All posts by Pati Ruiz

Suggestions for Supporting Staff in a Distance Learning Environment

July 27, 2020Guest Author, Learning, School Administrators, Teachers & ResearchersPati Ruiz

by Kip Glazer Ed.D.

Kip Glazer is the principal at San Marcos High School. She has an Ed.D. in Learning Technologies and wrote this to share her thoughts and expertise with district leadership. The leaders were very open to the suggestions. Full disclosure: Santa Barbara Unified School District is entering a consulting relationship with Digital Promise and working with some of the CIRCL Educators in our Fall 2020 Professional Learning.

Summary

This article identifies the four major types of needs of a high school during distance learning. It suggests that we apply the Core Conceptual Framework and the TPACK framework when creating teacher professional development (PD); we choose a different type of learning management system; we curate research-based teaching practices intentionally and systemically; and we implement robust assessment and accountability measures.

Introduction

As a teacher, administrator, and scholar, my professional interests have always centered around developing strong pedagogical skills among our teachers. This document is intended to provide our district leaders with some suggestions to improve our instructional practices as we embark on distance learning. I wrote this from the perspective of a high school teacher and administrator based on my professional experience and expertise.

Background

In addition to writing a dissertation on game-based learning after participating in a hybrid program and engaged in different game-based learning projects, I have experience in a variety of asynchronous and synchronous learning and teaching activities. For example, my former students in Bakersfield, many of whom were English Language Learners or Bilingual students, participated in the asynchronous online writing mentoring project with 6th graders in Chicago. These experiences have afforded me a unique perspective on effective distance and hybrid learning.

Scope

There are numerous topics that are related to distance learning such as online security, student data privacy, and cyberbullying. Although I acknowledge that those topics are important, this document will primarily focus on online instructional practices in relation to teacher professional development (PD) and subsequent quality control of their teaching.

Needs

As the District implements 100% distance learning next school year, we must address the following needs:

Needs of all learners including technological, linguistic, cultural, emotional, physical, and academic.
Needs of parents who would want consistent, calibrated, highly-responsive, and personalized instructions for their students.
Needs of teachers who provide distance learning to the students who they have never met and whose needs range from not having basic technology access to having an abundance of at-home resources in all areas.
Needs of the community that is looking to the District to provide comprehensive yet flexible instructional solutions that will maximize all available financial and human resources.

Considerations

As we work to address the above needs, we must consider the following:

Social-emotional needs of the staff, students, and parents.
- Successful distance learning requires strong relationships between the students and teachers, and we must address this issue prior to the beginning of any content-based instruction.
Choosing and establishing a coherent instructional framework and/or theoretical framework to build our instruction practices.
- We must consider hardware, software, and how we leverage both hardware and software in a learning environment to achieve an optimal result. In order for our technology department to be effective, we must have resources, systems, and structures to address all three components that are grounded in a sound theoretical framework. This allows us to avoid chasing the latest and greatest technology tools unnecessarily. All leaders must act as a noise-canceler to be able to lead the teaching force by evaluating and advocating tools that meet our chosen instructional framework.
Quality control over instructional practices.
- One of the biggest and most important tasks is to improve the overall quality of our instructions; we must consider this to be the moral imperative in whatever condition we educate our students.
On-going monitoring of effectiveness beyond teacher- or student-preference
- We must develop a rigorous evaluation protocol that reveals the effectiveness of a tool or instructional practices.

Suggestions

To address the needs above, I suggest the following:

1. Teacher PD

Address the needs of the teachers based on a Core Conceptual Framework immediately and urgently.
- According to Desimone (2009), effective teacher PD must (1) be content-focused (i.e. PD activities centered around the content that the teachers teach and how their students will learn it), (2) include active learning (i.e. participating in lesson studies, or group review and grading of sample student work), (3) be coherent (i.e. PD aligned with the teachers belief and knowledge; PD aligned with the goals of the district, site, and department based on a common instructional focus), (4) be over a period of time (i.e. PD spread different activities over a semester rather than a few days), and (5) facilitate collective participation (i.e. PD provided for a group of teachers who teach the same subject or in the same professional learning community).
Adopt the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) Framework as the singular framework for teaching.
- Use the TPACK framework to guide the creation and evaluation of all PD offerings. TPACK framework addresses the needs for seamless integration of three major elements – technology, pedagogy, and content – in today’s educational environment (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). The TPACK model illustrates the importance of balancing all three such elements in forming a dynamic learning environment to improve student learning (Harris, Mishra, & Koehler, 2009; Mishra & Koehler, 2006).

The TPACK image. Adapted from “The TPACK Image,” by M. Koehler & P. Mishra, 2012.

Provide personalized learning in all three areas of the TPACK Framework based on the Core Conceptual Framework.
- We should ensure that any online PD platform is able to provide the necessary training for our teacher to address all three areas of knowledge while addressing the needs of adult learners.

2. Technological tool

Choose a singular learning platform that is robust and flexible.
- The District must choose a robust and flexible LMS that includes tools that strongly maximize student participation such as chats, wikis, forums, and blogs. It must allow an easy integration of tools such as all Google Apps and various video conferencing software. It must also provide detailed analytics and click counts that allow easy monitoring of the students’ activities. Finally, it must have tools to allow family engagement.

3. Teaching and learning practices

Curate instructional practices that reflect best-practice that are based on research and data.
- Many resources that have been shared on our internal Google site Learning at Home for Teachers website are about digital tools. We must expand the site to include (1) the pacing guides, (2) major benchmarks, (3) assessment tools including performance rubrics, (4) the best practices, and (5) unit plans. For example, rather than just sharing the rubric for technology readiness for students, the site should include how a teacher would use it in his or her lesson. Rather than sharing the short videos on a topic, the site should provide examples of them being used in a lesson.

4. Assessment and accountability

Continue collecting data around the effectiveness of each tool, pedagogical practices, and content acquisition.
- One of the benefits of distance learning is that we will have access to a great deal of data; therefore, we must build robust data analytics to quickly identify the area for growth so that we can respond with solutions.
Provide a clear and concise plan for common practices among teachers.
- Distance learning, no matter how well planned, can be and is often a disorienting experience. Just as we ask our teachers to reduce the amount of content and set explicit expectations for their students, we must set 2-3 very clear expectations and adhere to those expectations.

Conclusion

This document is in no way a comprehensive document for distance learning. Because distance learning is not likely to go away any time soon, we must act now. We cannot afford to lose any valuable time before creating a comprehensive instructional plan, especially for our high school seniors who will experience significant loss. I look forward to working with our staff and district leaders to continue improving our practices.

Additional resources:

Assessment and Data toolbox from Dallas ISD

UDL for Distance Learning

References:

Common Sense Media. (2020, April 07). Everything You Need to Teach Digital Citizenship. Retrieved July 18, 2020, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship

Common Sense Media. (n.d.) Screen Time. Retrieved June 18, 2020, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/screen-time

Desimone, L. M. (2009). Improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: Toward better conceptualizations and measures. Educational researcher, 38(3), 181-199.

Educational Technology. (2012). The TPACK Model. Retrieved July 18, 2020, from http://www.rt3nc.org/edtech/the-tpack-model/

Harris, J., Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2009). Teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge and learning activity types: Curriculum-based technology integration reframed. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 41(4), 393-416. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ844273.pdf

Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70. Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol9/iss1/general/article1.cfm

Magid, L., & Gallagher, K. (n.d.). The Educator’s Guide to Social Media. Retrieved July 18, 2020, from https://www.connectsafely.org/eduguide/

Michigan Virtual. (2020, March) Teaching Continuity Readiness Rubric. Retrieved June 18, 2020, from https://michiganvirtual.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Teacher-Continuity-Readiness-Rubric.pdf

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00684.x

Quillen, I. (2013, March 7). Student Mentors: How 6th and 12th Graders Learn From Each Other. KQED Mind/Shift. Retrieved July 18, 2020, from https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/27542/student-mentors-how-6th-and-12th-graders-learn-from-each-other#more-27542

Rappolt-Schlichtmann, G. (2020, March 18). Distance Learning: 6 UDL Best Practices for Online Learning. Retrieved July 18, 2020, from https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/for-educators/universal-design-for-learning/video-distance-learning-udl-best-practices?_ul=1%2A1vi266z%2Adomain_userid%2AYW1wLUhYa3ZJQUFrcVNWb29EM0RzaExjUGc

Secondary Remote Learning Resources (n.d.) Learning at Home – Teachers. Retrieved July 18, 2020, from https://sites.google.com/sbunified.org/learning-at-home/secondary?authuser=2

StopBullying. (2020, May 07). What Is Cyberbullying? Retrieved July 18, 2020, from https://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/what-is-it

Sung, K. (2015, October 27). Books-to-Games: Transforming Classic Novels Into Role Playing Adventures. KQED Mind/Shift. Retrieved July 18, 2020, from https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/42538/books-to-games-transforming-classic-novels-into-role-playing-adventures

The PL Toolbox (n.d.) The PL Toolbox. Retrieved July 18, 2020, from https://www.thepltoolbox.com/

Harnessing Educational Data: Discussing Dr. Safiya Noble’s Keynote from Cyberlearning 2019

July 21, 2020AI in Education, Book Club, Cyberlearning, School Administrators, Teachers & Researchers, Written by: Amar Abbott, Written by: Angie Kalthoff, Written by: Judi Fusco, Written by: Pati Ruiz, Written by: Sarah HamptonPati Ruiz

By Pati Ruiz, Sarah Hampton, Judi Fusco, Amar Abbott, and Angie Kalthoff

In October 2019 the CIRCL Educators gathered in Alexandria, Virginia for Cyberlearning 2019: Exploring Contradictions in Achieving Equitable Futures (CL19). For many of us on the CIRCL Educators’ team it was the first opportunity for us to meet in person after working collaboratively online for years. In addition, CL19 provided us with opportunities to explore learning in the context of working with technology and meet with researchers with diverse expertise and perspectives. We explored the tensions that arise as research teams expand the boundaries of learning, and explored how cyberlearning research might be applied in practice.

One of the topics, we thought a lot about at CL19, is algorithms. We had the opportunity to hear from keynote speaker Safiya Noble, an Associate Professor at UCLA, and author of a best-selling book on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in commercial search engines, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press). In her Keynote, The Problems and Perils of Harnessing Big Data for Equity & Justice, Dr. Noble described the disturbing findings she uncovered when she started investigating algorithms related to search. She was not satisfied with the answer that the way algorithms categorized people, particularly girls of color, was what “the public” wanted. She dug in deeper and what she said really made us think.

This keynote is related to some of the conversations we’re having about Artificial Intelligence (AI), so we decided to re-watch the recorded version and discuss the implications of harnessing Big Data for students, teachers, schools, and districts. Big Data is crucial in much work related to AI. Algorithms are crucial. We bring this into our series on AI because even though math and numbers seem like they are not culturally-biased, there are ways that they are and can be used to promote discrimination. In this post, we don’t summarize the keynote, but we tell you what really got us thinking. We encourage you to watch it too.

Besides discussing algorithms for search, Dr. Noble also discusses implications of technology, data, and algorithms in the classroom. For example, Dr. Noble shared how she breaks down how a Learning Management System works for her students so that they know how the technology they are using can inform their professors of how often and how long they log into the system (among other things). She said they were often surprised that their teachers could learn these things. She went on to say:

“These are the kinds of things that are not transparent, even to the students that many of us are working with and care about so deeply. “

Another idea that particularly resonated with us, as teachers, from the talk is the social value of forgetting. Sometimes there is value in digitally preserving data, but sometimes there is more value in NOT documenting it.

“These are the kinds of things when we think about, what does it mean to just collect everything? Jean–François Blanchette writes about the social value of forgetting. There’s a reason why we forget, and it’s why juvenile records, for example, are sealed and don’t follow you into your future so you can have a chance at a future. What happens when we collect, when we use these new models that we’re developing, especially in educational contexts? I shudder to think that my 18-year-old self and the nonsense papers (quite frankly who’s writing a good paper when they’re 18) would follow me into my career? The private relationship of feedback and engagement that I’m trying to have with the faculty that taught me over the course of my career or have taught you over the course of your career, the experimentation with ideas that you can only do in that type of exchange between you and your instructor, the person you’re learning from, that being digitized and put into a system, a system that in turn could be commercialized and sold at some point, and then being data mineable. These are the kinds of real projects that are happening right now.”

We are now thinking a lot about how to help students and teachers better understand how our digital technology tools work, how we should balance the cost of using technology to help learners with the potential problem of hyper-datafication of saving everything and never letting a learner move past some of their history.

As we think through this tension, and other topics in the keynote, some of the questions that came up for us include:

What information is being collected from our students and their families/homes and why? Where does the information go?
Who is creating the app that is collecting the data? Are they connected to other programs/companies that can benefit from the data?
What guidelines for privacy does the software company follow? FERPA/COPPA? Do there need to be more or updated standards? What policies aren’t yet in place that we need to protect students?
What kinds of data is being digitally documented that could still be available years after a student has graduated? How could that impact them in job searches? Or, what happens when our students, who have documented their whole lives digitally, want to run for public office?
There are well-documented protocols for destroying students’ physical work, so what documented protocols are in place for their digital work?
Are school devices (e.g., Chromebooks or iPads) that contain student sensitive data being shared? Are all devices wiped between school years?
- Students clean out their desks and lockers at the end of the school year, should we be teaching them to clean out their devices?
- Do students have an alternative to using software or devices if they or their families have privacy concerns? Should they?
Is someone in your district (or school) accountable for privacy evaluation, software selection, and responsible use?
- How are teachers being taught what to look for and evaluate in software?

In future posts, we’ll cover some more of what Dr. Noble suggested based on her work including the following points she made:

(Re)consider the effect of hyper-datafication
Resist making issues of justice and ethics an afterthought or additive
Protect vulnerable people (students) from surveillance and data profiling
Fund critical digital media research, literacy programs, and education
Curate the indexable web, create multiple paths to knowledge
Reduce technology over-development and its impact on people and the planet
Never give up on the right things for the planet and the people

Finally, some of us have already picked up a copy of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism and if you read it, we would love to hear your thoughts about it. Tweet @CIRCLEducators. Also, let us know if you have questions or thoughts about the keynote and/or algorithms.

Strengthening Education Research: Connecting Teaching and the Learning Sciences

June 22, 2020Learning, Teachers & Researchers, Webinar, Written by: Judi Fusco, Written by: Pati RuizPati Ruiz

Take a look at the recorded session Digital Promise learning sciences researchers did for ICLS 2020. At Digital Promise, learning sciences researchers investigate the why, what, and how of learning across ages, backgrounds, and contexts through four projects. We will provide examples of how our research includes a wide range of education stakeholders across K-12 and higher education and how this work gives rise to promising learning innovations, processes, and outcomes.

CIRCL Educators Judi Fusco & Pati Ruiz presented as part of the group, watch the whole session or go to 14 minutes in for our talk titled Bridging Practice and Research: Connecting Teaching and the Learning Sciences. https://youtube.com/watch?v=iTzIiN

Find our syllabus here.

Tweet @CIRCLEducators and let us know if you have questions or thoughts about this presentation.

Remote Learning During the Pandemic: No one was trained for this and it’s changing by the hour

April 2, 2020Classroom Technology, Learning, School Administrators, Teachers & Researchers, Written by: Judi Fusco, Written by: Pati RuizPati Ruiz

By Judi Fusco and Pati Ruiz

During this uncertain time, we share stories about what different schools, districts, and educators are facing. As we spoke to educators, one sentiment that came through is that we’re all experiencing something new. Even educators with experience teaching online are supporting colleagues who haven’t done this before. All of the educators shared how going remote means you can’t do the same things as you do in a brick and mortar school. A half-full perspective says this is an opportunity to bring in new methods and think more about centering the student(s).

We spoke to three education leaders who have been thinking about online/remote learning for many years. Dr. Joy Lopez, Director of Technology at Sacred Heart Schools in CA helped create the SHP Flexible Plan for Instructional Continuity with Dr. Diana Neebe. Dr. Colleen Murray at Haddonfield Schools in New Jersey used the SHP plan to help create a guide for her district. At the Riverside County Office of Education, Dr. Steve Hickman helped develop remote learning guidance for the State of California. The three leaders had different perspectives depending on the people they serve; each discussed their plan as a starting point, and that each district, school, and teacher will need to figure out a solution for their unique situation. All of the educators spoke about the importance of making sure the people are the first priority. Dr. Lopez points out that this is a massive change and it’s not surprising that teachers and students feel like they are starting over.

We also spoke to Dr. Kip Glazer, a principal at a high school in Santa Barbara, CA who discussed the huge digital divide she sees; her high school is 51% free and reduced lunch. The school has been closed for a week, with the exception of providing meals for students, and will stay closed through spring break. Upon return, the district will move to remote learning. Right now, the focus is determining what they can do to deliver remote learning equitably. Because of the huge disparity in her district, Dr. Glazer has been considering, “What does remote learning look like for a kindergartner who is homeless, or for students with dangerous domestic situations?” In contrast, she has parents worried that their child won’t pass an AP test.

Dr. Glazer would love for people to understand that school is more than a place of testing, how it’s the heart and soul of a community. She sees students wandering around the school because they miss it. Drs. Murray and Glazer also discussed how the switch is causing some teachers and assistants, who are new to the digital world, to feel uncomfortable and uncertain about their role and what they can do to support students.

Remote learning is a new opportunity that will require learning on everyone’s part, creativity, compassion, and caring, and will continue to change in the next few weeks. We heard ideas for new classroom tactics. Dr. Lopez described how in situations with multiple teachers at the same grade level, they can team up for redundancy. She hopes none of her teachers get sick, but this could help mitigate coverage issues. Also, one kindergarten teacher got creative and put her iPad on a chair while talking to students to give the same view they have from the circle-time rug.

Sarah Hampton, a middle school math teacher is making ShowMe videos for students to help them understand operations with exponents. She discussed how her ShowMes have an advantage over those made by others because she can say things in ways her students are used to hearing. She further personalizes by saying names during the videos to direct their attention. Kristyn Palazzolo, a Library Media Specialist, is working to support families. She is building a parent website with virtual field trips, sample daily schedules, curated lists of shows, enrichment activities (at home crafts and science activities), and other resources. Kristyn is also creating a reading challenge where parents take pictures when they catch their children reading and STEAM video challenges; the first was to create a Rube Goldberg machine.

Thank you, educators, for sharing. We know how much you miss your students, and we look forward to seeing more in this new digital space.

CIRCL Educators’ Poster at Cyberlearning 2019

October 9, 2019CyberlearningPati Ruiz

We enjoyed meeting everyone at Cyberlearning 2019 (CL2019) and in the spirit of accessibility, we wanted to share the poster we presented at the meeting here in a text-based post.

Recent Projects

NSF STEM for ALL Video Showcase facilitation and dissemination
Conference presentations
Webinar series on computational thinking
Book clubs

Purpose of the Community

Amplifying Voice

We share cyberlearning research through stories and examples that highlight our perspectives and experiences as educators.

Focusing on Learning

Moving beyond classroom management
and student engagement, we think about what learning means, how it looks, how it happens, and how new technologies help.

Empowering Educators

We provide a platform for educators to engage with current research in meaningful ways and connect them to experts.

Attending to Equity

We work to highlight research that focuses on equity and inclusion.

Helping Educators Learn in their Situation and Context

Learning should be personal. We encourage educators to think about and apply technology and learning in their context.

Sharing Free and Open Resources

We find and share high-quality, free, and open resources on technology research.

Who We Are

CIRCL Educators, in collaboration with the Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning (CIRCL), aims to bridge cyberlearning research with classroom practice and broaden the community of people engaged in creating effective new learning experiences.

We blog, host book clubs, lead webinars, and have developed a new learning sciences course for teachers.

“CIRCL has given me a community to read research and think about classroom practice, discuss, and push each other to think about topics that may not have come up otherwise.” – Elementary Teacher

“Because of CIRCL, I have a meaningful space to reflect on cyberlearning work alongside researchers and other educators who challenge me to understand technology in more precise ways. I can create more powerful learning experiences for my students.” – Middle School Math Teacher

Learning Sciences Course

A New Modular Course

Focused on classroom issues and bringing research to life for teachers. Based on a long and active history of collaboration between research and practice.

Topics

Debunking Myths: Looking at Evidence
Motivation from Different Perspectives (neuroscience, emotional, cognitive, psychological, sociocultural)
Identity, Belonging, Power, Privilege, Biases, and Funds of Knowledge
Turning Collaboration into Convergent Conceptual Change
Active Learning, Acquiring Knowledge, and Formative Assessment

Perspectives and Belonging

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants 1837463, 1233722, 1441631, and 1556486. 

Please note, the featured image for this post is a PDF image of the poster we presented.

CIRCL Educators at Cyberlearning 2019: Exploring Contradictions in Achieving Equitable Futures

September 30, 2019Cyberlearning, Teachers & ResearchersPati Ruiz

Register for the webcast!

As CIRCL Educators we’re all excited to collaborate and think together (in the same physical space!) about how we can apply Cyberlearning research in K–16 learning environments. As we get ready to travel to Alexandria, Virginia we have reviewed the agenda, read the Community Report, and looked at Emerging Directions from the Workshop Leaders Summit and white papers from individual workshops. While we’re all focused on applying research to practice, we were all drawn to different things as we reviewed the program agenda and materials for the meeting. We each wrote a little bit about that here.

Pati

I’m looking forward to Angela Booker’s keynote: Ethical Power Relations as an Act of Design. Specifically, I’m interested in hearing her perspective on how we can use cyberlearning insights and tools to increase democratic practice and new media use among youth and families. I first became interested in Dr. Booker’s work when I read the book she co-edited with Indigo Esmonde titled Power and Privilege in the Learning Sciences: Critical and Sociocultural Theories of Learning. In the introduction to that book, the editors describe “power as ever-present in the learning contexts” and urge us to “grapple with the ways our work is situated and mobilized with regard to power.” The book identifies opportunities for scholars to be critical of their own work and encourages them to consider contradictions and tensions in the field. I’m excited to learn more about Dr. Booker’s work and the work of other Cyberlearning researchers at CL19!

Angie

CL 19 will be a different type of conference than I am used to attending. I have attended, presented at, and organized many K12 Learning and Teaching, and EdTech conferences. I recently attended my first research focused conference, SIGCSE 2019 in Minneapolis, and it was a whole new experience to me. I found the content-heavy research sessions exhilarating and exhausting at the same time.

At CL 19, I will be introducing myself with my new role and school. I recently made the transition from a K12 public school educator (first an Elementary ESL Teacher then to a K12 Technology Integrationist) to now a Program Manager at Tufts University for the Early Childhood Technology (ECT) Graduate Certificate program where I teach in early childhood classrooms and online for graduate students. I think my experiences in early childhood, K12, and higher education provide me with a perspective that is valuable to our conversations.

Sarah

I’m excited about the keynote by Mike Sharples because I have learned so much from the Innovating Pedagogy report series he established and from his book, Practical Pedagogy: 40 New Ways to Teach and Learn. In the book, I recognized some teaching strategies I already use but didn’t know the technical term for like Explore First, and I learned more about strategies I want to try like Spaced Learning and Learning through Argumentation. I expect his keynote topic, Theory-Informed Design of Cyberlearning at Scale, to be equally interesting.

Overall, I’m excited to learn more about what’s new in cyberlearning! The fact that our team has been able to meaningfully collaborate online is because of technologies like Zoom and Google Docs. That’s cyberlearning–using technology combined with how people learn to create rich learning experiences that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. I’ve seen cyberlearning work time and again in my classroom using PhET simulations, citizen science, expressive construction, and more. What else is out there that I don’t know about yet? What new tools and strategies will I learn that can benefit my students? There are sure to be exciting posts following our trip–stay tuned!

We’re all excited to meet people whose work we’ve followed for years and collaborate with cyberlearning researchers! Check out the program agenda and participate virtually by registering for the webcast and using hashtag: #NSFCL19. As always, please share your thoughts with us on Twitter @CIRCLedu and use the hashtag: #NSFCL19

2019 STEM Video Showcase Review: Teaching Accessibility to Broaden Participation

September 20, 2019Diverse Learners, Learning, Uncategorized, Video Showcase, Written by: Pati RuizPati Ruiz

By Pati Ruiz and Amar Abbott

When this year’s STEM for All Video Showcase came around, two of us (Pati and Amar) were drawn to a video presentation titled Teaching Accessibility to Broaden Participation. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 15% of K–12 students, 11% of college students, and 5% of graduate students have a disability. While this video focused on raising awareness about accessibility needs in graduate computer science courses, we found the video helpful in thinking about leveraging technology tools in the equitable design of courses.

Meeting the accessibility needs of all students is a federal mandate, however as an accessibility expert, I (Amar) think that it is often a struggle to provide students with the right supports due to a range of barriers including the absence of professional development opportunities for instructors as well as a lack of affordances* in technology tools.

*What are affordances? Researchers use the term affordances to talk about the opportunities that a technology makes possible. The affordances of learning technologies are described in How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures as “a feature or property of an object that makes possible a particular way of relating to the object for the person who uses it (Gibson, 1979; Norman, 2013).”

After watching the video, we wanted to learn more about the work that still needs to be done to bring an awareness of accessibility needs to those who design technology tools. Co-PI of AccessComputing, Sheryl Burgstahler shares that a major barrier to information technology (IT) that her Accessible Technology Services office works on is non-accessible PDFs; scanned-in images that screen readers can’t access. Another major barrier is videos that don’t have captions or that have unedited computer-created captions. Here’s a great example of a video of computer-created captions going wrong and more information about creating accurate captioning. Sheryl encourages faculty members to use accessible IT when delivering online content instead of just teaching about it. In the showcase video comments, lead Presenter, Richard Ladner described a “chicken and egg problem” in graduate computer science (CS) programs that don’t teach accessibility topics and textbooks that don’t cover these topics. The lack of education about accessibility perpetuates the lack of accessibility content in courses.

There are a few points to underscore:

It is essential for educators to be aware of the ways in which software is disabling to their students and other stakeholders.
We need to ensure that our video content is captioned and that the documents we share with students, like PDFs, are machine readable.
We need to understand that there is a lack of education in CS programs about accessibility and that we should be asking questions about the IT that’s being developed and used in our schools and students from learning management systems to websites and videos.
When we make tools more accessible, the benefits are often ones that help everyone!

Through this video, we learned that the technologies like speech recognition, captioned videos, texting, and video chats that were designed to solve accessibility problems, often become mainstream because they make using technology easier for everyone. An example highlighted by the presenters is the use of video subtitles when we find ourselves watching a video in a noisy setting like a bus or a train. I (Pati) often use the screen reader on my phone, voice recognition, audiobooks, and captions in videos. I (Amar), use many of the same accessibility features that Pati does. As a person with a learning disability, I also use accessibility technologies to function in my daily professional life. Those technologies include Kurzweil, Dragon naturally speaking, and Mindview mind mapping software. I also teach my students to use assistive technologies to manage barriers in their academic and personal pursuits.

We find that assistive technology tools can change a person’s life and hope that projects like Access Computing can continue to raise awareness – in technical fields – about the accessibility needs of all people. This is essential as we work towards the equitable design of courses. We encourage other educators to explore Teach Access, The DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology) Center, and CAST to learn more about removing barriers to participation in the resources we prepare for our students, our colleagues, and their parents. As always, please share your thoughts with us on Twitter @CIRCLedu.

Citations

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/24783.

Interview with Creative Coding in Python Author Sheena Vaidyanathan

August 20, 2019Book Club, Computer Science, STEM, Written by: Pati RuizPati Ruiz

We were lucky enough to get to interview Creative Coding in Python author Sheena Vaidyanathan at CSTA 2019 in Phoenix, AZ! We asked her some of the questions that the CIRCLEducators compiled, check out her responses:

Can you tell us a little bit about how you got started in both art and computer science?

I am a computer scientist and have been involved in technology for many years. When I decided to take a break from tech, it was the perfect opportunity for me to pursue something I had always wanted to do – art. I decided to enroll in the local college to take art classes and also volunteer in the local schools to teach art. I found that I looked forward to days in the classroom and I really loved teaching. So when a position for an art teacher opened up in one of the local schools, I applied and got it. When the art position went away, I was able to transition to teaching computer science since that is my background. I throw in art when possible into my computer science classes!

Can you tell us about your book?

I wrote Creative Coding in Python: 30+ Programming Projects in Art, Games, and More. It is unique in that it uses colorful illustrations and creative projects to explain programming concepts. It is definitely the most beautiful coding book I have ever seen and will be a fun way for anyone (at any age – not just kids) to discover the joy of coding. I explain concepts using simple everyday metaphors and short snippets of code, and give step by step instruction for fun projects like chatbots, and games along with flowcharts and pseudocode. There are also challenging extension activities. It is not dumbed down, I share challenging and complex topics in an accessible way. In my book, you will learn about everything from data types, graphical user interface (GUI), function callbacks and more.

What are your tips for people new to CS to get started?

Start small, try one lesson and modify that small project that’s already working. Can you run it? Can you change a couple of lines of code? Then, once you’ve seen what code can do, you should take a class to learn more about programming.

What are some challenges that you face when training teachers about integrating computer science in their classrooms?

One challenge in elementary and middle school is that even if the teacher knows the content (coding) and wants to integrate it, they still need to justify whether or not it works with the rest of the content standards that they are teaching.

Teachers tend to go to the more tried and tested methods of teaching content (which doesn’t include coding) because introducing coding activities can take up valuable time resulting in them not having the time needed to do other topics/work. That balance can be very challenging. Even math teachers who know some coding and understand the advantages of using it to teach math, often do not use it in their classes. This is because they are short on time, and are under pressure of teaching a lot of content and making sure that students do well on the tests.

What are some of favorite projects in your book?

I am greatly inspired by the LOGO programming language and Seymour Papert’s original turtle, so I love using the turtle to teach coding. It is a classic way, and I still think the best way to teach kids to code. The turtle puts the child in the code. They have to think like the turtle in order to move, this is called body syntonic. If they need to make the turtle on their computer “go left” they have to think about moving their entire body as if they were the turtle. This helps them think about instructions in a different way; the instructions are something that they can see themselves doing. It’s tangible and visual and it’s a connection that they will always remember because they were the turtle. By programming an object on the screen, kids learn to be specific in their directions. The computer will only understand what they write in their program.

My other favorite project (shared in my book – image below) goes back to my artistic background, and uses geometric shapes. In the project, you’re creating geometric shapes to create a bigger picture. You can use functions to define a house, for example, which is a rectangle followed by a triangle with other shapes. Once you’ve defined a shape, you can write code to repeat it. So using geometric shapes, really appeals to me, because it’s relatable to how you would draw in real life. It’s so visual and then there’s a connection to code that I really like and I think it works very well to help people learn more about coding.

** In our book club, you will be challenged to create art work and follow along in Sheena’s book in Chapter 2.

What are you working on now?

I launched a new elective and I’m exploring more tools to make sure I’m bringing in the right tools to teach the content. I’m exploring Artificial Intelligence (AI) in K-12 and am part of the AI4K12 initiative.

Sheena shared her work at CSTA 2012 in a session titled Strategies for Teaching Coding to All Students which focused on her new class Coding Apps Games & more and the other was about work being done to advance computer science education in the area of AI.

There are so many resources that Sheena has put together on her website, so check them out! Connect with Sheena on Twitter https://twitter.com/Sheena1010 and CIRCL Educators https://twitter.com/CIRCLEducators .

Connected Code Book Club #SlowChat Questions!

April 12, 2019Book Club, UncategorizedPati Ruiz

Welcome to our Book Club discussion of Connected Code! next book club will be a Twitter Slowchat! If you have not participated in a Twitter Chat before, please follow @CIRCLEducators and the authors of Connected Code Yasmin Kafai @katyaskit and Quinn Burke @QuinnBurke174.

Here are our questions for this book! Please use A.# and #CIRCLEdu when answering questions. For example, to answer Q1:

A1. #CIRCLEdu [the text of your answer]

Please also send all of your own questions to @CIRCLEducators ! And contact us if you need help!

Q1. In Chapter 1, p.9 the authors write “Programming is a form of expressing oneself and of participating in social networks and communities.” How do you and your students use tech tools for computational participation? #CIRCLEdu

Q2. In Chapter 2, p.20 the authors describe how Papert thought of learning: “as building knowledge structures” through the use of artifacts. How do you use technology tools to help students (or you) think about concepts? #CIRCLEdu What tools are you using?

Q3. In Chapter 2, p.23 the authors describe the personal dimensions – the set of informal ideas and theories that are connected to personal experiences – that learners carry with them. How do you help your students make connections between the ideas that already exist and what they are learning in your classroom? #CIRCLEdu

Q4. In Chapter 3, p.36 the authors describe how Debbie was able to apply ideas from programming in Logo to making fraction representations more visually interesting. This shift is described as on from programming code to thinking computationally in terms of the code. Have you been able to see the development of computational thinking skills in your students? How? #CIRCLEdu

Q5. In Chapter 3, p.41 The author’s share Donald Murray’s perspective about writing not being “magical.” They go on to say: “Much like writing three decades ago, computer programming still faces this myth of the ‘magical.’” How are you or others you know making programming a process that students can understand? #CIRCLEdu

Q6. In Chapter 4, p.56 – The authors say that “Motivation to program and persist at troubleshooting their own code increases significantly when they work in pairs.” How do you encourage collaboration in your class? #CIRCLEdu

Q7. What was your favorite quote? Please include the page number! #CIRCLEdu

Q8. In Chapter 6 the authors discuss how to incorporate tangibles and simulations in the classroom. What are some tangible computing projects that you have (or have seen) incorporated in classrooms that really work? Why did it work? #CIRCLEdu

Q9. In Chapter 7, Connected Teaching, the authors discuss supporting learner’s agency (pp. 120-122) as well as Dewey’s idea that “learning activities must be applicable and testable in the worlds that children inhabit outside of the classroom” (p.121). How do you hope that your students might apply what they learn in your classroom/school when they are outside of the classroom? #CIRCLEdu

Q10. In Chapter 8, the authors discuss the reframing of computational thinking to computational participation. What do you think? #CIRCLEdu

How to Encourage Young Women and Marginalized People to Participate in CS and Engineering (part two)

February 15, 2019Book Club, Computer Science, Engineering, Learning, STEM, Teachers & Researchers, Uncategorized, Written by: Pati RuizPati Ruiz

by Pati Ruiz

This is the second post in a two part series based on my dissertation which focused on encouraging the participation of women and African Americans/Blacks, Hispanic/Latinx, and Native Americans/Alaskan Natives in computing. The first post focused on modeling an interest and passion for CS and creating safe spaces for students. This post focuses on building community, introducing students to careers, and making interdisciplinary connections.

Build Community and Connect Students with Mentors

Family support is important! Young adults encouraged and exposed to CS by their parent(s) are more likely to persist in related careers (Wang et al., 2015). And did you know that women are more likely than men to mention a parent as an influencer in their developing a positive perception of a CS-related field, more often citing fathers than mothers as the influencers (Sonnert, 2009)? Unfortunately, parents’ evaluation of their children’s abilities to pursue CS-related fields differs by gender; parents of boys believe that their children like science more than parents of girls (Bhanot & Jovanovic, 2009). Nevertheless, family support is crucial for young women and supportive family members — whether or not they are connected to the tech world — play a critical role in the encouragement and exposure that young women get to the field.

Helping parents understand the role that they can play is important. As educators, we can model for them how to encourage their children as well as how to dispel misconceptions and harmful stereotypes that their children might have heard. Sometimes parents and family members themselves might unknowingly be perpetuating harmful computer science world misconceptions with the comments they make to their children. As teachers, we can provide parents with training that might help them understand how to encourage and expose their children to the field in positive ways. After all, the research shows that this support can be provided by anyone – not just educators.

All of the young women in my study described the value of mentors. Even seeing representations of female role models in the media can encourage a young woman to pursue a CS-related degree. It’s important for young women to see representations of people who look like them in the field and to have real-life female mentors and peers who can support them in their pursuit of CS-related degrees and careers. As a result of the low number of women in the field, mentors and role models for women are primarily men. While this can be problematic, it does not have to be. Cheryan et al. (2011) found that female and male mentors or role models in computing can help boost women’s perceived ability to be successful if those role models are not perceived to conform to male-centered CS stereotypes. The gender of the role model, then, is less important than the extent to which that role model embodies current STEM stereotypes.

The actionability of some of the factors described above, then, allows educators and others to positively influence and encourage young women in high school to pursue CS degrees in college (Wang et al., 2015).

Introduce Careers

In their recent report titled Altering the Vision of Who Can Succeed in Computing, Couragion and Oracle Academy described the importance of introducing youth to careers in technology. They find that:

“It is critical to improve the awareness and perception of a breadth of careers in computing to meet the demands of our workforce and the desires of our students. We need to elevate high demand and high growth computing fields such as user experience (UX) and data science – that when understood, appeal to and attract underrepresented populations.“

What this report found is what I found in my research; many African Americans/Blacks, Hispanic/Latinx, and Native Americans/Alaskan Natives students don’t know people working in the computing field and don’t know what career options can look like. Couragion is working to change this by providing inclusive, work-based learning experiences that prepare students for jobs of the future. What I like about Couragion’s approach is that students are able to use an app to explore careers and engage with role models through text, activities, and videos. As they work their way through different career options, students take notes and reflect using a digital portfolio. I think this is a great way for students to develop career consciousness, something I wish I had when I was in school (as a student and teacher)!

As a teacher, the way I would connect my students with industry careers was to connect with local groups like GirlDevelopIt and invite speakers to my classroom. I also had college students visit my classroom – it usually works well to have recent graduates come back to talk to students because students relate well to recent high school graduates. I also introduced computer scientists in the news. If I were teaching right now, I would highlight 2018 MacArthur Fellow Deborah Estrin. In her Small Data Lab at Cornell, Dr. Estrin and her team are designing open-source applications and platforms that leverage mobile devices to address socio-technological challenges in the healthcare field. Or, I might direct them to this recent article written by Clive Thompson titled The Secret History of Women in Coding.

Some participants in my study mentioned that they ended up majoring in CS because of a mentor. One participant talked about how one of her high school teachers “dragged her to” a Technovation event. There, she ended up seeing a young woman who she “saw herself” in so she decided to apply to the same college that the mentor attended, got in, and went. This participant envisioned herself there because of this near-peer. She said that she didn’t connect with her mentor once she got to the university that they both attended for a year together, but just seeing her ahead of her in the program was motivating.

Again, the idea here is to create opportunities for students to connect with people in the field – to see themselves and to see the possibilities. Some groups that my students have worked with include Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code and Technolochicas – there are many others. Which ones do your students work with?

Make Interdisciplinary Connections

Finally, we have the idea of making interdisciplinary connections. CIRCL Educator Angie Kalthoff wrote a post for EdSurge discussing this very topic. Angie encourages teachers to ask their students: What are you doing outside of school that you want to tell other students about? She and a group of Minnesota educators organize student-powered conferences where middle schoolers showcase what they’re really interested in learning about. Check out her post because getting together with other educators to organize your own student-powered conference might be an excellent way you support and recruit young women and African Americans/Blacks, Hispanic/Latinx, and Native Americans/Alaskan Natives!

Interdisciplinary connections can be facilitated by teachers and it’s important to note that all of my study participants were very thankful to their K-12 teachers for having encouraged their pursuit of a technical field – even if they didn’t know they had. As one participant described, “a teacher who’s clearly passionate” is particularly encouraging.

One resource that can help you make interdisciplinary connections with students iss Connected Code: Why Children Need to Learn Programming by Yasmin B. Kafai and Quinn Burke. Join the CIRCL Educators book club to discuss this book starting in April!

Please note that the featured image for this post was created by #WOCinTech Chat, check them out! We’d love to hear from you — Tweet to @CIRCLEducators or use #CIRCLEdu.