Empowering K–12 Students with Disabilities to Learn Computational Thinking and Computer Programming

In this episode I unpack Israel et al.’s (2015) publication titled “Empowering K–12 students with disabilities to learn computational thinking and computer programming,” which is a short article that provides some strategies to increase access and engagement among students with disabilities in CS education contexts.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    each episode of this podcast is either a

    solo episode where i unpack some

    scholarship in relation to cs education

    or an interview with a guest or multiple

    guests

    in this week's particular episode i am

    unpacking a paper that is by maya israel

    quentin werfel jamie pearson

    sardine shabab and tanya tapia

    apologies if i mispronounce any names

    this particular paper is titled

    empowering k-12 students with

    disabilities to learn computational

    thinking and computer programming

    if i were to summarize this particular

    paper into a single sentence i'd say

    that this short article provides some

    strategies to increase access and

    engagement among students with

    disabilities in cs education context

    this particular episode pairs very

    nicely with the episode that released

    last week which was the interview with

    jesse rathgeber as well as the episode

    that unpacks the udl framework which is

    the universal design for learning

    framework and then even the interview

    with andreas steffik i include links to

    all of those in the show notes and if

    you click on the links to the article

    citations in the show notes it'll take

    you directly to this particular paper as

    well as to the google scholar profiles

    of the authors on this particular

    publication you can find those by

    clicking the link in the description of

    the app that you're listening to this on

    or by simply going to jaredlery.com and

    clicking on podcasts while you're on my

    website you'll find hundreds if not

    thousands of free resources for cs

    educators and scholars including a link

    to bootuppd.org which is the free coding

    curriculum that i create for scratching

    this crash junior all right so at the

    start of this particular paper the

    authors mentioned that there is a push

    for stem related fields

    at least at the time of this publication

    which was 2015 and computer science in

    particular because there are many open

    jobs that are unfilled at this moment so

    many people are encouraging computer

    science in k-12 context in order to fill

    these unmet jobs now the authors also

    mentioned that there are many other

    important reasons to engage in computer

    science that are outside of just wanting

    to get a job such as increasing

    collaborative problem solving building

    higher order thinking skills increasing

    positive attitudes about computer

    science and computing skills and then

    creating real world contexts in which

    you can actually apply mathematics

    algorithmic problem solving

    collaborative inquiry etc now they cite

    several different authors on page 45

    related to each of those so if you're

    interested check out those particular

    publications by those authors so because

    in the last few years computer science

    has a big push and many educators who

    don't have a background in computer

    science are beginning to learn computer

    science the authors argue that many

    teachers just simply don't know well

    what is computational thinking and

    computer programming and in particular

    to this article how do you teach

    computational thinking and computer

    programming to k-12 students who have

    disabilities here's a quote from page 46

    quote for example students with

    disabilities may struggle with abstract

    computing processes such as a multi-step

    procedure for using if then commands and

    with new vocabulary such as algorithm in

    quote a little bit further down on page

    disabilities must now consider how to

    best support their learners within these

    inclusive educational environments so

    that they can meaningfully engage in and

    benefit from computing education in

    quote so to address this the authors

    provide some strategies to increase

    access and engagement in computing

    education so the first one that they

    mention on page 46 is teaching competing

    through the udl framework and again i

    include a link to a podcast that i did

    that unpacks that framework in more

    depth so make sure you check that out in

    the show notes however here's a quote on

    page 46 that very briefly summarizes it

    so quote universal design for learning

    udl is an instructional planning

    framework for meaningfully engaging a

    range of learners including students

    with disabilities by proactively

    addressing barriers to learning in quote

    so in this article they mentioned three

    particular principles that are central

    to the udl framework so the first one is

    that there are multiple means of

    representation so here's a quote from

    page 46 that kind of summarizes what

    this looks like in k12 cs context quote

    depending on their needs students can

    observe the teacher model the use of

    computing software such as scratch or

    alice see the code that the teacher

    created afterward watch videos and demos

    of that code used online or break apart

    existing code that their teacher modeled

    in quote so the second principle that

    they mentioned for udl is that there are

    multiple methods of action and

    expression here's a quote that kind of

    summarizes this from page 47 quote there

    is not typically only one way of coding

    or demonstrating understanding of that

    code students can use programming

    software in different ways including

    creating their own projects replicating

    the teacher's program expanding on the

    teachers program or using templates that

    the teacher created with partially

    created codes they can also explain how

    they designed their program and provide

    directions to help peers replicate their

    programs end quote then the third

    principle of udl is that there are

    multiple ways to engage students so the

    authors recommend providing choices for

    students that involve like the same

    skills that you would learn but allow

    you to engage with those skills in

    different ways and they recommend

    encouraging collaboration now on page 48

    there is a chart that talks about the

    udl framework in terms of each one of

    these three principles and in that

    particular chart they have different

    categories under it so for example under

    multiple means of representation they

    discuss providing options for perception

    providing options for language

    mathematic expressions and symbols and

    providing options for comprehension and

    for each one of those three they include

    multiple suggestions on how you can do

    that they do the same thing for the

    second principle which is the multiple

    means of action and expression so they

    discuss how to provide options for

    physical action options for expression

    and communication and options for

    executive functions and then they do

    that for the third principle multiple

    means of engagement so they provide some

    options for recruiting interest

    sustaining effort and persistence and

    then for self-regulation so for each one

    of those they have two to three

    different suggestions in there so i

    recommend taking a look at the

    publication itself so you can take a

    look at each of those suggestions so

    hopefully that served as a teaser to

    actually go and read this particular

    article and if not maybe these other

    suggestions will encourage you to do

    that so the next thing that they

    recommend is to balance out explicit

    instruction with open inquiry activities

    so they point out that some students are

    really good at following multi-step

    directions within some kind of a complex

    task or project while others are less so

    here's a quote from page 48 quote

    explicit instruction can reduce students

    frustrations in computational tasks

    because each step is explained concisely

    and monitored until students have

    mastered the step allowing students

    ample opportunities to develop and

    practice skills that have been taught is

    an essential component of delivering

    effective instruction with that said it

    is important to balance explicit

    instruction of discrete skills with

    open-ended inquiry for students to have

    the opportunity to use skills learned

    through explicit instruction to engage

    in open-ended problem-solving computing

    tasks in quotes so i've mentioned many

    times on this particular podcast i

    really like the approaches

    around rhizomatic learning around

    self-directed etc making it so that it's

    open-ended kids can explore their

    interests

    however some students don't do very well

    with that they prefer to have explicit

    instructions while other students don't

    do well with explicit instructions so

    one of the things that i do with boot

    ups curriculum that i create is make it

    so that you can go with explicit

    instructions where i walk you through

    step by step how to do something with a

    video or through a visual guide or even

    through text for educators or you can do

    more open-ended you can like reverse

    engineer a project or you can just look

    at it and go um okay i want to create my

    own version that is like a variation on

    this theme so we encourage that in the

    lesson plans this is a great form of

    differentiation and because the

    resources are readily available there if

    somebody is like midway through like an

    open-ended project and they're stuck on

    like i don't know how to do this thing

    you can give them an explicit

    instruction or a video resource or a

    visual guide or whatever to help some

    kids out so rather than buying 100 into

    a particular method or approach or

    pedagogy it's instead looking at each

    individual student and where they're at

    in that particular moment and trying to

    find a pedagogy that best aligns with

    that so instead of saying i'm a 100

    constructionist i will never do explicit

    instruction you could say well yeah i

    prefer constructionist and it works well

    for most of my students but some

    students in particular moments of time

    it does not work well for them for

    whatever reason and if you want to hear

    a little bit more about that check out

    the interview i did with john stapleton

    which is titled cs educator as dungeon

    master with john stapleton or check out

    the unpacking scholarship episode that i

    did titled on methodology and computer

    science teaching as critical and

    reflective praxis those are both very

    relevant to what i just mentioned now on

    page 49 they provide some examples of

    explicit instruction in computing

    education so you can check out that

    particular table or figure to get some

    more ideas now one of the interesting

    things that they note about like

    explicit instruction and open-ended

    projects is this particular quote from

    page 49. quote it should be noted in

    computing students will know if they

    used code as intended based on whether

    the inputted code produces the expected

    outcome this is different from other

    areas of instruction such as writing a

    grammatically correct paragraph because

    in traditional instruction the students

    may not always know if their work is

    correct end quote that's an excellent

    point so if you are unsure about

    engaging in some kind of open-ended

    projects and you are new to computer

    science know that students are

    constantly getting feedback every time

    they run or compile their program

    because they'll immediately be able to

    figure out oh did it work as intended or

    not all right so the next strategy that

    they recommend is encouraging students

    to actually collaborate with each other

    and engage in cooperative learning now

    here's a quote from page 50 that

    explains why they recommend this quote

    it requires active student involvement

    and relies on student interaction as a

    primary means for promoting complex

    reasoning critical thought and the

    development of problem-solving skills it

    can span across all grade levels from

    elementary through high school and it

    fits well with the context of computing

    education for example teachers can form

    groups and assign roles for students to

    program roles could include animation

    leader content leader coding leader and

    sound effects leader in quote now the

    author has mentioned that this is

    important because some students might do

    really well in one aspect of programming

    but might struggle in another aspect and

    that goes for anyone not just students

    with disabilities so it's just good

    pedagogical practice so if students are

    able to work together in groups with

    complementary strengths and weaknesses

    in terms of understanding or abilities

    in programming or computer science this

    can kind of help out some students who

    might struggle in some areas while

    others might excel in those areas and

    the next strategy that they recommend is

    student-to-student help seeking so

    having it so that students are asking

    each other questions and getting help

    from each other is a really good

    strategy that i recommend for example i

    had a thing up on the board that for

    every class that said your first thing

    to do when you need help is to check the

    resources so if like if there was a help

    section or a manual or something like a

    tutorial or a guide to help you check

    that again see if it answers your

    question the next two steps were to ask

    two different peers in the class or some

    assistance and then the final step was

    to ask myself if they needed some help

    often when they would ask me a

    particular question that i knew another

    student can answer i would pair them

    with it be like oh you want help with

    player controls okay well suzy over here

    is really good at player controls so

    susie can you help out johnny over here

    with this particular problem that

    they're having however one of the things

    that the authors mention and then i

    really resonates with me is that you

    need to encourage some kind of

    collaborative discussions and maybe even

    some prompts or some like frameworks for

    how to engage in this student-to-student

    peer-to-peer learning and sharing in

    particular pointing out like hey don't

    just go over and solve the problem for

    them walk them through how they might be

    able to solve this so ask some questions

    and things like that so the authors

    mention a particular framework by park

    and lash and so this particular

    framework asks some questions so here

    are the four questions and this is from

    page 50 quote what are you trying to do

    what have you tried already what else do

    you think you can try and what would

    happen if dot dot in quote so having

    students ask those questions to their

    peers can be really beneficial and it

    encourages collaboration and discussion

    around competing in computer science all

    right so the last strategy that they

    recommend in this particular article is

    to experiment with different software

    and hardware to increase accessibility

    there's a bunch of different assistive

    devices and technologies that can be

    used to help out students like for

    example in the interview with andreas

    steffek we talk about assistive

    technologies for voters who are blind

    but this particular article provides

    some suggestions for some tools that

    might assist with fine motor challenges

    memory challenges and complex problem

    solving challenges they recommend taking

    a look at the bottom right corner of

    page 51 to check out each one of those

    all right so this particular paper ends

    with a very short closing on some of

    their final thoughts which leads me to

    segue into some of my lingering

    questions or thoughts after having read

    this particular short article so the

    first one that i have is what strategies

    did jesse rathgeber mention in the

    previous podcast that might work well

    with the strategies mentioned in this

    particular article so if you haven't

    listened to that particular episode it's

    about two-thirds of the way through i

    believe that jesse starts mentioning

    some strategies in particular that are

    really beneficial for working with

    students with disabilities however jesse

    didn't mention everything and the

    authors didn't mention everything that

    might work really well so another

    question that i have is what other

    strategies have you tried that worked

    well with the students that you work

    with and how might you be able to share

    those with other cs educators in the

    field whether it's presenting at csta or

    a different computer science conference

    or sharing it on social media or in some

    kind of a group like csta's community

    community that they are continuing to

    develop etc how might you be able to

    share those particular strategies and

    engage in a discussion on computer

    science and students with disabilities

    and the last lingering question that i

    have that i kind of hinted at earlier is

    how might these strategies benefit all

    students so in other words i'm at these

    strategies benefit students not just

    students with disabilities when reading

    through this i was like yeah this is

    just really good pedagogical practices

    that are great for individualized

    learning and not just students who might

    have a particular iep 504 plan or

    whatever so one of the things that i

    would recommend when ever reading an

    article like this or listening to

    somebody talk about any kind of a

    framework that is geared towards like a

    particular group or demographic or

    marginalized identity or whatever is try

    and think of how might that strategy

    just be beneficial for a broader context

    than a specific demographic so in other

    words how might you create like a

    pedagogical toolbox that you can draw

    from for any given moment to assist

    students when you are working with them

    or facilitating some kind of learning

    experience as not every single tool is

    going to work for every single student

    or every single context so you might

    have a strategy that worked well for a

    student then you come back a week or two

    later and you try that strategy again

    with the same student and it might not

    work well because the context is

    different alright so those are some of

    my lingering thoughts i hope you enjoyed

    listening to this particular article i

    do recommend reading it and i include

    links to it directly in the show notes

    at jaredaleri.com if you enjoyed this

    episode please consider sharing it with

    somebody or providing a review on

    whatever platform you're listening to

    this on i ask that because it simply

    helps others find it as it gets promoted

    more on whatever platform you're

    listening to this on stay tuned next

    week for another episode and thank you

    so much for listening to this week's

    episode i hope you're all staying safe

    and are having a wonderful week

Article

Israel, M., Wherfel, Q. M., Pearson, J., Shehab, S., & Tapia, T. (2015). Empowering K–12 Students with Disabilities to Learn Computational Thinking and Computer Programming. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 48(1), 45–53.


My One Sentence Summary

This short article provides some strategies to increase access and engagement among students with disabilities in CS education contexts.


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • What strategies did Jesse Rathgeber mention in the previous podcast that might work well with the strategies mentioned in this article?

    • What other strategies have you tried that worked well for the students you work with?

  • How might these strategies benefit all students (i.e., not just students with disabilities)?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

  • Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode

    • Accessibility and Inclusion in CS Education with Maya Israel

      • In this interview with Maya Israel, we discuss Maya’s shift from special education into CS education, the importance of universal design for learning (UDL) in CS classes, understanding the spectrum of accessibility for students with a diverse set of needs, the current status of accessibility and inclusion within the field of CS education, problematize deficit framings of students with disabilities, and so much more.

    • Accessible CS Education through Evidence-based Programming Languages with Andreas Stefik

      • In this interview with Andreas Stefik, we discuss the importance of using evidence-based programming languages, problems with the lack of replication in CS education scholarship and academia in general, the importance of designing for accessibility and disabilities, lessons learned designing Quorum (an accessible programming language and platform), and much more.

    • CS Educator as Dungeon Master with Jon Stapleton

      • In this interview with Jon Stapleton, we discuss metaphors for education and facilitating, the importance of community and navigating inappropriate content online, how programming languages and platforms influence learning, theories and philosophies that inform Jon’s practice, critical code studies, and much more.

    • Depression, Suicide, and Computer Science Education

      • In honor of national suicide prevention week, in this week’s episode I read a paper I wrote on the topic of depression, suicide, and computer science education. This paper is formatted into the following sections: 1) A vignette on my own experiences coping with depression and suicide; 2) Statistics on depression and suicide as it relates to various populations computer science educators work with; 3) A vignette of a computer science educator helping a student through depression and suicidal thoughts; 4) Risk factors and warning signs; 5) Suggestions for providing support; 6) A vignette from a computer science educator's perspective on a student who committed suicide; and 7) Closing thoughts.

    • Education for Liberation with Martin Urbach

      • In this interview with Martin Urbach, we discuss the importance of intentionality in education, exploring the social/political/historical contexts that can be explored in an educational experience, student choice and agency in the design of a space or experience, how to fight oppressive systems in education from the inside, committing to continuing to learn and grow on a daily basis, and much more.

    • Exploring (Dis)Ability and Connecting with the Arts with Jesse Rathgeber

      • In this interview with Jesse Rathgeber, we discuss what educators should know about (dis)ability culture and research, person-first language vs identity-first language, suggestions for combating ableism through anti-ableist practices, how the arts and CS can come together and learn from each other (great for sharing with arts educators who might be interested in CS), and much more.

    • Intersections of Popular Musicianship and Computer Science Practices

      • In this episode I unpack my (2020) publication titled “Intersections of popular musicianship and computer science practices,” which discusses potential implications of hardware and software practices that blur the boundaries between music making and computer science.

    • Lifelong Kindergarten with Mitch Resnick

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    • Music Making in Scratch: High Floors, Low Ceilings, and Narrow Walls?

      • In this episode I unpack Payne and Ruthmann’s (2019) publication titled “Music making in Scratch: High floors, low ceilings, and narrow walls,” which problematizes the limitations of making music with Scratch.

    • On "Methodolatry" and [Computer Science] Teaching as Critical and Reflective Praxis

      • In this episode I unpack Regelski’s (2002) publication titled “On ‘methodolatry’ and music teaching as critical and reflective praxis,” which problematizes the lack of philosophy, theory, and professional praxis in music education. Although this article is published in a music education journal, I discuss potential implications for computer science educators.

    • Planning K-8 Computer Science through the UDL Framework

      • In this episode I unpack Israel, Lash, Bergeron, and Ray’s publication titled “Planning K-8 computer science through the UDL framework,” which discusses the potential for using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in CS classes.

    • Rhizomatic Learning with Catherine Bornhorst, Jon Stapleton, and Katie Henry

      • In this panel discussion with Catherine Bornhorst, Jon Stapleton, and Katie Henry, we discuss what rhizomatic learning is and looks like in formalized educational spaces, affordances and constraints of rhizomatic learning, how to support individual students within a group setting, standards and rhizomatic learning, why few people know and use rhizomatic learning approaches, how to advocate for and learn more about rhizomatic learning, and much more.

    • Should I Say “Disabled People” or “People with Disabilities”?

      • In this episode I unpack Sharif, McCall, and Bolante’s (2022) publication titled “Should I say “disabled people” or “people with disabilities”? Language preferences of disabled people between identity- and person-first language,” which summarizes findings from a survey on participant preferences for language around disability and an analysis on language in conference abstracts.

    • 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.

    • The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance

      • In this episode I unpack Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer’s (1993) publication titled “The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance,” which debunks the notion of innate abilities within a domain and describes the role of deliberate practice in achieving expert performance.

    • More episodes related to (dis)ability

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