
is something that i think is so valuable
it keeps the kids so engaged and in fact
even with the fidget spinner a lot of
them they posted in seesaw
a screenshot of their code so i could
see they got the code
and could see what their fidget spinner
looked like but a lot of them lamented
oh i wish
you could see it running yeah right
so because they don't know how to record
their screen yet or they don't know how
to share
so but we will get them there and that's
got to be the goal of it
is to get them to that point where they
can do that
but it takes a lot more of prep time
from the teacher perspective like i
can't
just assume i can go in and teach them
scratch junior i now have to teach them
how to take a screenshot right you know
how to take a video of
your project how to you know share your
screen
and zoom all those things i have to
teach before they can
be able to share so and i think we have
to
give ourselves the grace and realize
we're not going to cover as much
because we have to cover all these tech
skills they didn't have to know before
right so it's just teaching that
and the other thing is i would often
pair kids up you know
and have them pair program and that's
just not as good you know
working together can be really helpful i
would often
take ipads and say you're working two to
an ipad right you know and you're
working together
and you teach those soft skills too and
you can't be doing that even when we go
back
we're not going to be doing that because
they're supposed to keep six feet apart
so
you know all of those are struggles of
how do you do them right
i think keeping the kids engaged is
those bite-sized chunks though
and then giving them something they
physically do
we're doing the hello ruby book right
now the second one with my
second graders and you know one of the
things they do is go
on a scavenger hunt around their house
to find four computers in their house
where four computers are hiding because
we specifically say there are hundreds
of computers in your house
we'll find four of them they come back
with all kinds of things
and they have to tell me why they think
they're computers they're not physically
bringing those back they're taking
pictures of them
you know it gives them movement and
things that they can do and they can
come back and talk about them and show
their pictures and
so give them things you know to make
them move give them little pieces
of a project and have them do it one
piece at a time
don't give them everything at once you
know i would give them bigger chunks
now i have to give them smaller chunks
yeah my class was
very conversational kids were constantly
talking to each other
learning from each other getting up and
sharing and asking questions and whatnot
i'm curious have you experimented with
any breakout rooms to try and simulate
that kind of conversation
i have somewhat we do it with our older
grades all the time i have someone with
second grade
it's just hard to monitor them and i
have found
like with one of my second grade classes
it worked well the kids would stay on
task
as i'd pop in and out of the rooms in
another one
they weren't staying on task you know
you know with the older kids you can
give them
something it can be easier to keep on
task like that was my goal if i was
going to teach
in fourth grade for example when you
scratch a lot i would definitely
probably use breakout rooms
as a pair programming thing where one
the navigator was just watching the
other kid program and giving tips and
you know whatever probably have to
create paired accounts they could use so
they could switch off who was
logged in and coding but there's a way i
think you could do that with the older
kids
harder to do with scratch junior and the
younger ones
because they can't get in the code from
the other kid you know they're not
local so it's not like you can airdrop
it from one to the other
and things like that because i used to
use that sometimes in classes too where
they'd write a progressive story and
they'd airdrop it to one another and
then write the next part
but you can't do that if you're not
physically in the same space so
though that when we go back might be a
possibility again
because they will physically be on the
same wi-fi and be able to do that
yeah and just in case nobody knows what
breakout rooms
are so picture a large a
full classroom all in one video
conferencing session and a breakout room
would be
like dividing your class up into small
groups into smaller
video conferencing sessions so if you
have 20 kids cool
you can make 10 smaller groups that have
two kids each and they're able to just
converse with just the two of them so
you don't have 20 people talking all at
once
i'm curious so we've talked a little bit
about like experience design in cs
education
if you had a new to cs educator so
somebody who's
maybe been teaching for a while but is
now trying to incorporate computer
science into the classroom
what advice would you give them for
designing cs
education experiences first thing i say
is don't be afraid
it's okay if you don't know everything
and in fact if you're in elementary
you don't have to know everything right
you don't have to have a cs degree you
don't have to know how to program java
okay you'll find that a lot of the
concepts tie in with things you're
learning
things like sequencing patterns you know
all those things
tie in with things that they're kind of
already doing in the classroom so you
can find those ties
but the biggest thing i always tell
everybody
is to kind of under teach right don't
tell the kids how to do everything we
tend to think
as teachers that we're the font of all
knowledge right
and don't be even if you are don't be
teach them just what they need to know
to get started and then let them
discover something and tell you
or tell their classmates okay one it
sticks better
two they're more engaged and then you
can use that knowledge that they've
acquired along with the little bit you
gave them
to kind of tie in that cs concept right
but they've discovered they've used some
inquiry
and discovered things for themselves
that keeps the kids more engaged
and the other thing i always tell
teachers is it's
okay to say i don't know let's figure it
out together
and in fact i tell people even if you do
know
say that right because don't give the
kids the answer
teach them ways to discover the answer
right
and i think that's the biggest way to
make it engaging help
them do the discovery help them figure
it out
don't give it to them yeah you're gonna
teach little concepts right you're gonna
teach
okay here's what a loop is now you'll go
have them play with loops
and have them show you what they
discovered about loops
if all you do is give them the code and
say type this in
it's not going to be engaging for them
and it's not going to stick
either they're not going to remember it
so yeah that really resonates
with my approach in the classroom and
what we encourage
i will say that anybody who's trying
this it can take a while
guiding through questions like i had
that i was in
and i would literally spend an entire
guiding them through thinking to dive
deeper into finally getting to the
answer that i could have showed them in
two minutes
but because we went through this process
like they had such a richer
understanding
of different potential directions to go
into and just a deeper understanding of
what they're trying to solve so
it's definitely worth it just know it
can take a while getting to the answer
so you just gotta be patient
right and i think that's the thing too
is having the patience to
wait for the students to figure it out
it's that whole wait time thing
amplified right because now they've got
a problem
and you do know how to fix it a lot of
the time it's so tempting to jump in
but it's going to stick so much better
even if it takes you
an entire class period to get them there
and they're learning strategies that the
next time they get stuck
hopefully they can start applying
themselves without you having to be
there
you know have bugs in their programs
they're going to have to figure this out
all the time ongoing you're going to
constantly be jumping in and giving them
the solutions if you don't give them the
strategies
of how to figure it out what about with
integrating so
let's say somebody has a background in x
subject area
they are not familiar with computer
science but they want to integrate it
with x subject area what advice would
you give for an educator like that
first i'd say see if you can find
somebody that
kind of knows where that might fit well
and talk to them just pick their brain
right
you might want to say hey i really would
like to do some of that where would be a
good place to find that
if there's nobody in your local district
or your local school
go online you know find people and just
pick their brains a bit
because knowing where to put it can be
really helpful
then also realize it will take some time
for the kids to learn the tool you want
them to use
right i find it amusing almost
i'll talk to teachers and they'll say oh
i taught my kids how to use flipgrid and
it took a couple days but now they're
good
and i taught them how to use this and it
took a couple days
and then i'll say well why do you do
some cs and they're like but it's going
to take too long to teach them
it's like any other tool you're teaching
them how to use it
and yes it will take some time but now
you've given them another tool to use in
their tool kit to show their knowledge
to you
and you're teaching them some cs
concepts along the way
the other thing that i do with teachers
like that is i point them to curriculum
that already exists that can help
them to teach those things like the
buddha curriculum
i mean you've got amazing lessons out
there
that they can just take and it talks
about
here's the cs concepts we're teaching
here's how you approach it
it even goes into here's where you might
integrate it
and the sfusd curriculum is also great
that way
and it shows you integration points it
shows you how to
approach teaching it it shows you the cs
concepts you're teaching
and it's freely available so go out and
find it
and use it use those lessons to teach
your kids what they need to know
let's say you want them to create a math
game
right so you think okay what are they
going to need to know to create a math
game
well i can go out and find some lessons
that teaches them how to make a sprite
talk and how to make it ask a question
and how to make it you know
check if the answer is right so you know
you can figure out and find some lessons
you can teach them to do how to do that
and then let them have at it and see
what they can create
right let them use their own sprites
their own backgrounds their own
you know theme for their game and what i
have found because i've had kids do this
where you teach them the little pieces
i've gotten to where you know i'm going
to teach you random numbers right
so it'll randomly create your question
for you
and then i find they really like to
practice their math facts because it's
their game they created you know
or they want to play their friends game
you know
and what they really are doing is
practicing their math facts
right so think of the benefit you'll get
after you have
taught them these things but realize it
will take time to teach them
you know i think people go in thinking
i'll just jump right in that won't work
you have to take the time to teach them
first
how would your answer change or be
similar for cs
educators who are trying to integrate
with other subject areas so they have
experience in cs
but not experience in ex subject area
well i would say partner up with the
subject level teacher
and i can find that can be fun actually
easier virtually
because they'll give you 10 minutes on a
zoom whereas it could have been harder
to
get to them in person to tell you what
they're doing in class
so you talk to the teacher and you find
out hey my kids are struggling with math
fat they just don't have their audition
math facts
well then you can think in terms of okay
oh they're doing addition math effects
well i know how i could do that in a
scratch program right so
now i could help by having them write
that
or you can say go in and ask the science
teacher what kinds of things are you
doing
in science right and even ask for what's
the lesson look like look at it so you
know what concepts they're learning in
science
and then have the kids create that
science simulation
right so it's partnering with the
teacher who doesn't know the subject
area
whether that's in person at your school
find a science teachers online you know
some way of partnering with those
teachers to find out where would be
those hooks you
where you could put cs in right and i
find
even just looking at the standards and
saying what
should the kids be learning go look at
the ngss standards for science
for the grade levels and see what are
they supposed to be learning and you can
think oh well that would be a great
thing to do a simulation for
in you know scratch or to create a
little animation for in scratch junior
you know like oh they learn the
butterfly life cycle well let's you know
recreate that in scratch jr right
if you can find out even those high
level things they're doing
you can find lessons online that will
teach you what that is and then
figure out how to hook that in with cs
is your advice
for these educators is it the same as
what you would have given before kovid
as it is right now or has cova changed
things in terms of the advice you'd give
the advice is similar but i do find
sometimes it's easier actually for me
now to
get time with teachers because they're
willing to jump onto a 10-minute zoom
whereas
couldn't always track them down in
person right and to try and set up a
time was harder
so sometimes it's easier for me to
actually get with a classroom teachers
now but i actually think it's more
important now
to integrate because the emphasis right
now
tends to be on those core subjects right
that's
so much of education right now is
because
there's limited time or because we don't
have enough teachers and we've had to
move those specialty teachers into the
classroom
so if we can get that integration piece
going now
i think it'll be valuable and it'll keep
cs education
going even in the time when there may
not be a cs class right now because
that's
teacher is now the fourth grade teacher
right so
i think it's even more valuable right
now than it was before
yeah planting seeds for future larger
projects and whatnot
that resonates with me so i know because
of our conversations because we've been
on some of the same
webinars and like the things that you've
posted online that
equity and inclusion is a big thing that
you have
strive for and continue to strive for do
you have any recommendations
for people who are listening how to
improve equity and inclusion
in cs and cs education that's a big hot
topic for me right now because
so many times we hear cs4 all right but
it isn't cs for all cs is an after
school thing and
so a lot of kids can participate or it's
a well we'll try this with our gifted
kids
thing or it's a okay everybody takes cs
class
but those special ed kids we're not
going to put those in the cs classes
so i think even if we're in a school
that says
we have a cs class for everybody we have
to make sure it really does include
everybody and we have to make sure that
we as teachers
are examining our biases and make sure
that we
are treating all the kids equally right
because it's really
easy to have those biases and not even
realize
that oh i'm asking the boys more
questions than the girls
or you know oh i'm ignoring the special
ed kids even though they are sitting in
the room
right so you have to be really
intentional
as a teacher to make sure you're being
equitable and inclusive
in your classroom you know a lot of
times elementary teachers and i've
always said i'm really lucky my
schools have always said everybody's
getting it right so everybody's in the
classes
but i need to make sure as a teacher
that i'm being inclusive
in those classes because just because
they're sitting in the room
doesn't mean that they're getting the
same education as the kids sitting next
to them and i think we need to be aware
of that
but i think as a whole cs education is
not equitable and inclusive especially
in elementary
and middle school there are some schools
that teach it there are some that don't
it's not a requirement even in those
states that are starting to require it
in high schools
it's not in the elementary and middle
schools or
even in my case it was required and
everybody took it
but if the classroom teacher needed a
kid for something because they didn't
complete something they took them out
you have to be on top of all that and
make sure that everybody's there
you also have to i think advocate at a
district level and a state level if you
can
for requiring cs education
for my state has standards for example
but they're not required
and there's no money so guess what
there are a lot of schools that aren't
doing it and it's the wealthy schools
that are doing it
and the poorer schools that are not and
so
we need to find some way of fixing that
and i don't know other than saying let's
integrate it to make sure everybody gets
it
and to me that's the best way to say
we're going to integrate it
into math or science or something
because everybody takes those
and we're going to try and integrate it
in and there are more and more
products available that do that like
bootstrap algebra or data science
for middle schools project guts for
middle schools
there's everyday computing which is
math related for third and fourth grade
math um right now
it's with a specific math curriculum but
they're working to expand it so it'll be
more inclusive
of all math curriculums so you know look
around for those find
ways to try and integrate it i think
that'll be
the best way to make sure that it is
equitable and inclusive of everybody
yeah one of the critiques that
i have on cs education research is
a lot of the questions and data that
they're collecting
are about people in the room
not necessarily their perspectives on
what they're learning and how they feel
in it
so it's like oh we have x percentage of
this demographic
and why percentage of this other
demographic in this space okay that's
nice that you're seeing an
increase in marginalized groups but do
they actually feel like they belong or
are they just being forced to attend
something
that they don't find relevant so i wish
cs education research in particular
would ask those follow-up questions of
well
how do they actually feel in this and
what do they see long-term for learning
this particular subject not just forcing
everybody to learn something but that's
my own rant
no but i agree it's like just having the
bodies in the room is not the solution
that's the start you've got to get the
bodies in the room first
but are we actually reaching all of them
are all of them
feeling like yes cs is for me
or are they still feeling like i don't
belong here you know if they're still
feeling like i don't belong here then
we're not doing our jobs
so one of the things that you've really
been promoting over the last couple of
years
is connecting other educators interested
in computer science online whether it be
through one social media platform or
another i'm curious
what sparked your interest in wanting to
build these kind of online
cs education communities well it was
purely selfish to start
i was the cs person in my school and
i didn't know any other elementary
middle school cs teachers
and so i started looking around for how
can i connect with people that are doing
what i'm doing
right how can i make sure i'm doing the
right things how can i share some of the
cool things that my kids are doing
with people that'll understand it right
i could share it with the
other teachers at my school but they had
no clue what i was talking about so
you know so it was purely selfish i was
trying to find communities
and there weren't a whole lot of them
out there so it was kind of like well
what can we do to kind of build these
communities what can we do to kind of
get people to start talking to one
another because i know there have to be
people out there
trying these same things i mean this was
a while ago
right this was in like 2012 probably
that i first started this so
it was you know eight years ago and
there wasn't as much but there were
people doing things
i was looking for a way to connect to
them so
that was kind of why it got started so
if you're to give like a sales pitch to
somebody who's
skeptical about joining one of these
online environments
especially with like recent movies or
documentaries
or docudramas whatever they're called
about social media networks and things
like that and how they're
trying to take over your time and ruin
your day essentially what would you do
in terms of somebody who's skeptical
about this and say hey
this might be a good community for you
because of blank yeah the skepticism
is causing a dent in some of these
communities but
if you are someone who is looking for a
support group that can help you with
where do i go next i'm having this
problem how do i solve it
or you just want to show off kids work
you want to learn something because like
the csk
chats we always have a topic and you
know people learn a lot
from them when they learn from one
another you know if you've got a problem
hey
we had a discussion for example on the
facebook group
csda k to eight about trying to teach
scratch
junior in zoom you know online
and some ideas came out in that you know
people are trying to help one another
you know especially right now we are in
situations that all of us are learning
so if we can
kind of you know put the hive mind
together basically and that's kind of
what these communities do
you know you may have a better idea of
how to solve something than i do you may
have tried something that actually
really worked right
and the rest of us would love to know
about it so the idea
is all of us together are better than
each of us individually so
let's build these communities now i
agree
that and i personally am having
real problems with facebook myself these
days
because of things and for quite a while
we are
csta k-8 group is on facebook because
that's where
it was voted it should be a few years
ago
i don't know if that would be the same
today
the problem is where to go because they
all have issues right
csta is actually going to be opening up
discussion groups themselves on their
platform
and so we will probably migrate there
with that group
maybe have both of them simultaneous for
a while and hopefully that'll remove
some of the
issues that surround something like a
facebook
we'll probably stay on twitter just
because there's still a lot of people
there though we may experiment with
doing
more things in a platform like zoom
where it's a
more face-to-face discussion or maybe an
asynchronous thing
through flipgrid or something like that
no platforms perfect
but we want to try and meet people kind
of where they are
and there's still a community that seems
to be on twitter for right now
probably won't be that way long term
things change and they evolve
we all know that so but that doesn't
mean don't join them
they're valuable and they give you that
connection
you don't have to feel like you're a
lone person in a classroom doing
something that no one understands what
you're doing
there are people who understand and you
can find them and that may mean you have
to be on
a social media platform you you don't
always agree with
go on and check that group and get off
right yeah that's what i do
every monday all right sign in check
csta k8 group
and then check the twitter chat all
right now i'm signing off for the week
i'm done
but like i have found a lot of value in
it like you mentioned the scratch jr
post that you did and the responses when
i was meeting with our pd facilitators
like i actually brought that up and was
like look here are some
good tips that we can apply into our
professional development so
it's a good community and you mentioned
evolving
so we've seen the field of cs kind of
explode
in the past few years it's had it's like
exponential growth
of evolution and then the communities
online that are being forged like csta
reached like record numbers with a
conference and then like the engagement
that's going online where do you see
the field heading in the next like
decade or so i'm really horrible at
predictions like this ask me about my
prediction in the 70s about
pcs i was bad i was wrong
okay but honestly
i'm hopeful that we'll see cs either as
a core subject
where it's taught right alongside
everything else
or will come up with really good
integration methods
where it's just thought of that you do
math and cs together right in
especially elementary grades i'm hopeful
that we'll see that i'm hopeful we'll
see
more dates putting money where their
mouth is
as far as cs goes not just saying hey we
have these standards now
and we have money to support those for
teachers to learn about and
to teachers to know how to teach it and
not just at the high school level
so much stuff is still only at the high
school level but it's too late by then
if we wait until high school kids
already kind of know what they think
they're interested in
and cs has a stigma still and they're
not going to get into it then
most of the time so i think we need to
start in elementary
and we can't lose them in middle school
because that's another thing i see
happening in education
elementary schools are doing it because
they've got a little more wiggle room
about what they can do in their
curriculum
and then it's dropped in middle school
and then
high schools have it again but you lose
those kids in middle school
that's where those stereotypes kick in
that's where girls think it's not
good to be smart right you know kids get
turned off to math
and they don't pursue it in high school
so i'm
hopeful that districts will see it as
something that needs a pathway
k-12 and i think if csta
continues to push it and to grow and to
provide
pd it's providing and to provide you
know all of the resources that it
provides
that it can be helpful to teachers that
want to do this in their schools
and it can be helpful to how you can do
it
i am hopeful that we'll see it more and
more
states are passing standards and so
i just want to see that next step of not
only do we have standards
we're now going to provide funding and a
path for those districts to start using
them and providing classes
all the way through k to 12. how do you
practice or iterate on your own
abilities either in computer science or
as an educator i've actually found covet
interesting for that because there's so
many things online now there's so many
people offering pd online
and so i'll jump into things that i find
interesting
even if they're not cs related you know
i've done a lot of things on
equity and inclusion over the summer you
know just to
make sure i'm on thinking correctly on
that you know so that i'm trying to be
equitable and inclusive in my classrooms
and i find that that's been really
helpful so i try and do
online things force normal pd you know
love the csta conference every year for
cs stuff
and i usually try over the summer and
challenge myself to learn something new
whether it's taking a more advanced
python course or something like that
online i didn't last summer because
i'm in the tech department at my school
and we were busy trying to figure out
what the school year was going to look
like so i was actually working most of
the summer
but i usually try and do that and i try
and be
reflective of myself like i
will try and make notes after classes on
what
well what didn't go well what i might
want to change the next time
because if i don't write it down i
forget and then
i'll look at it and go well i want to do
that this year but i know something
didn't go well last year but i can't
remember what it is
even if i don't publicly do that i'll
try and make notes on
i don't have detailed detailed lesson
plans but i usually have some kind of
especially now i have some kind of
slides or something that i do with that
so i'll put a note into the slide oh
this did not go over well redo this part
you know
so that i know when i'm looking back on
it that
i need to change it you know and it may
not have worked because it was virtual
right and it may be fine in person so
because i find i'm having to tweak a lot
of things as we
try and move it to virtual it's like oh
that really went well last year oh
not gonna work this year because we're
virtual so yeah that's a
practice that i also did like i used to
actually videotape my classes and then
go back
and then like do different techniques of
who was i focusing on what kind of
questions was i asking and just like
writing all these things down and then
just like really
critically reflecting on myself and
going what did not work well
and why and what worked really well and
why and sometimes those y's were out of
my control
like they had a cupcake party or
whatever
but it was still a good practice to go
through and think through that so
i am curious so how are you taking care
of yourself because there's just
so much going on and so many demands
putting on
all educators right now and then you're
also going above and beyond and just
continuing to dive deeper and learn new
things
but what do you do to try and prevent
that burnout i'm
really bad at that i will admit i tend
to be a workaholic
and it's a lot tougher now that
work is at home right so i have to try
and physically say
i'm turning off the computer i am
turning it off and
leaving the room i will admit i'm not
good at it i've been trying to be better
the last month or so because i found
myself
just being on edge and stressed out and
i know it's because i'm spending
too much time working pre-covet i love
to go to concerts right
but of course i can't do that now i do
attend some online but again that i'm
still in front of a
computer right and it's not the same
experience as going to a live concert so
i don't find it quite as satisfying and
it isn't the escape from
being on a device right i also really
love photography
and i love to go out on photo walks and
just take pictures from unusual
perspectives and stuff like that
i have not done that much lately because
it's been
for a while because of the fires
so i haven't been walking too much but
the weather will turn
at some point and then i'll go out and
do more of that so then i also get
you know where i'm moving because i find
i don't move as much as i should too
so and sometimes i'll just you know read
some stupid book that has nothing to do
with anything you know that's
totally an escapist book and then it's
not on a device
it's an actual book and you know i'm not
trying to learn anything from it
so yeah i used to be non-fiction only
like i
was like well what's the point if i'm
not learning something new and then
i was like okay a lot of people keep
saying they really value
getting into fiction and so i tried it
and i feel like it
one it helps relax me like i do it
before i fall asleep
but two it also just like opens up new
perspectives and ways of thinking and
like just
helps with creativity which is a heavy
load on my job like i'm constantly
creating new projects and lessons and
things like that
so i personally find a lot of value in
that and then your comments about like
just getting up and moving
that also relates to why you saw me
yesterday in the meeting while walking
on a treadmill like
i'm tired of sitting in meetings like
for eight hours a day so i need to make
sure i'm moving
yeah i like that i am working on a
desktop right now
and i can't get it high enough to even
stand so
i'm trying to work out something where i
can readjust it so
i can move my big monitor up and be able
to stand because
just even being able to stand rather
than sit is helpful i find
you know so what do you wish there's
more research on that could inform
your own practices yeah good question i
just don't think there's enough research
on
especially elementary k-8 cs as
it is and so much of it is
narrowly focused on like a certain thing
i would like to have more research done
on transfer of things because i think
that is so hard right to get
you hear so many people say oh if they
learn the code they'll know how to think
and it'll help them in all their other
classes
but in reality that's not true you can
make it happen
but how can we make it happen i would
love to see research on how can we
because it should transfer but it
doesn't
so i'd love to see why and how we can
help make it transfer because i think
there is value in that
and i think it is possible and i have
seen it you know anecdotally myself
but i don't know what caused it to work
right so i'd love to see more research
on that
yeah if any professors are listening i
agree
please research that more do you have
any questions for myself for the field
where do you see the field going in 10
years
with everything going on in covid what i
would have answered to you
in february is very different than what
i would answer
for you right now in terms of
cs was just on this like
straight path just going really fast
like towards
everybody's doing this we're getting all
these standards etc but now
it's well we don't really have time for
all these other subject areas and so
not just cs but i'm seeing anything that
was not considered core
is now on the chopping blocks in some
districts or just not being taught at
all
so once this gets through
i do see us picking back up some steam
pun intended there in terms of being
able to get back
into the swing of things and
continue to drive home the importance of
this i just hope that
as a field we don't just focus on
cs4 jobs but also talk about cs
for leisure or for personal and
community health and wellness
and those kind of applications so my
hope is that the field kind of broadens
to discuss the importance of cs in
relation to
that but that's just more of a hope than
it is
i think we're going in that direction i
want to try and help steer us in that
direction
i would love that direction in part
especially when you're talking
elementary and even middle school
it's like to talk cs for jobs to me is
insane
it should be cs for personal expression
what do you want to do with cs
right and if we're not approaching it
that way again i think it's not as
engaging for kids either
if you're just talking about some future
job they might get i mean
i mean that's crazy so like i said our
microbit projects for example
there's some of my favorite things
because it's kind of like what do you
want to make with this
right right we teach them many lessons
on how to do things on it and then we
say
okay you know how to do all the stuff
now go make something with it and it's
purely what they want to make right we
may frame it in terms of
what do you want to make to solve this
kind of problem or pick a problem to
solve and make something which can make
it even more engaging at times
but i think that's the power that cs has
and i think if we're not going that
direction yeah
it's kind of a fail to me if all we are
doing is emphasizing jobs
yeah and i co-wrote a critical paper on
that subject area that i can put in the
show notes for this but
so the nonprofit that i work for has
partnered with amazon future engineer
and
one of the first things that i asked
them when we were in talks about this
is like just based off of the name i
hope you're not
thinking that we're gonna try and like
make kindergartners want to become
a future engineer at amazon like that is
not the point of what we do with our
curriculum our pd etc
i was so happy with their response being
a very critical person on this thing
that i was like okay i don't see any red
flags like they were 100 on board like
look we're not trying to get everyone to
work for amazon like
we're just trying to help out kids and
we think elementary is a great place for
them to do creative things with computer
science
and so i was like yeah this sounds great
i'm on board with that but
initially i was i was skeptical just
because of the name of the organization
right the name of the organization leads
you to believe we're trying to build a
little amazon engineer
right no we're not
[Laughter]
so yeah i agree the jobs thing has
always made me crazy
it's like when i go into a session and i
the first thing you see is
why should we do cs because look at all
these jobs we need to fill i'm like
yeah okay i'm not interested yeah
yep do you have any suggestions for me
on
how we could potentially improve this
podcast in terms of better serving the
field
i've liked what i've listened to so far
i really like your ones where you're
delving into the research
because i think a lot of teachers aren't
reading the research
because right the research isn't
necessarily super practical
for stuff i can use in my classroom
tomorrow so i think
that part's really important and i think
can be very valuable to the field
it gives teachers an insight into that
and you do talk about
practicalities of how you might apply
that in your teaching so i think that's
really important
i don't know i can't think of anything
specific
i'm just wondering if maybe it would
take at a different direction
but i wonder if every once in a while
some
kind of student voice might be
interesting
to talk to students from the perspective
of
what helped them feel like cs was for
them
even if it's at a high school level
student right because they might be a
more
interesting interview than a you know
sixth grader but that could be
interesting too
you know i'm just thinking in terms of
because
me as a teacher knowing what's hitting
home with the kids can be really helpful
to know
like i always enjoyed the student panel
at
the csta conference where you hear from
the students of
how they were influenced by their
teachers so that could be an interesting
thing to add yeah i like that i'll have
to
start reaching out see if we can find
some where might people go to connect
with you
and the organizations that you work with
if you go to visionsbyviki.com
it has links to all my social media my
visions by vicky on twitter are
envisions by vicki on scratch
and visions by vicki on let's see where
else
instagram so the csta
k-8 facebook group is a great place to
connect with me
so i have cska chats on the first and
third wednesdays
of each month at 5 pm pacific 8 pm
eastern you can also contact me through
csteachers.org
because i'm on the board there too and
with that that concludes this week's
episode of the csk8 podcast
as always you can connect with vicki by
clicking on the links in the show notes
i include the links to her
handles that she was just mentioning
like twitter instagram scratch etc
if you enjoyed this episode i hope you
consider sharing this with another cs
educator who might benefit from
listening to it
stay tuned next week for another
unpacking scholarship episode and stay
tuned two weeks from now for another
interview
i hope you're all having a wonderful
week and are staying safe
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In this episode I unpack Bresler’s (1995) publication titled “The subservient, co-equal, affective, and social integration styles and their implications for the arts,” which “examines the different manifestations of arts integration in the operational, day-to-day curriculum in ordinary schools, focusing on the how, the what, and the toward what” (p. 33).
Using Questions That Guide Mathematical Thinking to Think Computationally
In this episode I discuss some example questions we can ask to encourage kids to think deeper about computer science and computational thinking by unpacking two papers on using guiding questions in mathematics education. The first paper paper by Way (2014) is titled “Using questioning to stimulate mathematical thinking” and the second paper by Pennant (2018) is titled “Developing a classroom culture that supports a problem-solving approach to mathematics.”
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