CS Unplugged or Coding Classes?

In this episode I unpack Bell’s (2021) publication titled “CS unplugged or coding classes? Perhaps a more appropriate question is ‘why not both’?,” which argues there’s value in doing both unplugged and coding lessons.

Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK89 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week of the podcast alternates
between a solo episode where i unpack
some scholarship and an episode where i
interview
one or multiple guests in this week's
particular episode i'm unpacking a paper
titled cs unplugged or coding classes
perhaps a more appropriate question is
why not both
this paper was written by tim bell and i
include a link to it in the show notes
which you can find by clicking the link
in the description that you're listening
to this on or by simply going to
jaredlery.com
in the show notes if you click on the
author's last name you'll be able to
read more papers by them as it takes you
to their google scholar profile
or if you click on the title itself for
the paper it takes you directly to it
and in the show notes and on the website
you'll find hundreds if not thousands of
resources relevant to cs educators
including a link to the curriculum that
i create at budapedi.org
which is for scratch junior and for
scratch there's about 90 lessons at the
moment and it's all 100
free so if you haven't checked it out
yet i highly recommend it
but i'm the person who wrote it so i'm a
bit biased
all right so this paper does not have an
abstract it's actually only three pages
long
with some pictures and so it's very
short so i highly recommend checking it
out
if i were to summarize this particular
paper into a single sentence i'd say
that the author is arguing that there's
value in doing both unplugged and coding
lessons
all right so if you're new to computer
science or haven't heard of the idea of
unplugged lessons unplugged lessons are
essentially lessons that are done
without devices
so for example if kids are going to be
learning about conditionals you might do
an unplugged lesson or activity
such as like red light green light so
you'd be like if i hold up a green pen
then take a step forward if i hold up a
red pin
stop taking a step forward etc there are
many different ways that you can do
unplugged lessons and activities
csta usually has a couple of sessions
dedicated specifically to this
in their conference over the summer
which is coming up in july and i'll
include a link to that in the show notes
all right so at the start of this paper
the author is arguing that
unplugged lessons have been around since
the 90s so for about 30 years
and some people might view this as a bit
of a contradiction so you might see
unplugged lessons and go well why why
would you do that like why wouldn't you
just like actually create something with
a computer
learn code so as an analogy if you were
to think of a music class it would be
like learning about
an instrument and how it works but not
actually ever getting to play it
yeah that's great i've learned the
fingering patterns for a recorder
i learned to use a soft warm breath but
i never actually got to
play a recorder however some other
people view it and say well this
actually provides a really good way to
reduce the screen
time get some exercise and engage in
concepts and practices
in a kinesthetic way not to mention this
might be helpful for teachers who can't
afford
devices such as tablets etc in the
example that i was just providing with a
recorder maybe you don't have a class
set of recorders so you might learn how
to do it and you'll learn how to sing
but you won't actually get to play it
because you can't afford it where this
can become a problem according to the
author
is if it's viewed as a curriculum so
only doing 100 unplugged lessons
and considering that to be enough this
might create some issues because some
administrators quote
might justify a lack of funding by
suggesting that schools use unplugged
teaching instead of buying devices
end quote that's from page 25. so as a
way to save
money and to cut costs might be like
yeah well that's nice you want to do
computer science
but we don't have devices so just do
unplugged instead
this i would argue can create
decontextualized learning depending on
how the unplugged is used as you're not
actually able to situate and apply the
understandings within a context
so going back to the example of the
recorder like in a general music class
yeah you might be learning to use a warm
slow air
you might be learning the different
fingering techniques you might be
learning how to read the music
you're not actually making music so
you're going through the motions you're
learning some of the concepts but you're
not actually able to apply it by
actually creating music or in this case
actually creating
something through computer science or
through code so in the
second half of the intro the author is
mentioning that for some people
there's research that shows that unplug
can help out
and for other people they found that
well unplugged may have been
a waste of time or not as valuable as
learning how to actually code
so the author ends this particular
introduction by asking the question
so why does it work for some and not for
others okay so here's a brief
elaboration on what
unplugged might look like so i gave you
an example with a red light green light
but on page 25 the author says quote
students construct their own knowledge
by engaging with computational
challenges based on
concisely described rules where the
process of solving the challenge gives
them understanding of significant
principles
they work with games and puzzles that
have constraints that occur in computing
and this enables students to discover
important ideas from computer science
such as the insight that an algorithm
does not necessarily take twice as long
to process twice as much data
or to understand concepts in everyday
life such as error detection that makes
barcodes reliable to scan
or to grapple with the limits of what
can be computed end quote
so further in this particular section
the author mentions that unplugged
activities were not meant to replace
programming
but instead to introduce kids to
thinking as a computer scientist or
engaging in experiences
from the perspective of a computer
scientist without necessarily having to
depend on being able to code
now one of the reasons why this is
important is it can contextualize or
situate the understandings and provide
some context
that might not be evident within the
software itself so it's connecting it
with real world experiences and
understandings
it's also helpful because not everybody
can afford devices
however it's also useful in increasing
self-efficacy
and getting more kids interested in
computer science through a variety
of activities rather than just sitting
in front of a computer programming
something
which for some is very exciting and for
others that's very boring
in addition the author mentions that
computer science is not just coding
so there are other things that you can
do besides programming but i would argue
that is a large part of computer science
or at least can be especially in the
elementary space so the author mentions
that unplugged really kind of
gained a foothold in the research and
k-12 world
when there was a study that did two
different groups so one group spent 10
weeks doing unplugged activities before
learning how to code
and then another group spent 10 weeks
just learning how to code
and they found basically no difference
in performance
between the two different groups having
not read that particular study yet
i am curious what other factors might
need to be taken into account so for
example
how engaged were students in this yes
their performance might be the same but
do they walk away from one of the groups
going okay well computer science
is boring or do they walk away from the
group going yeah this was awesome i
really want to do that and the other
group is just kind of indifferent
but i don't know because i haven't read
that study yet they do note however that
quote the unplugged first group
showed self-efficacy and a wider
vocabulary of commands
end quote page 26 so
maybe there are more benefits from doing
a pairing of the two so the next section
of this paper is titled goals of
introducing cs to young learners
so the first goal is it's not just
knowledge and skills so the author
argues that in order to address some of
the diversity issues that is going on in
the computing industry we need to reach
a wider range of individuals and that
unplugs might be one way to kind of
spark an interest in computer science
we also need to consider that not
everyone has access to devices
so in addition to the economic access
there might also be like philosophical
differences so some schools do not allow
devices
until a certain age group and then there
might be some legal considerations that
are
denying access so for example prison
inmates are not allowed access to some
computers
so in order to learn computer science in
those kind of contexts you need to
engage in something without a device so
unplugged works really well for that
and then again the author mentions that
computer science is more than
programming
all right so the next main section is
why does unplugged work for some
and not for others so there are three
main things that the author mentions one
is that context is important
so if you're doing unplugged in a
computer lab kids might be like well why
are we doing this when we have computers
right there and we can actually learn
how to code
and if you instead do it in a gym they
might be more excited
just because of the novel experience of
it they're in a different space
doing something that is new we also need
to
consider the context in relation to
individual learners
so are they actually excited about this
what do they value what are they
expecting to get out of this
so the next thing to consider is that cs
unplugged is not a curriculum
even though it's sometimes treated that
way the author argues that it is instead
a pedagogical approach
quote indeed interventions that
attempted to use cs unplugged as a
self-contained curriculum
instead of weaving it into the existing
one have been found to be ineffective
end quote
now question that i have is ineffective
at what
maybe it's ineffective at teaching a
concept of practice but maybe it's super
effective at getting kids motivated to
continue their learning in computer
science also what kind of effect does it
have down the road so if
you only did unplugged in elementary
space let's say
and then a kid gets to middle school
maybe they're super excited to engage in
programming with devices
compared to maybe students who were
already programming all through
middle school using devices but i don't
know this is me being a devil's advocate
and just expressing that i don't
actually know what it was ineffective at
and why all right so the last thing is
that teachers need support so cs is
constantly updating there's many new
things that teachers need
to learn so unplugged might be a way
that we can help teachers
who do not have a background in computer
science or don't have the time
necessarily to stay up to date on
everything
providing some unplugged lessons might
be able to help them
learn concepts and teach them in an easy
and user-friendly way
for teachers who are new to computer
science
all right so i'm going to end this
particular paper by giving a quote from
page 27 which is quote
when unplugged was created 30 years ago
it was designed for quite a different
context to the curricula now appearing
around the world
and yet it has emerged as a useful tool
as part of the many approaches available
for engaging a variety of students in
computer science
a combination of approaches is needed if
we wish to engage a diverse range of
students
we must support teachers to adopt an
appropriate selection
of teaching methods in quote all right
so this particular quote kind of leads
into
my lingering questions or thoughts so
i'm going to share some things that i
was thinking of when i read this
particular paper
so a question that i have for you
listener is how do you use unplugged in
your classes
and when do you use it and when do you
not use it
so some things that you might consider
some of the things that i considered
when i was determining whether i should
or should not use
unplugged in relation to the classes
that i was working with
or questions like okay so unplug lessons
can be a lot of fun
but does that mean we should use them in
place of coding with the device when
should we do that when should we not do
that
is it to introduce a particular concept
or practice
or is it used to reinforce a concept or
practice
is it when you're trying to introduce
something you can't easily do on a
device
or it might take too long to code
something or program something and
instead you just want kids to
get the main idea but not necessarily
know how to recreate that thing
so for me i personally used it to
reinforce an idea
so i situated it within the middle of a
project that might use it
but unplugged was never used for the
sake of just doing unplugged
and i very rarely did it in advance of a
concept
it was basically prn which means like as
needed
so for example if some kids in the
classes that are working with were
all engaging on different projects in
different platforms and languages and i
noticed that they are having an issue
with a particular concept
i might introduce an unplugged lesson
that is related to that concept
to kind of help out that group of
students or an entire class so for
example in the lessons that i've created
at bootuppd.org
the unplugged section that's in each one
of the lesson plans
provides an example of where you could
maybe spend the first class
introducing a project and starting work
on it the second class is diving deeper
into it
maybe the third class is dedicated to
an unplugged lesson or a portion of that
as dedicated to an unplugged lesson that
really reinforces
what kids are learning in their project
and then the remaining classes or class
after that would encourage them to
continue to apply their understandings
within the project that they had already
started
so for example if this were a project
that took four days to work on
you might introduce the unplugged lesson
on lesson two or less than three
so that way it's situated within the
project itself
rather than decontextualized so this is
an
inspiration from james paul g in
particular who wrote a book on situated
language and learning and we discussed
this in the interview that i did with
brian brown so if you haven't checked
that out yet i link to that in the show
notes
and include links to g's books the
approach is basically
learning something when you need it
rather than in advance of application
all right so the way that g might
describe computational thinking or at
least the way that it's introduced where
it's often positioned before actual
application of understanding in a
programming platform is that's kind of
like saying okay we're going to play
this video game but before you actually
play the video game
you're going to read the entire
instruction manual so you're going to
learn how to do stuff that you can't do
yet
or isn't relevant to you at the moment
now that's a bit of an extreme because
usually unplugged focuses on one concept
rather than like all of them at once but
the approach
that i mentioned earlier with the
conditionals like if
i'm holding up a green pen it's going to
mean one thing and if i hold up a red
pen it means a different thing
that might not be relevant to a student
if they don't know well why would i
need to do that in my project if instead
they get to a point where they
are maybe working on a story and they're
like hey i want to make it so that when
they click on this button
it'll do this thing but if they click on
this other thing it'll do something else
and it'll give like different story
options
okay that's an excellent moment to say
cool we have a way that you can do that
using this thing called conditionals so
it situates that learning within it
so what i would actually like to see for
future research is
comparison of not just doing unplugged
before coding and comparing that to a
group where they're just coding
i want to also see a group where they do
unplugged situated within the middle of
a particular project so again
if let's say it takes five days to do a
project maybe doing the unplugged on
day two or day three rather than at the
beginning
seeing how that compares not only in
terms of performance but also in terms
of interest and motivation to want to
learn that concept
my guess is kids will be more interested
in learning it because they know they
need to know it
to actually apply it in their project at
least that's how it came across with the
kids that i worked with in the classes
that i was in
now another question to consider when
engaging in these unplugged is
when might you'd use unplugged without
situating it within
application of understanding on a device
so there are definitely moments where it
makes more sense to teach a concept
especially if you need to have students
understand it
so for example if you are trying to
cover all the standards which is
something we could problematize but i
want in this episode but if you're
trying to cover all the standards
some of them might not especially at the
younger grades you might not actually be
able to
create something with that particular
standard it's just learning a concept
and going okay i understand that but i'm
not necessarily going to make something
with that concept so maybe an unplugged
is really beneficial
in that moment another question that you
might consider is when might you just
use coding on its own so for example if
you are situating understandings within
a project
maybe you don't actually need unplugged
to reinforce an understanding or maybe
you do
regardless of which approach you take
and i'm not trying to argue that you
should do my approach to putting in the
middle of a project
because you might not be engaging in
project-based learning instead what i'm
arguing
is just consider the different ideas of
how you can
use the two in parallel or in
conjunction with each other
to reinforce understandings or introduce
a new concept
regardless of which option or options
you choose to do with kids
consider how do you engage in either
approach in a way that contextualizes or
situates learning
in particular how do you do so in a way
that allows students to apply their
understandings
beyond the one-off lesson so while i'm a
fan of computer science and i
love learning more about it i'm not a
fan of computer science for the sake of
learning computer science
so for example if you do a lesson where
it's about a particular concept or
practice
but kids aren't able to actually use
that understanding outside of that
lesson in itself
or outside of the classroom what was the
point of that
okay that was a really neat thing but
what am i going to use that
but that's my own biases in relation to
philosophical or pedagogical approaches
to education
so feel free to disagree with me and by
the way if you ever would like to
be a guest on the show you can press the
contact me button on my website
where we can talk about things that you
might disagree with me on everything in
education is gray and i'm just
presenting
my perspective while also trying to
consider other perspectives that i might
not agree with with the hopes that it
helps you in some way to
think through your own classes alright
so the questions that i was asking the
things that are sharing at the end
probably were longer than it would take
you to actually read the article itself
but i do highly recommend reading
through it
as it did lead to some thoughts for
myself that i'm still considering
and don't necessarily have a answer for
that i think is applicable
in all situations if you enjoyed this
episode please consider sharing with
somebody else
make sure you check out all the
resources on my website
and check out the free curriculum that i
create at bootuppd.org
stay tuned next week for another
interview and the following week for
another unpacking scholarship
episode hope you're all staying safe and
are having a wonderful week

Article

Bell, T. (2021). CS unplugged or coding classes? Perhaps a more appropriate question is “why not both”? Communications of the ACM, 64(5), 25–27.

My One Sentence Summary

This author argues there’s value in doing both unplugged and coding lessons.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

How do you use unplugged in your classes? When do/n’t you use unplugged in your classes?
When might you use unplugged without situating it within application of understanding on a device?
When might you use coding on it’s own?
How do you engage in either approach in a way that contextualizes or situates the learning?
- How do you do so in a way that allows students to apply understandings beyond the one-off lesson?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- Contemporary Venues of Curriculum Inquiry
  - In this episode I unpack an excerpt from Schubert’s (2008) publication titled “Curriculum inquiry,” which describes different venues or types of curriculum that educators and education researchers should consider.
- How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
  - In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
- Impact of the Plugged-in and Unplugged Chemistry Computational Thinking Modules on Achievement in Chemistry
  - In this episode I unpack Chongo, Osman, and Nayan’s (2021) publication titled “Impact of the plugged-in and unplugged chemistry computational thinking modules on achievement in chemistry,” which investigated achievement outcomes between a chemistry unit in three groups: 1) chemistry classes integrated with Scratch projects, 2) chemistry classes integrated with both unplugged and Scratch projects, and 3) chemistry classes with no focus on computational thinking.
- Introducing Coding through Tabletop Board Games and Their Digital Instantiations across Elementary Classrooms and School Libraries
  - In this episode I unpack Lee et al.'s (2020) experience report titled “Introducing coding through tabletop board games and their digital instantiations across elementary classrooms and school libraries," which investigates the transfer of understanding when students begin learning CS through a tabletop board game and switch to a digital coding environment.
- Performing Algorithms: Weaving as Promising Context for Computational Learning
  - In this episode I unpack Keune’s (2022) publication titled “Performing algorithms: Weaving as promising context for computational learning,” which explores weaving as a potential practice for exploring computer science concepts.
- Situated Language and Learning with Bryan Brown
  - In this interview Bryan Brown, we discuss the importance of language in education. In particular, we discuss the role of language in teaching and learning, discursive identity, situated language and learning, the importance of representation in education, the role of language on stress, how smartphones and virtual communication platforms (e.g., Zoom) could change learning, and many other topics relevant to CS education and learning.
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