Mark Sherriff, UVA CS professor, recommended SIGCSE to Zach and I as a great opportunity to tap into CS education at it’s best and he wasn’t wrong. It’s been awhile since I’ve been “just an attendee” at a conference and I must admit I really enjoyed the less stress, more learning opportunity feeling. For me the experience started off on just the right note with Gail Chapman’s keynote. She’s one of my CS edu heroines as a part of Exploring Computer Science. I share many hopes for the future of CS education and frustrations with its current reality with Gail. Here are some thoughts from her talk that resonated with me:
Learning is a uniquely personal experience. How we teach matters. Students need choice of the context, not just the interest of the teacher.
Tool after tool, language after language - what do I remember, I remember how to solve problems.
Rigor is often equated with harder code, teaching the same thing in a different language. It should be about solving problems.
Whether students build it or not, they need to engage in conversations about how tech is affecting their lives.
To date, CS has not been the great equalizer we hoped it would be. Providing new tools and not changing what we teach, just perpetuates inequities.
Make CS required and we think we’re done. It’s not enough to provide access, it’s about what happens in those classes, whose voices are we listening to.
We don’t have any idea of where CS will be in 20 years, not even 5 years.
Therefore, we continue to have a chicken & egg problem, how can you teach it well, if you don’t know what it is?
A Literature Review through the Lens of Computer Science Learning Goals
This literature review compared CS learning goals that have been theorized as important vs. what is actually being done by students in K-8 classrooms.
implementing code - natural language to coding language
evaluating solutions - efficiency
matching problems to solutions - identifying patterns & algorithms
code reading - interpreting
conditionals and flow of control
variables, data structure & input
using computational tools
matching problems to devices
To me the matched vs. unmatched goals could also relate to standalone CS vs. integrated/applied CS education. The unmatched goals are also the more open-ended ones that I think increase student engagement, but are more challenging to assess.
Arts Coding for Social Good: A Pilot Project for Middle-School Outreach
A group of students at Grinnell College wanted to explore whether introducing CS early to underrepresented students would increase their self-efficacy towards computing. They created a summer camp to explore this question. What they learned after their first year:
making tech camp more inclusive - offer early drop-off & late pick-up, low fee/subsidize, lunch & snacks included, all tools freely available
tech camp surprises? kids have opinions & want to share; some kids just want to code; rename code camp because it limits girls interest
Diversity Barriers in K–12 Computer Science Education
learning curve, accessibility, structural change in school
interest in CS is correlated with teacher/parent recommendation, confidence & envisioning a job in CS
twice as many girls as boys say they are NOT AT ALL interested in studying CS
black & hispanic students are more likely to learn CS outside of the classroom in after-school clubs or groups
31% of girls say they NEVER see someone in the media doing CS who represents them
What are some barrier interventions:
move from lecture to active learning
culturally responsive teaching through POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning)
using browser-based computing tools is important for equity
ask students to reflect on their work & to give you feedback on which assignments resonate with them
There are many awesome resources shared in the TIDES: Teaching to Increase for Diversity & Equity in STEM presentation. Unfortunately this program is no longer running.
Mitch Resnick, another CS edu hero of mine, shared the impact of Seymour Papert’s legacy on the work at the MIT Media Lab, Lego Education & beyond.
Interested in Class, but Not in the Hallway
What are the goals for #CS4All?
How student interest impacts CS edu?
interest is not a binary switch - situational interest (prompted by a place or environment) & individual interest (brought into environment by individual)
within there is triggered interest (engagement of a person with the domain) & sustained interest (ongoing, long-term seeking of activities over time)
move from triggered interest to more sustained individual interest
Designing and Developing A Modern K–12 CS Framework
#CS4All is at it’s heart, an education reform movement
why do I have to learn this (loops, conditions, fill-in-the blank standard)? the K-12 CS framework provides the answer
diversity is built into the framework
How to Plan & Run Effective Teacher Professional Development
Finally on Saturday afternoon, I attended a train-the-trainer workshop facilitated by Barbara Ericsson (another CS heroine) & Ria Galanos (a new CS heroine). They provided a wealth of information in an easily digestible format. The timing couldn’t be better as we prepare to launch Learn to Learn IV: CS Institute this summer at STAB.
It was also fun to meet some folks in person who inspire me on twitter: @DuPriestMath (CS educator, read her SIGCSE reflections), @lsudol (CS edu advocate), @zgalant (co-founder of @CodeHS), & @MrYongpradit (Chief Academy Office at code.org).
