Wicked Teacher of the West

The Age of Cassandra

2011-08-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

Kristen Marhaver is a PhD student studying coral biology who wrote the absolutely fascinating Ecosystems in the Age of Cassandra in the May 5 Science Progress. She cites Adam Cohen's New York Times editorial wondering why policymakers do not react appropriately to scientific warnings of impending disaster such as the Hurricane Katrina flooding, September 11th attacks, and Bernie Madoff fraudulence.

Marhaver suggests that the problem is the difference in pace between science, which takes years to research and verify, and news, which doesn't spend more than a day or two on a story, especially one about scientific research or predictions. She has a number of notable suggestions for indicating to publishers and policymakers which research is really, really important and making research findings openly available.

The comments are worth reading as well, especially for people who want to make their message heard. One journalist remarks on the importance of a story - protagonist, antagonist, beginning, middle, end. People respond to research written with a narrative theme. They respond to the stories of individuals too - "the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic" (misattributed to Stalin).

There are systemic problems leading to a failure on our part to heed important warnings. Research reports written for peer-reviewed journals aren't necessarily appropriate for lay people, even when the information is crucial. And researchers who are embedded in their own little world may miss the forest of the larger world for the trees of their own point of view.

Scientists must find ways to choose the message and frame it in a way that important audiences can hear and act on. Policymakers have many competing interests. So does industry. So does the public at large, so do teachers, so do students, but they aren't all the same interests. It's important to figure out what messages are crucial and which can be heard and by whom. Then we can hope for success in making the world a better place.

Computer Science Around Programming

2011-08-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

Alfred Thompson posted Computer Science Before Programming, where he starts by considering the new trend of courses that teach introductory CS without relying on programming-first. He quickly moves into a discussion of different levels of programming languages and focuses on the question of whether "post-syntax" languages such as Scratch, Alice, and Kodu expose the right concepts, such as how loops work.

I think that even when we focus and try hard, we all too often fall into the trap of thinking that the big ideas of programming are synonymous with the big ideas of computer science. We all learned CS through programming first, and it's our mental model of how it works. Changing such an ingrained mental model, especially when nearly everyone around you is reinforcing the model, is hard.

I believe that programming is to computer science as experimentation is to other sciences. It is the work of professionals in the field. It is how we develop new ideas. And it is a skill that must be learned before it can be used in a meaningful way.

We don't make students experimentally derive all we know about science from first principles - we tell them the formula for acceleration, the value of the force of gravity, the periodic table of elements. We don't make them figure these things out, and it's a good thing because usually they don't have the skill or tools to accurately measure these known quantities.

Now, some people will be saying, "but we TELL them about conditionals and loops and parameters and abstract classes!" Those are big ideas of programming. Not of computer science.

Here are some of the big ideas of computer science:

The design of things is impacted by the assumptions and experience of the people who make them.
The computational devices we use affect our society. And related: there are ethical implications to computational tools.
What is computing good for and what is it bad for?
How do we abstract details to model problems and find solutions?
What does it mean that computers run on binary when we have beautiful user interfaces?

I can teach every one of those, and lots of others, with no formal programming languages. Programming would only get in the way of what could be a rich discussion and deep understanding.

Students should experience programming - it's empowering and fun and an important part of computer science. But we shouldn't confuse the skill of programming with the concepts of computer science.

Ada Lovelace Day

2010-03-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

I think people who work at the intersection of computer science and other disciplines do some of the most interesting work there is. In particular, I think there are women doing amazing work at the intersection of the social sciences (like linguistics and sociology) and computer science.

Jane Margolis is my hero because she has looked critically at the culture of computer science and not only found ways in which it is unwelcoming to some groups (notably girls and minorities) but has also worked passionately to change it. In particular, her work with the Computer Science Equity Alliance is inspirational. Jane is energetic and thoughtful and perceptive, and she constantly works to make the world of computer science better.

Jane introduced me to another of my heroes, Justine Cassell. I first learned of her because of the book From Barbie to Mortal Kombat. I had the opportunity to talk to her briefly at the Hopper conference this fall and was so impressed by her analytical mind and energetic presentation. Justine has also done a lot of interesting work on gender and technology.

Finally, the researchers of ABI and NCWIT earn my respect every time I talk to them. Catherine Ashcraft had the most interesting observations about gendered behavior and how it is different from sex, which convinced me she's brilliant. Lecia Barker and Caroline Simard produce consistently fascinating research.

This post was produced for my Ada Lovelace pledge. Two other posts on this subject I found inspiring today were "Why Care about Gender?" and "The Impact of Positive Female Role Models"

Mental math

2010-03-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

I believe in growth mindset - the idea that you can get better at things by working at them. It can be a hard thing to live at times - we all seem to have certain places where we have blinders about our ability to improve (or our students' ability to improve!)

With that in mind, I have been working on my mental math abilities. I've been playing a game where I keep track of changing numbers by adding and subtracting. The numbers are pretty small - usually less than 10, though not always, but the running total can grow fairly large.

I am sure that it's good for my brain to play this game, that I'm improving my ability to do mental math.

Here's what I wonder, though: does it matter if I get the right answer? I have discovered at times that as I keep track of the running total, I have made computational errors - not particularly surprising, since it isn't something I'm particularly stellar at. My sense is that it's the activity of trying the math rather than getting the right answer that's important, especially since I doubt that I'm reinforcing bad math by occasionally adding numbers incorrectly. However, I can believe it would be a problem to form neural pathways to bad computation. I don't know of any studies that have looked at this, so I'm not sure we know the answer.

Encountering the Other

2010-03-03T07:43:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about constructivism and constructionism and Freire and diversity lately. I can believe that almost totally open-ended discussions and activities can be engaging and educational. (Almost totally open-ended! Not totally open-ended! Though there's a good point in A Mathematician's Lament that anything one doesn't stumble across in 12 years of thinking about a topic probably isn't all that important.)

I am thinking of knowing the kind of activity you want kids to engage in, but allowing them to propose all the particulars. Let them figure out what the important parts are. Say you want them to learn how to write a program. Ask them what kind of program they want to write. What kind of problems do they have that could be solved with a program? Then let them figure out (with support) how to write the program - they figure out the constructs, you provide the syntax. It's just-in-time teaching. At an extreme, you might even be able to let them figure out what they wanted to learn at all in the context of your class, but without them knowing something about the context it seems like proposing problems is a better way to start.

I have a hard time believing this way of teaching is scalable - how can you get all the thousands of teachers in this country to be that open-ended? It's hard and you have to have an incredible grasp of the material to be able to guide students gently. (Or perhaps you could pull it off if you knew nothing, with teacher and class learning it together, but that's not comfortable for most teachers!) That said, as I have practiced open-ended teaching more and more, I've become better at it, which makes me think it is teachable, which means it might be scalable. It would require a sea change in how we think about education - we might not get to all the standards this way.

The extreme educational theorists believe in this way of teaching because of its respect for students' culture and experience. And I haven't ever questioned that, except to contemplate that the historical role of education in the US is to inculturate children into the dominant value set and that if we take underprivileged students and fail to give them that clue, we do them a disservice when they have to compete as adults in the dominant culture. (I am a terrible teacher because I will regularly point out to underprivileged students how to fly under the radar like the privileged kids do.)

So it was with great interest that I read Siobhan Curious' latest post: Encountering the Other about the role of literature in our lives. Specifically, she has a quote from a Harper's article Dehumanized: When Math and Science Rule the School:

Happily ignoring the fact that the whole point of reading is to force us into an encounter with the other, our high schools and colleges labor mightily to provide students with mirrors of their own experience, lest they be made uncomfortable, effectively undercutting diversity in the name of diversity.

One is wise enough to think one should tread lightly on a discussion of valuing diversity vs. valuing the dominant culture (as though one can't value both!) So one will stop writing now other than to wonder what you think?

Cultural and Gendered Values

2010-02-23T20:35:00.000-08:00

I can't remember when I first heard about the work at Georgia Tech on African Americans and gaming. Maybe it was in a post of Mark Guzdial's? Anyway, I thought this post by Latoya Peterson was very interesting. My favorite quote applies to far more than just African American males:

Hacker culture is privileged in the CS learning environment, meaning that many students are drawn to the program because of their existing skills. This marginalizes many students who decide to enter at the college level, and do not have years of experience experimenting with programs on their own. CS programs also tend to trend toward the strongest programmers in the class, encouraging a DIY approach to learning, and leaving behind students who are new to the discipline.

On the one hand, we want to value diverse cultures, and I know that many people who succeed in this culture feel marginalized in the broader culture. And isn't it true that in many programs, particular skill-sets are valued? On the other hand, it certainly gives me pause that it's so difficult to enter the discipline as early as college, especially given that many students have no access to computer science before they get to college. Look at how many other (related, even) disciplines are welcoming to students who have no prior experience, even at the graduate level - information science, education, and business being obvious examples.

We keep talking about how to increase the pipeline and have more graduates. I think a major part of the problem is the culture. Computer science is not a welcoming culture. Wouldn't it be great if instead of being denigrated, newcomers were encouraged and supported?

I see that Mark has a new post up pointing out especially the comments relating to the class aspects brought up in the comments, along with a link to another post about this topic.

Public Service Announcement: CS & IT Symposium

2010-02-21T21:21:00.000-08:00

For years, I have maintained that the very best day of professional development in my year is the day of the CSTA CS&IT Symposium. And since I've always wondered if it was just me, I have been gratified both to see references to other people posting this thought on the web, and one notable year when in the symposium feedback I found out that someone wrote, "Wicked Teacher of the West said this was the best PD day of the year and she was right!" So you can take it from many anonymous strangers on the web that it's great!

For K-12 computer science teachers, this is a full day of PD just for you, with options whether you teach IT applications, AP CS, or anything in between - and not just high school either, there are sessions applicable to lower grades too.

The symposium gets better and better every year. The keynotes are thought-provoking, and the breakout sessions are full of ideas to take right back to the classroom. In fact, my biggest complaint about the day is that there are always multiple sessions I want to attend at the same time! And finally, the lunch is excellent - it's worth the price of admission for the great food and chance to spend time with other teachers!

Registration for the symposium is now open. It will be held on July 13 at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA. The registration is limited to 200 people and last year they did 'sell out' so I'd encourage you not to procrastinate. Registration information and more details are at the symposium website. (www.csitsymposium.org)

If you want to make it into a vacation, not only are there mountains, sun, the Pacific Ocean a short drive away, but Mountain View is a mecca for geeks, particularly the Computer History Museum, the Tech Museum in San Jose, and the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

Taking a break

2010-01-18T00:57:00.000-08:00

I've finished nearly all of the grading - enough to think of myself as done, although I have four extra credit projects still unassessed. Fortunately they'll be easy because any kid good enough to have done extra credit is likely to have done it well. Also they're unlikely to change my assessment of those students - kids motivated enough to do extra credit have usually been doing well all along. I will of course look at the projects tomorrow.

Before I go to bed, I want to post a few articles I've come across but haven't felt the luxury to form complete commentary on. The articles are good enough to stand alone; you should read them!

The Atlantic looked at Teach for America's upcoming report on What Makes a Great Teacher? I hope to take the ideas, especially about constant re-evaluation and changing what doesn't work, and implement them this semester.

I have thought Lisa Damour was fabulous ever since I heard her speak about Growth Mindset and Stereotype threat. I think the things she is looking at are important and I think she's smart and able to explain things in a way that are easy to understand. So I was pleased to see her article about teaching girls to tinker in Education Week. And that was before I knew she mentions computer science!

Clay Shirkey's Rant About Women is getting a fair amount of play. I *really* want to know what Sarita Yardi thinks, since I can tell she has strong opinions but so far I haven't seen them. I'm willing to overlook the strong language and think he has some very good points. I'm sure my opinion is informed by the fact that I've been trying to do some self-aggrandizing writing lately and I'm not very good at making it sound like I'm all that.

I'm trying to be more positive in 2010. So the article from Teacher Magazine about having better classroom management by focusing on the positive was nicely timed. I'm not seeing stuffed animals in the classroom in my future, but maybe I can yell less.

Looking for the motivation fairy

2010-01-15T16:36:00.000-08:00

I'm supposed to be writing grades, but I'm having an impossible time settling down and getting anything done. When it became obvious that working from home wasn't working, I came to school. So far that has prompted me to open my gradebook, which is a step in the right direction, but more of a baby step than a meaningful step.

I'm not even engaging in structured procrastination, just kind of noodling around.

Please, motivation fairy, show up soon!

Who Are You?

2010-01-08T08:06:00.000-08:00

During the holiday break, I attempted to declutter my craft closet. The craft supplies are organized by craft in boxes in a closet, but the closet was stuffed to the gills, making it hard to get to many of the boxes, which is a major barrier to doing the crafts. It was time for some of the supplies to go.

I weeded the contents of boxes, getting rid of supplies I don't really like and won't use. In some cases, I weeded crafts, emptying out whole boxes.

I got stuck when it came to one craft. I have nice supplies. I like them. They're well organized and fit nicely into the space they're in, so getting rid of some of them is harder than getting rid of none or all. I realized that I am not ready to let go of my vision of myself as a person who does that craft.

We have a lot of visions of ourselves, labels we apply. Most CS teachers I know think of themselves as programmers. Few think of themselves as computer scientists.

I wonder how this affects our students. Are our labels accurate? Are you a programmer, if you know how to program and do it sometimes, but not often? Are you a programmer if you love to program but almost never do it? Does it affect how you think about curriculum if you think of yourself as a programmer but not a computer scientist? Do the kids pick up on your attitudes about yourself and what you do?

Dear people: you can change

2010-01-06T23:00:00.000-08:00

Although I am quite sure there are cultural influences at work keeping women and other underrepresented groups out of computing, I have not been all that excited by the recent reports about Geeks Drive Women Out of CS. I think the research being reported on is important and valid, but I am underwhelmed by the reporting itself, starting with the headline.

However, a blog post by the same name with recommendations for girls, boys, and teachers, aimed at getting more girls into CS classes was entertaining, accessible, and way better than the articles I've read. Yes, some of it relies heavily on stereotypes. But I'm delighted by a slightly snarky attitude that suggests resilience and demands welcoming attitudes.

Go read it. Really!

Resolutions

2010-01-02T09:57:00.000-08:00

I don't like New Year's Resolutions.

First, they seem ill-timed to me. I read a line in the last week or two about how terrible a time of year this is to make resolutions, especially weight loss ones. It's dark all the time, so you don't want to get out and exercise. It's winter so there's no good fresh produce. "I resolve to do something that will be nearly impossible! Yay!" For me, like many teachers and students, the new year begins in September.

Second, I don't really like the word 'resolutions'. I like the word 'goals'. Goal leaves more room to not succeed without actually failing.

I have found that I do better when I let goals just happen to me, rather than making them. I feel like making some change, so I make it, without waiting for the new year or forcing myself to make a change because it's the new year. It means I change when I'm ready to change, which means I'm more likely to be successful.

However, I am intrigued by the 6 Changes approach to creating new habits. I like the parts about making something a habit (not a resolution!), it's based on triggers, and you don't have to change everything at the same time. I don't like the part about breaking it into baby steps.

What I need to do is figure out a system for keeping my to do list. Don't know how to break that one into baby steps!

I also need to get my head out of vacation mode and back into school mode! I have tests to grade, paragraphs to write, and lessons to plan. But it's been a relaxing couple of weeks.

Leaving Some Children Behind?

2009-12-25T20:02:00.000-08:00

As seems wont to happen at family gatherings, today I got into a political discussion with some family members. We discussed performance-based pay, and the discussion moved into performance-based pay for teachers.

Personally, I'm a fan of performance-based pay for teachers IF it truly reflects the performance of the individual teacher. If students took a test at the beginning of the term and at the end, and the teacher's performance was based on students' mastery of material, gained during the time they were taught by that teacher, then okay. According to an article by Malcolm Gladwell, "Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year's worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half's worth of material." However it is that Hanushek is figuring it out, if we used that measure and it's accurate, that sounds good to me.

The negative reaction I got was mystifying.

First, I was challenged on whether it is possible to actually judge performance. It is true, we don't currently have instruments that judge student performance in all disciplines, only in the ones that are currently part of the "core". However, tests could be developed that would measure what we say we're teaching. Standardized tests that test the curriculum aren't always bad - teachers should be teaching the curriculum, and if they shouldn't then the curriculum should be changed. (I'm not discussing school-based bonuses where all teachers are paid based on student performance on core standardized tests, I'm arguing individual performance.)

The example given? PE. Apparently it's impossible to test how far or fast a student can run at the beginning of the term and test it again at the end of the term to see if there's a difference. Or if it's possible then it isn't fair because, apparently, motivating students to perform or otherwise getting them to do the curriculum is more than a teacher should be responsible for.

I suggested that good teachers are able to get their students to learn the material. Period. That's what makes someone a good teacher.

I was told that I'm unrealistic, because I work in a private school. I don't understand what it's like to have a classroom of 40 kids (largely true) who have varying ability and interest (untrue). It's not possible to support the low kids and help them rise while at the same time boosting the ones who are already above grade level. (You know, like by differentiating instruction and assignments.) A teacher should not be held equally responsible for a kid who is low and truly unable to grasp the material and for one who is low but highly capable.

I am venting here, because Christmas is so not the time to get into a huge fight with a close family member who is being... um... argumentative, but to say I was dismayed is an understatement.

I kept thinking about a master teacher I know. The thing that makes this teacher great is that he believes that every student can master the material. For some kids it's easy, for others it's a challenge, but he knows that every kid can do it. He doesn't teach easy stuff either, and I've never seen him dumb down material - he has high expectations. But he is willing to go the extra mile, help students who need it, and believe in them. He lives growth mindset.

I don't think teachers should be held responsible for students' prior knowledge nor should they be held responsible for what happens to a kid outside of school, and both those things do impact the student who shows up in class. But a teacher should be held responsible for how much knowledge they impart to students in their class. All students, not just the polite ones, not just the likeable ones, not just the ones who are at grade level. It does a disservice to the rest to ignore them and refuse to be responsible for teaching them too. Why would a teacher be okay with leaving some children behind?

Not as hard as you think

2009-11-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

My students are working on a project right now, where they have to digitize three-dimensional objects by specifying points in an x,y,z format. They then have to describe quads which have four points.

This is really good for the students. It's part of our unit on digitizing data, so it's good for them to understand how real-life objects get mapped into and modeled by the computer. But even better, it's good for them to practice spacial skills. Spacial skills are the one area (of math) where girls really do fall behind boys in brain development, so practicing is good for their brains. Yay for neurogenesis!

Not surprisingly, many of them find this task difficult. The task is unlike most they've performed before, so understanding it is a challenge. Then keeping the x, y, and z dimensions straight is a challenge. Keeping track of the points is a challenge, especially for the ones with messy handwriting and other organizational challenges. And the class has been battered by swine flu and other absences; even with me posting video of the classes they miss, it isn't the same as being there.

However, I had two conversations last week that made me laugh - and made me wonder how often students psych themselves out about tasks they shouldn't be so worried about. I explained the task to two students who had been absent and were confused. I had them practice creating points and quads so I would be sure they understood what to do. The first one looked at me and said, "That's ALL?" She'd expected it to be so much harder. I think it was harder when I first introduced it a couple of weeks ago, but even with the absence, her brain is more ready now.

The second conversation was more troublesome. It was with a smart student who is insecure about her knowledge and occasionally very disorganized. I went through the material and she showed me she could do the task. We talked for a couple of minutes about the assignment. Then she said, "but I still don't get it." I asked what she didn't get, and she described general confusion with the task.
I asked, "do you know how to figure out a point like you did a couple of minutes ago?"
"Yes"
"Do you understand how to make a quad out of four points like you did a couple of minutes ago?"
"Yes"
"That's it. That's all there is to the assignment. Get the points, make the quads, and type it into the computer."
"But I'm confused!"

At that point the light bulb went on. So I looked at her and said, "No, you're not. You think this is supposed to be hard. So you're worried that you don't understand it because it doesn't seem as hard as you think it's supposed to be. Stop worrying and get to work."

Selling classroom materials

2009-11-19T11:02:00.000-08:00

Interesting followup to a Times article about teachers selling classroom materials.

I fall squarely on the side of the capitalist teachers. As long as they're not violating their contracts, I don't think they have any moral obligation to go unpaid for their work.

I have written curriculum for pay before, and I consider it to be owned by whoever paid for it - be it via contract for an outside group or through a summer curriculum development grant at my school. Curriculum I develop on my own for use in my classes is a different story.

I can see an argument that developing curriculum is a part of a teachers' job, akin to being in the classroom teaching and assessing student work. In my case, my administration has made it clear that they don't really care if I change the curriculum; if I want to do so, it's on me to do it on my own time. Work I do on my own time appears to be my own, not of shared ownership with my employer. This is complex and revolves around a reasonable workday, summers off, and all kinds of "what is a teachers' own time?" questions. Hopefully few reasonable people truly believe that every moment of a teacher's life from September to June is owned by the school.

Like copyright protection, if capitalism is leading to improved curriculum, then that's good. If making money on it is motivational and teachers refuse to write new curriculum and stick with the crummy old thing just because it's easy, that's not good for the students.

I should note here that while I have substantially revised my curriculum this year, I have no plans to sell it. I simply think it's acceptable for teachers to do so.

Being Lazy

2009-11-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

This week I'm teaching in a camp-like setting. I have ten students learning game programming, three hours per day. All of them chose to be here. I've never taught Scratch or game programming before.

After a first quarter that went at breakneck speed and after finally turning in grades midway through last week, I'm really tired. I also have a towering list of projects to finish. So while I'd like to give my all to teaching game programming, there's just not a lot of 'all' to give. Also, it isn't assessed and I'd like to save more of my all for my real classes.

So I'm being a lazy teacher. I always tell my students that the best programmers are lazy programmers - they look for ways to program that don't require a lot of effort. Thus, things like efficiency are important. Recursion is just an excuse to be lazy - do the least work possible and hand off the rest.

In this case, I gave them an overview of Scratch yesterday in about 90 minutes and I've handed them lots of resources to use in making their games (like the Scratch reference guide and Scratch cards). They know what games are, they have lots of ideas, and mostly what I'm doing is getting out of their way.

It's fascinating to watch them. First, they hate listening to me, so me not doing a lot of direct teaching is working for all of us very nicely. They're all engaged in what they're doing. And their styles are completely different. One is going methodically through all the handouts, following instructions and listening. One couldn't pay attention for the whole 90 minutes yesterday - by 10 minutes in she was taking the game and pushing it to the limits of her imagination. One student couldn't wait to get started on the game she'd thought up (Halo. For Scratch. By a girl.) Another one is spending huge amounts of time working with sounds.

I love camp because I don't care much about the outcomes. No standards, just lots of time for the kids to explore and learn what they like. And they're learning tons, all of it individualized. It isn't a good replacement for regular school, but it's a pretty nice change from the daily grind. And I'm glad to be reminded that when I'm lazy, the students rise to the challenge.

Success

2009-10-23T08:13:00.000-07:00

It's been a long couple of weeks; we're definitely into the fall weather with the rain and the gray and the outrageous behavior and the cranky. (That would be outrageous behavior on the part of the students, with me playing the part of Cranky, but you probably knew that.)

Two things happened in the last couple of days that made me feel great.

One, it feels good to know where to find what you need. A friend of mine is doing some teacher professional development. He's been looking for examples of great technology use across the curriculum, specifically looking for a high return on the time invested. I brainstormed a few ideas with him, but it's been a couple of years since I've really thought about this topic, so while I still find it fun to think about, I don't have a lot of great fresh ideas.

Last night I decided to invest an hour to see what I could find. I started with twitter, and thankfully, @dougpete had just posted the link to his daily links blog post. Even if I didn't already adore Doug, he's now my short-term personal hero because his blog, Off The Record, is a treasure trove of resources. I was able to compile a bunch of ideas for my friends just by stealing from Doug. (Thanks Doug!)

Incidentally, the very, very best thing I found was the Learning Science community. WOW. It is a collection - with annotation - of great resources for learning science. From tools like a huge stopwatch applet to online, video-enhanced games about stoichiometry to an interactive model ripple pool, it is awesome.

Second, it is fun to feel smart. Yesterday I briefly hosted a woman from Citizen Schools who wanted to know more about my school. The way it worked out, she observed part of my class rather than just getting the tour-and-discussion. The kids are working on digitizing color pictures, so she asked about it. I ended up explaining digitizing, run-length encoding, compression, and number systems to her. I feel kind of bad, because I should have been giving her an overview of what the school is about, which is not really run-length encoding, as you might guess. But I surprised myself with how much computer science I know. (Stop laughing.) It was fun. I think it was even fun for her.

Perception

2009-08-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

Atul Gawande's article, "The Itch" is an interesting look at the mechanism of itching. My favorite part, though, is this:

A new scientific understanding of perception has emerged in the past few decades, and it has overturned classical, centuries-long beliefs about how our brains work—though it has apparently not penetrated the medical world yet. The old understanding of perception is what neuroscientists call “the naïve view,” and it is the view that most people, in or out of medicine, still have. We’re inclined to think that people normally perceive things in the world directly. We believe that the hardness of a rock, the coldness of an ice cube, the itchiness of a sweater are picked up by our nerve endings, transmitted through the spinal cord like a message through a wire, and decoded by the brain.

In a 1710 “Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,” the Irish philosopher George Berkeley objected to this view. We do not know the world of objects, he argued; we know only our mental ideas of objects. “Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and figures—in a word, the things we see and feel—what are they but so many sensations, notions, ideas?” Indeed, he concluded, the objects of the world are likely just inventions of the mind...

Although the article goes on to make it clear that this isn't complete, doesn't it sound like perception is just based on mental models?

I've been thinking a lot about simulations lately, and this article makes it seem like even fairly poor simulations could be surprisingly realistic if they abstract the right things or if people are able to get past the perception that what they're experiencing is a simulation:

The images in our mind are extraordinarily rich. We can tell if something is liquid or solid, heavy or light, dead or alive. But the information we work from is poor—a distorted, two-dimensional transmission with entire spots missing. So the mind fills in most of the picture. You can get a sense of this from brain-anatomy studies. If visual sensations were primarily received rather than constructed by the brain, you’d expect that most of the fibres going to the brain’s primary visual cortex would come from the retina. Instead, scientists have found that only twenty per cent do; eighty per cent come downward from regions of the brain governing functions like memory. Richard Gregory, a prominent British neuropsychologist, estimates that visual perception is more than ninety per cent memory and less than ten per cent sensory nerve signals...

The account of perception that’s starting to emerge is what we might call the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception: perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. The mind integrates scattered, weak, rudimentary signals from a variety of sensory channels, information from past experiences, and hard-wired processes, and produces a sensory experience full of brain-provided color, sound, texture, and meaning. We see a friendly yellow Labrador bounding behind a picket fence not because that is the transmission we receive but because this is the perception our weaver-brain assembles as its best hypothesis of what is out there from the slivers of information we get. Perception is inference.

The article goes on to talk about the use of mirrors for phantom limb syndrome and other more interesting things. The idea is to reset the brain, so it stops thinking it is getting sensations that it isn't.

As always, I am thrilled when (a) computer science shows up in real life and (b) I guess right:

Researchers at the University of Manchester, in England, have gone a step beyond mirrors and fashioned an immersive virtual-reality system for treating patients with phantom-limb pain. Detectors transpose movement of real limbs into a virtual world where patients feel they are actually moving, stretching, even playing a ballgame. So far, five patients have tried the system, and they have all experienced a reduction in pain. Whether those results will last has yet to be established. But the approach raises the possibility of designing similar systems to help patients with other sensor syndromes. How, one wonders, would someone with chronic back pain fare in a virtual world? The Manchester study suggests that there may be many ways to fight our phantoms.

I wish the article was accessible to my students; it would be interesting to talk to them about perception and simulation. I might still try, or use the article for differentiation purposes.

Relinquishing tight control

2009-08-08T10:22:00.000-07:00

The link to "Death to the Syllabus" is going around the twitterverse. I must admit that the first third of the essay did not fully engage me; though I'm not sure why I persevered to read the whole thing, I'm glad I did because the last third was excellent enough to comment on.

Mano Singham makes a case that the traditional college syllabus, full of specific rules and consequences for tiny infractions, is a Very Bad Idea. "The implicit message of the modern course syllabus is that the student will not do anything unless bribed by grades or forced by threats." He goes on to mention,

There is a vast research literature on the topic of motivation to learn, and one finding screams out loud and clear: controlling environments have been shown consistently to reduce people’s interest in whatever they are doing, even when they are doing things that would be highly motivating in other contexts.

He laments that there is a negative cycle between students and teachers, where teachers do not feel comfortable making judgements about students' performance and behavior, where they instead create new rules to handle each situation. He mentions that making individual judgement calls is time-consuming and that in our legalistic society, teachers may feel defensive about making individualized decisions.

In the final section, he describes an experiment he's been performing in his courses for the past several years, where he gives a very open-ended syllabus, develops a classroom culture, then asks the students to create their own policies. He finds that students entrust his judgement and for the most part decline to make many specific rules.

It should not be surprising that I feel validated and encouraged by this essay. Without grades at my school, we rely largely on rubric scoring. (I recently discovered that the word "rubric" can have many meanings, what I'm thinking of is pictured here.) My rubrics tend to be vague, when I even make them at all. I do give students the list of criteria I'm looking at - algorithmic complexity, creativity, good documentation, whatever. But I hate rubrics that are overly specific, mostly because I hate grading that way. An example:

On our website rubric, one of the things we look for is good writing. Some of that is web-appropriate writing, like shortish paragraphs and clear sentences. Some of it is just plain-old good writing: correct spelling, good grammar, that kind of thing. Example rubrics are "specific." 0-1 misspellings will get you an A. 2-3 misspellings will get you a B. 4-5 a C, and so forth. Can I tell you how interested I am in spending quality time hunting down every misspelled word in a website and counting them? For every student? And then there's a whole list of other criteria to look for. I have better things to do with my time than count misspelled words. Especially since I'll then have to cross-reference with the list of kids who have accommodations for learning differences and can't be expected to spell correctly. And the kids who write more - which usually means a better project - will be penalized because they have more opportunities for misspellings. (Oh look, I got started on this. Aren't you lucky?)

Instead of putting specific thresholds of how many misspelled words, I tell the kids that spelling and grammar count, and if the spelling and grammar are bad enough to interfere with the quality of the project, they get dinged. But the rubric looks like, "Excellent grammar and spelling", "Good grammar and spelling", "Poor grammar and spelling", not specific numbers.

On the one hand, I understand that the common thinking is that students want specific guidelines. And yet, so much of life is in vague judgements. The kids know what excellent grammar looks like. They know what poor grammar looks like. They know how to get from poor to good (find an editor, use software tools...) and I don't think that any of our lives are enhanced by suggesting that in a whole website the difference between an A project and a B project is one misspelled word.

I think that by being vague in this way, and then being willing to engage in discussions with the students if they disagree with our assessments, we help students develop their own judgements. They should have a sense of what good grammar looks like, one they can apply without a teacher telling them if they're right. (Oh right, I'm a computer science teacher, not an English teacher. They should have a sense of what a well-documented, neatly coded program looks like, how about that?) Being open to the discussion is an important corollary - students should be able to question, teachers should have reasons, and teachers should be open to being convinced, though not too open.

The place where I'm less secure, but unlikely to change, is that I - like Mano Singham, I think - have a holistic view of assessment. I know teachers who take the scores on the parts of the rubric and essentially average them into a score for the whole project. I don't do that. You can do very well on a bunch of parts of a project and still not have it gel into a cohesive excellent project. You can have a bunch of mediocre parts and still make something amazing, much greater than the parts. In life, we're graded on overall impression, not by whether we had two misspellings or three.

Define the problem

2009-08-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

The ever-popular Seth Godin has a post about "shaving the bear", which he uses as a memorable analogy for the idea of solving the symptoms of a problem rather than addressing the root cause of the problem. (It's based on a PSA about shaving bears so they wouldn't overheat due to global warming.)

Possibly the best lesson I ever learned from the best manager I ever had was about articulating the problem, not the solution you want. (We'll call the manager TZ.) People tend to ask for the solution they want as though not having that solution is the problem. Sometimes that's true, but more often there are many solutions to the actual problem, and by articulating the true problem, many solutions become possible.

It came up because of this situation: TZ was working an event. A small group approached him and asked if he knew where a janitor was. The answer was no, but TZ stopped them and said, "why do you need a janitor?" Because they were out of toilet paper in the men's room, and a janitor would know where it was stored. TZ didn't know where a janitor could be found, but he turned to a nearby woman and asked if she could go into the women's room and bring a roll or two of toilet paper to one of the men and he could take it into the men's room. Actual problem solved. Requested solution unneeded.

The most memorable time I've applied it was in the process that resulted in my school becoming a 1:1 laptop school. It began with the teachers asking for a computer lab. The thing is, we already had a computer lab, but it was full all the time due to space constraints. Putting in another lab would only provide access to teachers who happened to already teach in that room - the space constraints would still be there. What teachers really wanted was more access to computing, access when they wanted it to enhance their teaching. A lab wasn't the best solution to that problem. A 1:1 laptop program, though oddly controversial, solve that and other problems, like inequitable home access. (Why did I find the controversy odd? We're in silicon valley, we'd be solving problems, and it wasn't going to cost any more than the previous solution.)

The first step of both the engineering design process and the scientific method are about defining the problem. Isn't it fun when life lessons are embedded in science? I wonder if it helps kids internalize lessons when we can show the same idea in many domains.

Lost in syntax part 2 (or: OMG I'm going to cry in front of all these people)

2009-07-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

So as I said, Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday were okay. I was kind of learning some things, but I was also getting frustrated because I didn’t feel like I understood what was going on. I take excellent, copious notes, but I felt like I was being given plug-and-chug code. They’d give code examples in lecture, pointing at parts and saying, “this part does this thing” and then we’d go to the lab and face a very similar question. Simple substitution, figure out what operator to put where, and Bob’s your uncle, you’ve got working code. I kept trying to say (mostly to my peers, not to the teacher) that I didn’t feel like I understood the big picture, but I didn’t know what to ask and I had working code, so what’s the problem? I did ask the teacher some questions, but they were usually pretty specific and definitely not of the “I don’t think I understand anything that’s going on” variety. Especially since I clearly DID understand some of what was going on, I just couldn’t generalize it. I felt like I didn’t ‘get it’ but other than saying that I felt like I had no context, I couldn’t articulate what I meant.

OBJECT LESSON 5: Your students won’t necessarily come to you for help, even when they should.

OBJECT LESSON 6: Some of your students are inductive learners and some are deductive learners. It’s a good idea to try to present material in multiple ways, since some of them probably won’t understand what you’re talking about the first way you say it.

Thursday morning, we started working on stuff where a lot of people in the room had significant prior experience, while I have almost none. So we went from “you’re all experienced programmers” to “you all know this” when for me, that was completely false. Now, I wasn’t alone, and some people were asking questions, but mostly I just wrote everything down and figured when I got to lab, I could plug-and-chug the code like I’d been doing, since that seemed to be how this all works.

The key with plug-and-chug is that you either need some idea of what you’re plugging or you have to have truly perfect notes. I had neither. I had typos, I had things I’d missed copying. Syntax error after error after error, none of which mean anything to me. Also, the TAs for the course were largely busy, and instead of needing an occasional pointer, I needed someone to sit next to me and debug my code. Even going and asking my friend only made things worse – he was really nice about explaining it, but the overwhelm had shut me down again.

Indeed, I figured out much later that I actually DO have some experience with what we were being asked to do, but in my panic, I forgot all of it, or that I even should know it.

OBJECT LESSON 7: Just because your students have successfully done something in the past doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to do it right now, without extra support. (Note: sometimes they’re being lazy – in the bad way – so choose your response with care.)

Example: I talked to the parents of an 8-month-old who recently learned to sit up. The problem is, when she learned to sit up, she forgot that she knew how to lie down, so she would sit up, want to not sit up anymore, and start wailing because she didn’t know what else to do. They’re hoping she re-learns how to lie down again before they lose their minds from lack of sleep.

After lunch on Thursday, my friend and I ended up in some conversation about the material and my understanding or lack thereof. Suffice it to say that he finally figured out that I had absolutely no conceptual understanding of the material. The conversation was mockable. He wanted me to describe linguistically how to solve some of the programs I’d coded. I would say, “well, in [language]…” and he’d respond, “not in [language]. How would you DO it?” I had no idea how to describe what I’d programmed.

OBJECT LESSON 8: Just because your students can do something, it doesn’t mean they understand what they’re doing. I’ve had lots of students say, “I don’t understand” and my response was, “but look, you can DO it!” Doing isn’t the important part, understanding is. Doing is important in the workplace. Understanding is important in school. If they understand, then likely they’ll be able to do at some point.

In 15 minutes, my friend explained the big picture, the most fundamental concept relating to everything we’d learned, using quasi-programming examples. It was concrete, it was clear, and I got it.

OBJECT LESSON 9: It’s important to explain the big picture and talk about why some of the language constructs are the way they are. Hopefully you’ve chosen the language you have because it does the things you’re trying to do well. Why is that? How should students be thinking about the problems they’re trying to solve with their code? What’s the context for the code?

My friend, consummate teacher he is, kept quizzing me for the rest of the workshop, even on things that were hard, and once I got it, I was able to keep getting it. I started going back to re-do the exercises, understanding what’s happening without fear. I still probably won’t switch languages, but I’m willing to try some things and continue giving it a chance.

My friend would want me to give you the final object lesson:

OBJECT LESSON 10: Stop thinking it’s hard. My friend is convinced that a major barrier to my understanding is I’d been told how hard these concepts are and what a hard time I’d have understanding them. He’s convinced that my fear got in the way of learning. How often do we transmit to students that things are hard and they’ll probably have trouble? Self-fulfilling prophecies can be profound barriers to learning.

One thing I’m going to do is describe this experience to my students at the beginning of the year. I know that some of them get overwhelmed like I did, I know some of them end up feeling much more stupid than they are, and I suspect some of them end up feeling bad about CS when really they’re just not ready or I’m not teaching it the right way to them. If nothing else, I hope that telling them this story will let them know how much empathy I have for them.

Lost in syntax part 1 (or: OMG I'm going to cry in front of all these people)

2009-07-21T05:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent the week at a workshop, learning a programming language. It’s been quite an instructive experience, full of object lessons on what computer science is like for some of my students. (I want to note that the workshop teachers and organizers were lovely and in general I do not blame them for what happened.)

The first day was great. This language has some terrific features, particularly for thinking about math. I could see how it would be a better fit for certain applications than anything else I’ve seen. I could feel my brain starting to think in interesting new ways that will make me a better programmer in any language. I felt really optimistic.

The first night, I got in a huge fight with my husband. This is relevant because it meant that I started Tuesday in a not-good place emotionally, which had nothing to do with the workshop. Think your student’s personal lives don’t affect their performance in your class? HA.

OBJECT LESSON 1: Students bring their lives into the room with them. Their experience can vary dramatically from day to day for reasons that have nothing to do with you, but will affect their performance and behavior when they’re with you.

Tuesday started okay. The material was getting more complex, but I was keeping up. There was a little recursion, but they don’t call it recursion, the instructor just said “you’re experienced programmers, you know what that is” and I wondered what it was, until someone else called it recursion and I could see it. Oh, okay. I’ve never actually programmed recursion, but I was still feeling like I could figure it out.

Then she used a construct she had used the day before, in a way that the mental model I’d created of what that construct meant didn’t work. And everyone nodded. And I didn’t know what it meant. And for a minute or two, that was okay, because hey, I was sure I could figure that out too. Only she kept using it. First, I was distracted, because I kept trying to figure out what the code meant. Second, you can’t do recursion without this thing. And I was still not figuring out what it means. I started realizing that if her use of this thing makes sense (and I trust it does) and I can’t fit it into my mental model of this construct, then my mental model must be wrong. Which means I didn’t actually understand anything yesterday, and in fact haven’t understood anything after the first hour.

At which point my brain completely shut down. Oh, I kept taking notes, in between trying hard not to cry, because oh my god, I really am as dumb as I have ever feared.

OBJECT LESSON 2: A student who gets upset stops thinking. The more upset they are, the less thinking they can do. While they’re coping with all these overwhelming emotions, if you’re moving on, they might as well be absent.

THOUGHT EXERCISE 1: On students walking out of class. This is only the second time in my life that I’ve almost walked out of a class because what was happening in the room was so terrible for me that I couldn’t cope. I don’t leave because I find it unacceptably rude to the lecturer. I know some teachers who disagree and freely allow students to come and go when they need a break.

At the break I went and asked the teacher about my original point of confusion, and we worked out an explanation I could accept. Why didn’t I ask during the lecture? Because everyone else seemed to get it and no one else was asking any questions. I usually ask even in those situations, but it was compounded by the fact that she kept telling us how experienced we were, and I kept feeling like a fraud because I don’t consider myself an experienced programmer at all. (Can you say “imposter syndrome”?)

OBJECT LESSON 3: Just because many students appear to understand the material, doesn’t mean they all do. Make sure your class culture encourages student questions and not just student answers. Imagine how much faster I would have recovered if I had just asked what that word meant right away.

OBJECT LESSON 4: What you think is a complement (“you’re an experienced programmer”) isn’t necessarily heard positively. The best complements are direct, specific, and personal. In this case, I think she was using “you’re experienced programmers” to mean “I’m not going to teach you something important here” which would have been easier for me to hear.

At lunch, I spent a while talking to a friend who further clarified the material, while carefully standing far enough away that if I started crying he wouldn’t get wet. (It isn’t an object lesson, but if a colleague is on the verge of tears, it is okay to give them a hug. Or maybe that’s only true at the hippy-dippy school where I work, but I’ve literally provided a shoulder to cry on more than once.)

By the end of lunch, I felt better. Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday went back to being okay. I felt pretty confident that the storm had passed, though things weren’t quite sunny yet.

In fact, Wednesday night I went out to dinner with a long-time friend who has nothing to do with CS Ed, we spent four hours catching up and gossiping, and I felt so happy and glad to be out of thinking about CS for a while. I was sure Thursday was going to be the opposite of Tuesday. But that is fodder for a second post...

Subvert the dominant paradigm

2009-07-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, Alfred Thompson posed the question, "what would you do if the lights (and power) went out in your computer science classroom?" At nearly the same time, I was interviewed about "computer science tools" as part of someone's dissertation research. One of the questions was, "if you had to choose only one tool to work with and couldn't have any others, which would you choose?"

Both Robb Cutler and Chad Clites have the best answer: use pencil and paper.

I am saddened to admit this was not my first answer.

The dominant paradigm of computing education is to teach technology. In the APCS course, are we really teaching the major concepts of computer science? Or are we really teaching Java, and using some of those concepts along the way? It's endemic in the way we talk about our curriculum. We teach "programming with Alice" or "simulations with Flash". If we're teaching simulation-building, why does it matter what tool we use? But we get caught up in the tools, partly because we tend to love them, and the concepts and ideas become, at best, co-equal, and more often subsumed in importance.

The reality is that my current curriculum would not move forward without power. I've faced this problem repeatedly over the last three years and it hasn't been pretty. Last year I spent the first week of school without access to my classroom, having to teach outside. So instead of starting the "real" curriculum (animation with Flash), I did CS Unplugged activities. Sure, I think my students got something out of learning about sorting and searching. But the reality is that the lessons were totally disconnected from the curriculum. The ideas weren't reinforced throughout the year, the concepts weren't connected to anything else they learned, and I suspect that few of them remember anything about it.

We need a new kind of curriculum, that is concept-centered, more like math and science curricula, that sends implicit and explicit messages to the students about what is important, and where what is important is the concepts, not the technology. In the same way that experiments are the implementation of science, but what we teach is scientific thinking and important concepts and knowledge, we need to have programming and computing be the implementation of computer science, but teach computational thinking and important concepts and knowledge. The computer needs to be a tool, not the center of the program.

Turn homework on its head

2009-06-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

I am toying with the idea of turning homework on its head in the next year or two. What if students did homework at school and listened to lectures at home?

DougPete at Off the Record wrote about students analyzing their wiki usage trends. He asks

why not turn the tables around. Issue students a textbook if you must, on the first day of school and have them take it home and leave it there. Change the day so that homework is done at school and students do their reading for the next day at home. In terms of technology, that way you could even the playing field with everyone having access to the same level of access. More importantly, the students would have access to each other for collaboration and for work.

For a variety of reasons, I don't use a textbook (and sometime I'll write about them. I'm sure you're breathlessly awaiting that post). I do spend an unfortunate amount of time talking to the students, though. And repeating myself, when a student (a) stopped paying attention (b) interrupted me so I lost my train of thought (c) was absent.

Last year, I linked to a bunch of Atomic Learning screencasts for Flash. I still taught my students what I wanted them to know, but the screencasts were there to remind them and to help students who missed class.

My students did not love Atomic Learning. They couldn't articulate why, but I have a couple of theories:

They're used to my voice and my style, and they didn't like being taught by someone else
When I teach them, I reinforce only the things I want them to know. The Atomic Learning screencasts where more hit and miss. They include information I consider irrelevant and don't always include information I consider important
They found them dry and boring, because it's very hard to be as enthusiastic while recording a screencast as it is in person, and a person provides extra visuals to overcome the periods where they're not talking because they're concentrating on clicking or whatever.
Some topics aren't covered by Atomic Learning at all. There's no Flash section. Many of the Flash topics I cover are too advanced.

Now, #1 is the kind of thing that makes me say, "get over it" except that if the kids aren't watching the videos, then we're not achieving any goals. And #3 would affect me just as much as anyone else. But #4, #2 and #1 combine to be pretty compelling. Especially since, as mentioned, most of the kids aren't watching the videos.

We are a 1:1 laptop school and my students have the internet available outside of school. If they don't have it at home (and nearly all do) they can stay for "homework club" and do internet-needed homework then.

So I am thinking of either recording my lectures live this year or creating screencasts of my lessons. I will then make watching the screencasts the required homework. Assignments will be completed in class rather than as homework, meaning that students will have me available to help them when they run into problems, rather than toiling away at home. It's a lot of work up front, but I think the payoff could be huge.

Some of my favorite rants

2009-06-03T11:52:00.000-07:00

We didn't have enough caffeinated coffee in the house, so we had half caf. I can tell, and not in the good way. Instead of focusing on grading, I'm surfing the web. As soon as I post this, I'm going to make more coffee (I'm at work now, I can do that) and go back to grading. Really.

In the meantime, I will leave you with my two current favorite end-of-year rants. Siobhan Curious lists 10 reasons I hate grading your assignment and Walter's generic progress report is a perennial favorite. (Well, a biennial favorite, anyway.)

Ugh. I really don't want to do the grading.

Online economy and perceived value

2009-05-29T17:10:00.000-07:00

Last week was my last week with my students. As you might imagine, I've worked very hard to grade as much work as possible before they go. I am also responsible for our school schedule and have been working VERY hard for the past two weeks trying to make next year's schedule work. (Although we're keeping substantially the same schedule, we have some staffing changes that necessitate some deft maneuvering.)

With all this stress, I've found myself needing to blow off steam. Fortunately, @mml suggested the game Plants vs. Zombies, so I downloaded it and ran through the trial hour in a couple of days. It costs $20 to buy. This presented a dilemma. $20 felt like a lot to spend on a game; I always think carefully before I do, though I've spent that much on downloaded games before.

Then I went to the grocery store and spent $25 on odds and ends without thinking twice about it. And wondered, why is it that $25 at the grocery or a restaurant is no big deal, when $20 on a computer game or movie at the theatre seems like a lot? Now, this is the place where the psychologists would start talking about perceived value, and of course they'd be right. But instead, I'm going to marvel at the synchronicity that Ian Bogost was thinking about the exact same thing.

His article is really good, so you should go read it.

Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're out to get you

2009-05-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

I have a student, S, who is, shall we say, "a handful". I really like her, but she is Difficult with a capital D.

Example: we've had a three-year power struggle over whether or not she is going to spend every class tipped back in her chair. This is a pet peeve of mine and the rule is "four on the floor." She will keep her feet and two chair legs on the floor and tell me "that IS four on the floor!" We finally resolved the power struggle when I began bribing her to sit up straight. I told her I'd give her a cookie if she behaved one day, and she did. I have inconsistently rewarded good behavior since then and what do you know? She CAN behave.

I was reminiscing today that she reminds me of another student, Lydia. Lydia and Evelyn were best friends and were incredibly disruptive. In seventh grade, they got on a barking kick. They would randomly and frequently bark like dogs. They could not be enticed to stop. (I was a new teacher; I didn't have a lot of tricks to try.) They mostly only did it in my class. Every period with them was a trial.

Finally, I had a talk with Lydia and the guidance counselor had a talk with Evelyn, where we told them how awful it was. They were flabbergasted. Truly shocked. I said, "Lydia, I yell at you guys to stop all the time!" She told me, "but we love joking around with you! You never get mad, you just laugh." I told her, "I hate it. I get so frustrated. Every day when I leave your class, I'm in a terrible mood. It isn't funny to me." They stopped after that.

Lydia is my touchstone to not take student behavior personally. Even when I think they couldn't possibly be unaware how irritating they are, chances are much better that they have no idea than that they do. (Disclaimer: this may not be true in other schools.) I can't think of one time when I've tracked down even truly shocking behavior and had the kid have any malicious intent.

It's one of the reasons I love kids - they're so self-absorbed and it's completely developmentally appropriate. If adults behaved this way, I would either be mad because it was intentional or I would be mad because they ought to predict the impact of their behavior. With kids, once I stop being mad, I just laugh. (Barking? Really?) I guess Lydia had a point.

Reflection

2009-05-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

Today I am giving the students a "final quiz". It is not comprehensive, as it covers only programming we've done this semester. Their final project was due on Tuesday; we've been working on it since February.

This semester there have been a chorus of complaints about how awful Python is. I have a number of students who are very far behind - like the one I made stay in at lunch on Tuesday and got her caught up to the end of March. They all miss Flash - which I think is funny, since they hated Flash while we were doing it.

At the end of the quiz, I asked them how the quiz was. The quiz this semester was on paper; last semester it was online. They thought the quiz was straightforward, which was my goal - no trick questions. They told me they thought it was easier because it was on paper instead of online, which I thought was interesting. They're much more practiced at taking quizzes and tests on paper than online, so navigating how to answer the computerized questions was a little challenge. Finally, by a two-to-one margin, they preferred programming in python to working with Flash. They found it much more straightforward.

I also asked them to do a final reflection on "Why study computer science?" They answered the same question at the beginning of the year, so it will be interesting to see how their answers change.

Stories from the Week

2009-04-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

1. A student has not handed in the past several assignments. (The beauty/horror of this statement is that it is completely anonymous because so many students are in the same boat.) I let the parents know. The parents e-mail me back and say, "she has uploaded them." I check. She has not uploaded them to the assignment spaces in Moodle for my class. I e-mail the parents back and let them know. They respond "perhaps there is some misunderstanding. She told us she finished the work. Can you show her how to turn the work in correctly?" I write back and say, "yes, I can show her how to turn work in, but we have used the same process all year and she was able to turn work in as recently as five weeks ago, when she last turned in anything."

2. I had a doctor's appointment on Friday, with a doctor whose office annoys me. They are not as flexible as I would like and frequently want me to come in when I need to be teaching. (There are many examples and yes, I realize that their appointment schedule does not revolve around my personal needs.) I convince another teacher to sub. When my sub calls in sick and needs me to cover her classes, I do so and find a substitute sub to cover for both of us. During the appointment, the doctor says, "I'll be quick so you can get back to school." I responded, "no need, my class is going on right now and it's only 50 minutes long." She replied, "oh, so did you just reschedule it?" Seriously? I now understand why they're inflexible if they really don't understand that you can't reschedule eighth grade classes.

3. I got to hang out on Friday night with two friends who are also teachers, and who I haven't seen in a year. Swapping war stories is always entertaining. I miss them and wish it could conspire that we could see each other more frequently.

Masters degree

2009-03-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

Jane (of See Jane Compute) and ScienceWoman have both posted stories about pursuing masters degrees that kind of make my hair stand on end. Especially Jane's. I don't have a terrible advisor story, but I thought I'd post about my masters anyway.

My masters experience was just weird. I thought about getting a masters for a long time. After I got two bachelors, I started working for the university. Eventually I moved out of the $7/hour job and into one with benefits, including fee remission. I couldn't decide between nutrition or information science, and for a long time it didn't matter since I was busy planning a wedding.

The week after I got back from my honeymoon, I was at lunch with a group. Our best man announced, "my class starts tonight. I don't want to take it alone. Who will go with me?" I wasn't doing anything that night, so I signed up. It was kind of boring, but kind of fun. I learned about flowcharting the operations of a hamburger stand. It was relevant to my work. The next semester, I took another class with my friend. I couldn't get any more credit after that if I didn't apply to the information science program, so I did. I convinced my boss and a colleague to write me letters of recommendation. I kept taking a class at a time in addition to working full time. It was fun. I learned really interesting things, like how to plan a library building and that it is a warning sign someone is embezzling if they refuse to ever take time off from work. I learned how to program in Perl. I learned about the history of magazines in the US and speculated about how Borders.com, B&N.com, and Amazon.com would work out.

Eventually, I joined some kind of leadership group for my program and started making friends. I found out that other people had researched different programs and chosen mine. It had never occurred to me to think critically about grad school, it was just there. Oh, and did I mention that my program didn't require the GRE? That helped.

If you want gossip, I will let you know that I became friends with my husband's ex-girlfriend. THE ex-girlfriend. The one who practically ruined his life. I became friends with her before I knew who she was. I remember the day I figured it out. "Huh, that's the same name as the ex. And she's from the same place. And has other similar features. What a funny coincidence. Honey, what's the ex's last name?" I was shocked that she didn't have horns, she was really nice. He was all, "um yeah, that's why I loved her so much."

Because I was just taking a class or two at a time and wasn't on a Quest for Employability, I didn't really interact with my advisor. I took a class from him my last semester and it was great. I went to a party he was at and after I turned in my final paper, he took me (and others) out for a beer. But otherwise, I can't say we really interacted. I was much closer to another professor. My program also didn't require a thesis or research, just classes. I took what I wanted, when I wanted (or more accurately, when classes were offered in the evening and weekends.)

In the end I graduated about two years earlier than I'd hoped. We decided to move across the country for a Great Opportunity and so I stayed in town six months in order to go to school full time so I could get the degree. It was not optimal, especially since I was also working full time since I needed the salary and benefits. The very last month of school, I quit my job. It was GREAT. I would never work full time while I was in school again - the opportunity to think deeply, research more, collaborate with classmates, and just experience school was something I missed. But I couldn't have gotten my degree if I hadn't done it the way I did, so I don't regret my experience either.

I told a friend about this recently. She'd like a masters but isn't sure in what. I told her to just try it! Everyone she knows has a Big Plan for grad school and she doesn't. I'm the poster child for not having a plan doesn't mean you won't have a great experience.

My tech heroine

2009-03-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

In honor of Ada Lovelace day, I want to celebrate my tech heroine, Mouse.

Mouse has amazing style. She wears terrific clothes, has a great haircut, and has an eye for design. I think it's because in addition to being an awesome techie, she's also an artist. I love her self-portraits. She is also crafty - she made Mandlebrot the fractal bear! (She's also made a quilt, jewelry, and embroidery.)

Mouse has a long history of technical excellence. She first discovered her love of computer science and engineering in middle school. She was lucky enough to go to a middle school that made both those subjects mandatory, but she discovered a passion for them of her own. When her high school did not offer sufficient (any) computer science classes, Mouse started attending the local community college to learn programming in addition to a full college prep program. She took many and varied courses through the community college, learning Java and other CS topics. Now she's a student at the University of Washington, double-majoring in CS and engineering.

As her senior service project, Mouse needed to design and enact a program for younger children. So she designed and taught a summer Java class at her middle school for then students. The students loved it so much that every year since they have asked whether she will come back and teach again. A high school teacher I know commented that he would never let one of his students do that - he wouldn't trust them to do a good job teaching middle schoolers. I would trust Mouse with any students, any time. I wish she lived closer to me so she could be my substitute. (Though I did find a wonderful new sub this year, so I won't steal her from college yet.)

Mouse has a wonderful sense of humor and is prone to combining her many interests in unique ways. For example, she took math notes in Sierpinski triangles. I would call her a geek, but she's much too adorable.

Mouse was on a panel of students at the Grace Hopper conference in 2006. She is already awesome, but I think she will change the world.

You know what else would be cool?

2009-03-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

I use the Nike+ system. It is so cool - I have a chip in my shoe and a chip in my ipod and it keeps track of my running. It tells me how far I've gone, how fast I'm going and even how many calories I burn. Sometimes, Lance Armstrong congratulates me on how great I am. ("This is Lance Armstrong. That was your fastest run yet!")

At the end of the year, the Nike+ website gave me a "rundown" that told me how far I'd gone and all kinds of things. It told me that my "best" running day is Saturday. (I disagree, but it's only a computer.)

I want a "postdown" for my blog. I want to know the most common day I post. (Currently: Wednesday, I think.) I want to know how many posts per year, graphed by month, number of words. Whatever the equivalencies to the Nike+ system are, but for blogging.

I'm sure there's a way to program it myself, but I think the effort of doing so is probably more than calculating it by hand. I don't want to think about what that means, other than 'I have other hobbies than programming.' Actually, I'd be more inclined to figure it out for the Nike+ because I really DO want to play with the raw data and make my own graphs about my running. The blogging is way less important to me.

The zen of experimentation

2009-03-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

I own a lot of books. In my heart, I am a frustrated librarian, so they are organized carefully on my bookshelves. No matter how careful I am when I move, it is impossible to pack them in a way that makes it possible to unpack them directly onto the shelves the way they came out. I moved 10 times in 12 years, so I tried a lot of things. It ends up that I'm desperate to get rid of the stacks of boxes so I just throw the books on the shelves and organize them later.

Over time, I began to appreciate the zen of disorganization. It's impossible to find any particular book, since it could be almost anywhere (and often behind something else). Thus, when desiring to read, one must have an open mind. One must stand and look at the shelves until something interesting appears, as it always does. It usually goes something like, "oh, I'd forgotten about this one" with that sigh of having found an old friend. (All my books are old friends. There is a special shelf for the potential new friends that I'm still getting to know.) (I sound like a freak.)

This morning, I talked to another middle school computer science teacher, specifically about how he teaches Scratch. Mostly he lets the students experiment and play, while he walks around supporting and guiding them gently. The assignments are very open-ended

This has pros and cons. Frequently, students will shy away from what Steve Cooper calls "algorithmically interesting" problems and solutions. They're more interested in the story they're building than in implementing loops, conditionals, functions, whatever. But they are very engaged, open to new ideas, and ready for "just in time" learning.

This is different from a more traditional approach, where there's a particular outcome, using particular skills, with one right answer. The students still might experiment some, but mostly it is experimentation to see if they can get the right answer, not experimentation in the form of wandering around and seeing where they get. (There's an analogy to science here.)

Letting them wander around, play, and be zen is so engaging compared to wanting them to find the One Right Answer. It makes them use lots of parts of their brains. It makes them think in different, creative ways.

The trick - and what the other teacher and I agreed to think about - is how to combine both. We need to think about structuring assignments so that they are open-ended and encourage creativity and experimentation while also improving the likelihood that students will use algorithmically interesting solutions.

Netbooks and Disruptive technologies

2009-03-04T22:31:00.000-08:00

And to prove how tired and distracted I am, I didn't even remember the whole reason I started the last post, which was to share this very interesting article about Netbooks. Happy reading!

At SIGCSE

2009-03-04T22:19:00.000-08:00

Already seeing many friends, though so far I have not run into one of the two most important people I want to see. (I had dinner with one.) I think these two people would be surprised to find themselves in the top two. If this were my other blog, I would go on a tangent about friendship and whether or not you can replace people whom you miss.

I spent quite a bit of time talking about grammar today, which reinforces to me that I don't know when to use who and when to use whom.

There are at least three half-written, time-sensitive blog posts here. I don't know why last week I hypothesized that things would be quieter once I got here. I will nevertheless endeavor to at least twitter about the conference and possibly even post. But my greatest endeavor is really to finish the two things I'm supposed to have done for a meeting at 1:30 tomorrow. Then if I have time, I will finish any of those posts.

Finally, I'm reminded of a post by NonaKnits. She went to a conference and blogged about it. (It might have been Olema.) When she got back, one of her real-life friends found out she'd been there and said, "Nona was there too! Did you meet her?" I wonder if any people who read this don't know who I am. Of course, it's easier to realize that "Wicked Teacher" isn't my real name than to realize that "Nona" is a pseudonym.

CS is everywhere

2009-02-16T08:04:00.000-08:00

I have encountered a couple of stories lately where computer science was underneath the story in a way that was easy to overlook. I don't really think it should have been called out in either story, and yet I want people to see it.

The first story is about Shane Battier, The No-Stats All Star.

"We now have all this data," [Houston Rockets' owner, Leslie] Alexander told me, "And we have computers that can analyze that data. And I wanted to use that data in a progressive way..."

The virus that infected professional baseball in the 1990s, the use of statistics to find new and better ways to value players and strategies, has found its way into every major sport. Not just basketball and football, but also soccer and cricket and rugby and, for all I know, snooker and darts - each one now supports a subculture of smart people who view it not just as a game to be played but as a problem to be solved.

I'm not completely sure that counts as computer science. But computing literacy is required to do the kind of creative algorithm generation required to crunch the statistics. And at its core, that's computer science. Of course it isn't only computer science, but to me that's the beauty - computer science underlies many of the cool things that are happening in different disciplines. You don't have to be a nerd working in high tech to use computer science in your career.

I was accused of being self-absorbed the last time I mentioned the second story, but I'll put it out there anyway. I was listening to an interview with Chesley Sullenberger where he talked about all the things he had to do to land the plane safely in the Hudson - nose up, wings level, not too fast, not too slow... simultaneously. Now Sullenberger is truly a hero, his reflexes, calm, and creativity are amazing. But I don't think he could have done it if he hadn't practiced it using a flight simulator. Flight simulators are one of the most obvious implementations of computer science that exist. Computer science is like the unsung hero of the story! (Yes, I'm being deliberately over the top there.)

Just like other sciences - especially physics and chemistry - computer science is all around us, but we accept it without even noticing it.

Inclusiveness

2009-02-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

In cleaning out my bookmarks, I came across a link to Joel Spolsky's column at Inc, "How Hard Could It Be?" His latest article is about rewarding employees for great ideas.

The article touches on intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, which is always something to keep in mind as a teacher. At my school (as in many K-12 schools), we're very aware of wanting to develop life-long learners. That means developing intrinsic motivation. Yet our effect on the children is inherently extrinsic. A dilemma, for sure.

The very interesting part of the article for me was on page 2:

Human beings, by their nature, tend to think of themselves as, how can I put this politely, a bit more wonderful than they really are. All of your B performers think they are A performers. The C performers think they are B performers. (A couple of your A performers think they are F performers, because they are crazy perfectionists or just clinically depressed. But they are the exceptions.)

My first reaction to this was, "I wonder how many women Joel has working at Fog Creek." My second thought was, "I bet not that many." It completely ignores imposter syndrome and all the studies showing that women with higher grades will drop out. In CS, for women, B performers tend to think they're not good enough.

Now, it's also possible that the difference is I'm looking at education while he's looking at the post-education working world. That the skills which make you get through and get hired increase your self-confidence out of proportion to your performance and that the people who drop out as described wouldn't ever get hired by Fog Creek.

I see the low-self-esteem side of the curve all the time. All my students are capable of programming. Many, many of them think they're not. It's hard, it's unfamiliar, they aren't sure they're doing it right, they get syntax errors they can't interpret... they think they're not good enough. On the first assignment, which happened on the second day of programming, one of the students was very, very worried that she didn't understand it well enough. She wrote a perfectly good program, but relied on the class notes and example program to do it. She didn't think she really understood it since she couldn't have done it without the notes and examples. On the second day.

I don't disagree with Spolsky's idea of human nature and I'm sure he's an excellent manager. But not everyone has an overinflated sense of self-worth.

On a related tangent, I heard a thought-provoking story last week. A group at a high tech company had a meeting. The engineers were talking about a Spolsky article. The manager had never heard of Joel Spolsky. "Who is this Joel guy?" One of the engineers actually looked at the manager in disbelief and said, "You've never heard of Joel Spolsky??" The engineers reportedly felt this was further proof that their manager is out of touch. (The manager did rise through the technical ranks, not that it's relevant.)

The story made me angry. Sure, Joel is well known in certain circles. Knowing about his blog is a cultural marker. Not knowing about his blog probably means you have a different set of cultural references. Not knowing the "right" cultural markers means you don't fit in. And the response isn't to try to help you acclimate and learn the markers of the group you're in, it's to ridicule you and use that lack of knowledge as proof that you don't belong and ought to go somewhere else and do something else. After all, you can't possibly be a competent programmer or good manager if you don't know who Joel Spolsky is.

It might be different if the person didn't know something that was directly relevant to the job at hand. Yet I frequently see or hear stories where someone who is up on the culture doesn't know required information and isn't shunned for it. Either the lack of knowledge is ignored or the idea is explained to the person who needs to know, informal mentoring. "Oh, you need to use a McKenzie-Shlimit algorithm here. It will make the fizzits go into the slobnots efficiently."

I think this kind of thing happens more frequently in high tech than it does in other professions. It's one of the reasons why we have the leaky pipeline problem. It reminds me of middle school girls - if you don't already know how to be popular, the popular group certainly isn't going to tell you! And they're going to laugh at you and tell you your epidermis is showing, too.

All or Nothing (or: Moderation in All Things)

2009-02-15T10:09:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about moderation and abstinence, ever since reading this post at the Happiness Project. I'm usually a moderator - I get panicky if I try to give something up forever, but I can put it off indefinitely by thinking, "later". (This may not apply in the case of apple crisp. Apple crisp is always better NOW.)

This has been true with my workflow lately, too. I had to switch to a loaner computer while mine is being repaired. The loaner has a much smaller hard drive, so I had to move things to an external drive. I've done that a few times in the past and things are a big mess. So I'm using this opportunity to try to clean things up, including my bookmarks.

The problem is that it's a huge job and I don't really have time to sit down for the hours it would take to do the whole thing all at once. Also, boring. So I've been doing it in chunks, making sure it is clear where I left off. Very moderate.

Now I just have to apply this to the rest of my life, particularly the part where it's easy to maintain. I tend to get stuck feeling like if I don't get all the way organized then there's just no point, when for me that isn't true at all.

I organized a bunch of files at work this fall. Now I can't remember the system I used. It was even color coded! The colors are still there, but the meaning is lost. I think this time I will paste the key on the front of the filing cabinet. And no, you may NOT come visit me and laugh.

Are we all too busy?

2009-01-28T22:56:00.000-08:00

I went to a meeting tonight where one person lamented the lack of interest in the group. We have a dedicated, passionate core of members, but we believe there are many others out there who are not participating and we don't know why.

This person told a story: he went to a meeting earlier in the week with three people who would be great members of our group. He encouraged them to come to our meeting. Two had (what he thought of as) legitimate conflicts. One just declined. She works in a school and said, "by 3:15 I'm just tired. I want to go home and spend evenings with my husband and dog. I don't go out in the evening."

This member was clearly disappointed in her choice to stay home. His feeling is that we're all busy, we all have other commitments, and yet we make the time to show up for these meetings and try to make this group work. He is frustrated that others don't.

Ultimately, I'm pragmatic. We can't make people care about things we wish they would care about. We can't make them prioritize the way we want them to (unless we hold some kind of power over them.) Who knows why this woman feels that way - she's an introvert, she's a morning person, she just doesn't like us. It only matters in so far as we can arrange ourselves to meet her needs - or the needs of others who would participate if we could lower the barriers to participation.

I think there's a huge parallel here to teaching. We can teach, we can amuse, we can inspire, but we can't make students passionate about our subject if they won't be. Some kids will be captured. Other kids won't. I don't know a teacher who doesn't want to reach ALL their students and have the students see the beauty and magic in the subject that caused the teacher to dedicate his/her life to it. But not all kids will see the beauty and magic of the subject - no matter what the subject is. Good teachers are more inspiring than bad teachers, of course, but even good teachers miss some. Think back - aren't there subjects that you just plain didn't like?

I guess my conclusion is that it reminded me that we have to pull people in - educationally, professionally, and personally. You can't force people to be where you want. You have to convince the unsure and coax the reluctant. In other words, you get more flies with honey than with vinegar. (Though someone tell me there's a more appealing cliche than that. Who wants a bunch of flies around??)

Textbooks

2009-01-21T17:45:00.000-08:00

I don't use a textbook.

This seems to be heresy for most teachers. It is true that my school supports some really weird practices - project-based learning, no grades (narrative reports - which is what I should be working on right now!), and groupwork to name a few. So not using textbooks fits right in here. But I think (like the other practices, really) that it's fully justifiable.

I have a double-whammy: there are no texts that both cover what I want to cover and are appropriate for middle school. Most middle school "computer science" textbooks are heavy on applications and light on the things I'd like to cover. The books that cover the actual topics I'd like to cover are far, far above the reading level of my students. This year I tried an experiment (covered under educational fair use): I photocopied an exercise out of a Flash book I have. It was 20 steps, clearly explained. Half of the students were able to complete it at all, fewer than half of them were able to successfully follow the directions to get a working product. The language was above them, the writing was small, it didn't explain itself in a way they could understand... it was awful.

So I am left creating handouts, making podcasts (another thing I should be doing rather than posting!), and demoing while the students follow along and take notes. I am hoping to write the textbook I would want to use, one of these days.

I will say that I have a few favorite books I use. For Python, I rely heavily on Zelle's Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science and Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner. I use Zelle's graphics library rather than the built-in turtle graphics because they're easy to use and high-impact. In fact, the hangman game the students will make as their first big project is built with Zelle's graphics. I love that PPftAB has a game in each chapter - so much fun! I am hoping to move fast enough to have the students make the Mad Libs project as their second big project. It's OO and uses GUI windows. In Flash, I like the Lynda books a lot and this year I got the Missing Manual book which I like. But mostly I've got the Flash stuff down and really don't use a book. Someday I have to pull all my stuff into a website so other people can steal it if they need it.

Python begins

2009-01-19T22:13:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I start teaching programming with python to the 8th graders. I have been thinking about what approach to use since this summer. My options were:

The imperative approach I used last year
Objects almost-first, the approach I used this summer with a mixed group of AP-graduates and novices
The media computation approach

I discarded the media comp approach pretty quickly. Media comp doesn't feel like my students are making things, only that they're manipulating something that already exists. I want them to make things. It's not totally rational.

Then I worried back and forth between imperative and objects. I think people are warped by the programming style they learn first, so I might be ruining them by going imperative. But I'm not very good at OO design and I think OO is really hard and has a lot of unnecessary overhead, so I might be ruining them by going OO, by driving them away from programming entirely.

In the end, I decided to go imperative. I don't have time to prepare adequately to do OO well, I want to re-try the imperative approach I used last year to see if I can make it better, and if I can get through the imperative stuff fast enough, there will be time to do OO after we program hangman. I'm crossing my fingers that it will go well.

Web 2.0

2009-01-19T21:41:00.000-08:00

I found some notes that are undated and un-contexted, but interesting. So I am posting them here that we might all be able to think about them and find them and I can delete them from my desktop.

Tinkering: Web 2.0 is digital tinkering. Kids don't just know how - they need instruction and practice.

The teacher says: Tinkering is important for promoting certain kinds of thinking and certain interests; both engineers and computer scientists frequently cite it as important for children. But at some point people have to move past tinkering and be guided to a deeper understanding. Assuming that the "digital natives" will just figure it out on their own is as foolhardy as assuming that a 10-year-old who can take apart a toaster can therefore build a car.

Culture: We are culture-bound in how we think and in inventing the future. E.g. Indians (from India) would not have invented the desktop model because they don't use desks, they would have done bookshelves. [Really? Interesting.] At the lower level there are similarities in how humans think about things that are pervasive across cultures. The interface needs to merely not get in the way. Alan tried using the theory of instruction.

The teacher says: OH. These must be notes from a lecture by Alan Kay and Andy Van Dam at the Engelbart thing. The first half resonates with me - this is why diversity in design teams is so important! The second half confounds me. What were they talking about?

Instant gratification: in the Bible, Esau sold his birthright for a cup of porridge. Americans may be doing that now. Romans: bread and circus.

The teacher says: I can't respond intelligently because I don't remember the context well enough to know why I found this striking. Partly because I think biblical references are cool, partly because I didn't remember that about Esau, and certainly for some other greater reason. But the lecture is online, so you can go listen and think for yourself!

It isn't the language

2009-01-17T11:24:00.000-08:00

A mailing list is on the edge of having the language debate again. Ironically, I'm going through old e-mail from September and this exact list had this debate then too.

Every time we have the language debate, we get closer to the idea that the language doesn't matter, that what matters is the ideas. We want students to solve problems and we want them to understand some of the important concepts in our discipline. Thus any language should do, as long as it allows them to solve problems and understand the important concepts in our discipline.

Some languages are better choices than others. We want students to focus on the "right" problems. That is, they should spend time solving problems like "which algorithm is more efficient" or "write a program that demonstrates good use of stacks as compared to queues" and not problems like "it doesn't compile."

I think about chemistry, as I so often do in these situations. When we want students to learn about the types of reactions, we (a) teach them about the types of reactions, (b) give them examples on paper, and (c) have them do a few reactions, such as a precipitation reaction. Does it matter which precipitation reaction? No, except that we choose one that is likely to have low experimental error and high yield, since we want the focus to be on the reaction and the products, not on the error.

I'm not going to vote, but I do think we don't need to worry about articulation or workforce readiness or how many languages students should learn. We need to focus on the important concepts and skills. If they can do it in one language, they can learn another, just like if you can do one titration you can do another - it doesn't matter very much what the specifics were since you can apply the big skills.

Progress report help

2009-01-16T10:31:00.000-08:00

We don't have grades at my school, we have narrative reports. These include a rubric section. My department (now that I have one!) has re-written our rubric. The sections we have that I'm happy with are Application of Computer Science (vocabulary, concept application), Algorithmic thinking (use a logical process, follow directions), and Communication (listen, read, communicate ideas clearly). I'm really struggling with one section: computer science concepts.

In the seventh grade, they do three units and each unit has one rubric line for computer science concepts. So the database unit gets a line for "create a well-designed relational database" and students are evaluated on that. Those are straightforward.

In eighth grade, we have done a semester-long unit on Flash. Well, not necessarily ON Flash, but USING Flash. Students learned how to control animation (i.e. create an object, use instances, make tweens), sequencing in terms of controlling what happens and the timeline, VERY basic Actionscript, and certainly some other things too like sound and shape tweens.

I need to articulate clearly no more than three things that I can assess students on in terms of what computer science concepts they should have learned from this. So far I have two, and I don't really like how the second one is worded:

Create complex computer animations utilizing multiple objects, creating methods, and changing parameters
Plan and implement projects that correctly sequence instructions for the computer to follow

Any ideas?

Close to you

2009-01-16T07:26:00.000-08:00

Because Alfred requested me to, I've been Twittering a lot more this week; it was a way to keep him up with with was going on at Rebooting Computing. Until this week, I didn't get it. I pretty much only Twittered when someone new started following me, I wondered why some of those people were following me, and I really didn't see the potential for education.

I still don't see great potential for education, but reading "I'm So Totally, Digitally Close to You" might have changed my whole relationship with Twitter. Clive Thompson addresses why people use Facebook and Twitter and what it's doing to our society, and he says they're doing some really good things.

He begins by describing when Facebook implemented the news feed, that page that tells you what your friends have been doing lately. "Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it 'ambient awareness.' It is, they say, very much like being physcially near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does - body language, sighs, stray comments - out of the corner of your eye."

He says it is hard to understand the appeal, especially if you don't do it. "For many people - particularly anyone over the age of 30 - the idea of describing your blow-by-blow activities in such detail is absurd. Why would you subject your friends to your daily minutiae? And conversely, how much of their trivia can you absorb?" But it doesn't take a lot of energy to absorb their minutia. If you get an e-mail from a friend, you feel obligated to read it carefully. Looking at a twitter stream or the friends page on Facebook only requires skimming. It's much closer to glancing around the room and sensing how people feel by looking at their body language than it is like having an intimate conversation. It's called ambient awareness - when you're in the room with someone and you smile at them occasionally or share a funny thing you see. "This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update - each individual bit of social information - is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends' and family members' lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting." [How much do I love that this article references pointillist paintings? Very much.] I have seen this myself - in October I had a Terrible Week at work, expressed through increasingly desperate Facebook updates, and several people who were not near me at the time expressed their concern for me. I felt cared for.

Thompson addresses the question "what kinds of friends are these?" Remember the Dunbar number? That's the theoretical limit of friends a human can have - how many close relationships our brains can handle. The number is 150. What does that mean for people with hundreds of Facebook friends?

The answer is two-fold. First, these tools enable us to have richer close relationships. Our close friends and family members can start in the middle of the conversation - they already know that the water heater broke and the plumber had to come three times, even before we meet for dinner. Heck, they knew to call and offer a hot shower. Second, they increase our number of "weak ties." People you aren't close friends with and never will be, but their status popping up occasionally on your news feed reminds you of them. I would never think of the lovely young woman I sat next to at Rebooting Computing again if I hadn't friended her. Now she's part of my extended network. Weak ties help you solve problems - they won't offer you a shower, but they will offer the name of a great plumber. You didn't already have the name of the plumber because you called your close ties for a recommendation.

On the downside, online tools promote the growth of parasocial relationships - people who read a blog or follow you on Twitter and they feel like they know you, but you don't have any awareness of them. This has been around for years, ever since online tools started. I participated in Salon.com's Table Talk in 1998 and there were a handful of well known talkers and probably hundreds of lurkers who felt that they "knew" those people. Parasocial relationships have happened to celebrities for years, but now they can happen to regular people too.

Finally is the issue of identity maintenance, but I think that needs to be the subject of another post.

Storycorps for computer science

2009-01-15T07:32:00.000-08:00

If you listen to NPR regularly, you're probably aware of StoryCorps (tagline: listening is the greatest gift). It is an interview project. In its most simple version, it is a booth that two people go into and one interviews the other. The interview is recorded and the two people get a copy of the recording; another copy goes to the Library of Congress. The larger goal is in recording the life stories of regular people throughout the US. (I have wanted to interview my dad for a long time - I know he has interesting stories about growing up Jewish in the forties and fifties.)

At Rebooting Computing, I went into a breakout about problem-based learning grades 7-14. We spent some time talking about projects like the University of Washington's "Why choose CSE" videos, that try to bust the negative image of computing as a geeky pursuit for white boys.

This lead to the idea of having Storycorps for CS. I think some of it was interviewing people - famous, regular, anyone - to hear their stories. I would be even more excited if we had videos or writings that were stories of things that happened. In terms of project-based learning, they would be more like case studies. Owen Astrachan told a story about someone faking the Amazon security certificate by using PS3s (or something like that... this is why I need videos or writings!)

As a K-12 teacher, if I had a video of (for example) Owen talking energetically about the security certificate hack, I could use it as a case study, as a sub lesson, or just as a pointer for my interested students. We have a lot of videos about people in CS and how they're not all geeks. They're nice videos but I have a hard time really using them in a meaningful way. I'd love to have a lot of different kinds of videos so different teachers could use them in different ways. And I'd LOVE to have case studies around things in CS so I could have my students study them in addition to the other great teaching methods I have.

Is programming "what we're about"?

2009-01-13T16:26:00.000-08:00

I think computer scientists use programming to do the things CS is about (e.g. algorithms) not that CS is "about" programming. I do believe I feel strongly about this.

Computing vs. Education

2009-01-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

I just realized a major difference between computing and education is that to be really, really good at computing is usually an individual proposition while being really, really good at education is frequently collaborative. (Education by its very nature must be collaborative on some level.)

Some of the greatest luminaries in computing are speaking right now. Alan Kay, Vint Cerf, and Fran Allen are all talking about their view of computing and where it is going and should go. (I have to say, I would LOVE Vint to come talk to my students - he has a good way of framing ideas as questions worth thinking about.) Alan thinks the role of teaching is to impart to students a sense of quality. They can learn to DO on their own, but good teachers help them understand the difference between tinkering and mastery.

I'm thinking about the role of CSTA in comparison. I have no idea who runs the NSTA, NCTM, or NCTE. We can identify famous tech companies but not famous schools at the K-12 level. Sure, we've had our Horace Mann and Maria Montessori, but it isn't like the (much longer than CS) history is filled with famous individuals whose names we still revere. I don't think this is a problem - CSTA is a far stronger organization as a chorus of voices representing our many, many experiences than it would be by picking just one of us.

I wonder if this difference is a factor in the difficulty getting CS people to go into teaching. One person here said earlier, "I went into CS because I wanted to work by myself!"

Rebooting Computing

2009-01-12T23:02:00.000-08:00

Per Alfred's request, I am posting something about today's Rebooting Computing summit. It goes for three days. Leigh Ann has a good summary of the activities, so I won't focus on that. I am also sitting at a table with famous people; I think most of the tables had famous people at them, depending on how you define "famous."

The thing I found most notable was how many of the people I respect feel like impostors. The initial questions about "what experience made you realize how much you love computer science" and "think of a project in CS you created and elaborate on the experience" were fairly intimidating for people who don't have those experiences. The person I was sitting next to is an environmental scientist. She has a LOT to offer in terms of where computer science intersects with other disciplines - and also in understanding how we can attract people who are prepared for CS but end up going into other things. Fortunately she was an excellent sport in answering the questions and we had a wonderful conversation.

Another thing that is interesting is how uncomfortable many of the participants are with the process. It's a very K-12-ish, California-ish, hippy-ish process. I figure most (if not all) of today was about establishing trust between participants. Tomorrow and especially Wednesday, the work will get done. Many people find it slow and are eager to get to work. I learned at a diversity training a few years ago that it is embedded in white, male culture to be focused on product. It is embedded in other cultures (female, latino, others) to be focused on process. It's very process-driven.

It's been very interesting. I have been crocheting since we're not supposed to use phones or e-mail. I have not gotten as much done on my blanket as I'd hoped, but I was having gauge problems and had to pull a bunch out.

Personality flaws

2009-01-11T22:44:00.000-08:00

For various reasons, I am thinking about some personality, er, quirks I have.

I hate being told that what I'm doing is wrong. In cases where I think they're wrong, it's just annoying. I hate it even more when I think there's some validity to the idea that there's a better way and there are good reasons why I'm doing it the way I'm doing it. It makes me feel defensive. It's worse when I don't trust the person telling me I'm wrong. And I don't have to distrust them - only fail to have a relationship of trust.
I bet most people are that way. If you gently suggest there might be a better way, they can take your advice or leave it. If you thunder in telling them they're wrong, they're likely to get defensive and angry.
I don't like being called out as special because of something I can't control. For example, don't point out that I'm a woman and isn't it special and unique that I'm in computer science, what with being a woman and all. I can't control being a woman and I don't feel that I need to be congratulated for it. Or showing up.
I do better when I feel smart, competent, and capable. I'd wager most people are this way. It's good when people are put in situations where they feel smart, competent, and capable. It's bad when they're put in situations where they feel dumb, unwanted, and incompetent.
I like myself better when I stay positive and don't get mired in complaining.

Wish list

2009-01-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

What I want is a book that gives context to some of the weird and obscure things "we" think are important to learn. (I'm not sure who we is, precisely, but there's a lot of us.)

Specifically, I'm thinking about binary. Converting to binary shows up in a lot of standards. "We" think it's an important fundamental of computer science. Yet for most students - and many teachers, I'd wager - there's no connection to computer science. We tell them that computers work in binary, but then they use web browsers and interpreters and word processors and there's nary a 0 or 1 to be found.

Wouldn't it be awesome if there was some kind of book that put all these things into context? There are certainly more examples. Maybe if you comment with some of the ones that occur to you, someone will put them into a book.

Off to a good start

2009-01-11T09:33:00.000-08:00

I took the holiday break completely off! I haven't taken two whole weeks off in memory. It was GREAT. I feel like a new person. (Of course, I got bronchitis the first week and spent almost the entire second week in bed, so it's hard to say if I'd have been so relaxed if I'd been totally well. It was nice to have that situation where I was sick enough to stay in bed but well enough to enjoy it.)

Now grades are due in a couple of weeks, so the pressure is back on. I've worked with a couple of students to, shall we say, reduce their workload in the face of not having done quite a number of the assignments this semester. (sigh) That said, I'm managing to balance the workload so that I've kept mostly taking evenings off.

Starting with the new semester, I'll be starting python. I did decide to start with the same approach I took last year. I just think it makes the most sense for my students, though I have visions of splitting them and teaching some with one approach and the others with the other approach (functional vs. OOP) and seeing who does better...

This week I'm going to Rebooting Computing, so hopefully there'll be posts from the field.

Quizzes

2008-12-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

I have all kinds of interesting, high level thoughts rattling around in my brain, but not enough time to really synthesize them and write them down. Things like - do we let kids get away with not pushing themselves to reach attainable but challenging goals (physical and intellectual)? Something about growth mindset, which still fascinates me.

But first I have to grade the quiz I gave yesterday. In Moodle, so it did all the grading for me. Unfortunately, I figured out late in the game that I think it would tell kids if they had the right answers BEFORE they submitted them! I do not know how to make it not do this. I *do* appear to be able to see their answers, so I can see if they checked and if they changed the answers. From the scores, it would appear that no more than two students figured out this feature. I'm not sure whether to punish them - if it was my mistake in making it completely accessible and if they were the only two bright enough to figure it out, they shouldn't be punished. OTOH, I'm not terribly impressed with their ethics. Under every circumstance, I will talk to them about this and probably drop a note home so their parents and I can be on the same page about ethical behavior during exams.

Incidentally, I don't give tests. I rarely give quizzes at all, but I object to the word test. I believe the word test is loaded and itself induces stress. Quiz sounds nicer. A quiz in my class counts the same as a test in any other class, but is less inducing of stress, at least for some students.

Other than the cheating spectre, I'm quite pleased with the questions. I'm less pleased with the scores. And I accomplished what I wanted to - I discovered at least one student who knows the material cold but doesn't turn in work and thus hasn't demonstrated mastery until now. Yay for quizzes!

Persuasive Media Project

2008-11-18T21:39:00.000-08:00

In eighth grade, I teach animation with Flash. It gives advanced students a taste of OOP while allowing less-advanced students a point-and-click 'programming lite' experience. Everyone gets to reinforce ideas like instances and classes, scoping, and lots of other stuff. Plus they find it very engaging.

The final project is called the persuasive media project. It combines media literacy with animation. Students watch two of a bunch of different web-based persuasive presentations and respond to a set of questions. We discuss the animation techniques they know (and the difference between how you construct something vs. how the audience perceives it!) plus persuasive techniques used in media. Then they choose a topic to persuade someone of. They plan a persuasive presentation including storyboard, then create it. Past presentations have covered everything from 'the war in Iraq is wrong' to 'CS should not be mandatory' to 'school should give less homework'.

Here are the animations they can choose to watch:

They have to watch two - one we watch together (frequently Pentagon Strike or part of The Story of Stuff so we can discuss them!) and fill out a handout for each one. I got the questions from The Center for Media Literacy. Here are the questions on the handout:

What presentation did you watch?
What were they trying to convince you of?
Who created the message?
What techniques did they use to attract your attention or convince you?
How might other people understand this message differently from you?
What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented in or omitted from this message?
Why was this message created?
Who is the intended audience?

Do you have any suggestions of other persuasive presentations I can offer?

Putting Research to Work

2008-11-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

Two interesting topics are Growth Mindset (vs. Fixed Mindset) and Stereotype Threat. I will put in a post about at least Growth Mindset, but probably both, soon. Right now I need to reboot, but will put in this placeholder link with a poster and handout and information from the Center for Research on Girls: http://www.laurelschool.org/about/CRGProductsandServices.cfm

Idea

2008-11-14T07:16:00.000-08:00

What if high school or college CS teachers ran summer camps for middle school students and hired high school girls or freshman/sophomore college women to teach them?

It would provide role models for middle school students, to encourage them that CS could be for them.
It would encourage the high school/young college students that they are worthy along with reinforcing what they know
It would give some interesting skills to middle school students that they can not necessarily get in other places like school or after school programs
It can serve as community service for the high school students.

I did this once. An alum approached me and asked to run a one-week Java class in the summer as her senior service project. She created the curriculum, I got the students, and she taught it for two hours a day over a week. It went great!

I would trust most of my alumni with most of my students. They don't want to look stupid, so they're motivated to do well. They wouldn't agree to do it if they didn't know the material well enough. Anyone who can pass AP CS knows more than enough to teach Java to middle schoolers. I can help them think of fun activities that will engage the students. And it's summer, so there's no academic pressure.

Catherine Didion Keynote

2008-11-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

I'm attending some meetings and Catherine Didion from the National Academy of Engineering just gave a great keynote about girls and engineering. Here are my notes:

“Rising above the gathering storm” – NRC report

Assumptions and stereotypes about who does science and engineering still exist – Time mag front page,
Assumptions and stereotypes about women - Newsweek “What Women Want” cover Sept 22, 2008
Assumptions about who will be the future leaders in science and technology impact students’ choices – example full page ad in Feb 17, 2006 CDG

www.implicit.harvard.edu Science Implicit Association Test

Girls of color are much more interested in sciences than white girls, but they are very underrepresented at the undergraduate level.

How do we keep them away?

Lack of integration of STEM courses with other parts of the curriculum
Contributions of women and minorities are virtually invisible – no role models – the instructors there may not be who the students want to be
Much of the science and engineering work seems devoid of any social relevance
Constrained curriculum with many critical paths

Busch-Vishniac and Jarosz, “Can Diversity in the Undergraduate Engineering Population be Enhanced Through Curricular Change?” Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, Vol 10, 2004

What Engineers Tell Young People:

Engineering is stressful and challenging
Stress the importance of SUPERIOR math and science abilities
“It’s not easy – but if you’re the type who when faced with a problem some would call impossible is even more driven to move mountains to find a solution, then you might have it in you to be an engineer”

IEEE is training engineers who go into classrooms, “first do no harm” – they have a webinar

www.engineergirl.com Most popular part – ask an engineer

Imagine that! is an Engineering contest

Zits Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Help and allow students to communicate through technology they use – You Tube (Large Hadron Rap), Facebook groups, iTunes science section

High School: Non-white girls (41%) are more likely than white girls (~21%) to say that engineering is a “good career” (Study by WGBH)

Message Testing:

For girls one of the strongest messages was: Live Your Life, Love What You Do. 42% of girls & 41% of boys rated this very appealing and 8% somewhat appealing. Tope tested message among non-white girls (44%).

Other top messages were: Creativity Has its Rewards and A World of Difference

Our traditional messages are not about risk-taking or being part of a group. Reinforce what students think they want to do. Military is doing this now.

Take the 10 best and 10 worst behaviors of students and use them in your marketing

Parents are an important constituent group – kids listen to their parents

For girls, older girls are important sources of information. Popular personalities are not

Engineer Your Life - www.engineeryourlife.org Totally open source – you can throw your name on it, download it, use it! Includes PPT for use with guidance counselors!!

“A lot of the work we’ve done is to change people’s perception of the potential of the students"

www.engr.psu.edu/awe

"Help students try on careers the way they try on clothing. Help them get comfortable and see what they are. They have a lot more control"

Is programming necessary?

2008-09-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

I think Mark Guzdial is really smart and really neat. So when he talks, I tend to think hard about what he has to say. Mark recently said some things that I would (VERY) roughly interpret to mean that programming is central to computer science. I also think Robb Cutler is really smart, and I know he disagrees. Robb thinks we could teach introductory CS at the K-12 level without any programming at all. This left me with a lot to think about, but finally I hit upon an analogy.

Programming is to computer science as experiments are to chemistry (or other sciences). It is THE central tool to the discipline. Being able to do it is an important skill. But it isn't actually central to the K-12 introductory experience. You could teach intro chemistry without doing any hands-on experiments. In some ways, the students would have a lesser experience, but most of them would be able to learn all the relevant concepts without actually doing them. Similarly, I think you could easily construct an introductory CS course that didn't have programming.

I agree with Robb that frequently the programming gets in the way of understanding. Kids get so caught up in debugging that they don't really understand the logic of the program. They lose sight of the problem that the program is supposed to solve because the problems that they're focused on are of the "it won't compile" variety. Who knows if the proposed solution (the program) is a good solution to the problem, we can't tell if it won't even run! (Okay, we the experienced programmers can tell. But the student can't.)

I was a biochemistry major and I took two years of high school chemistry (thus the root of my analogies!). I was a junior in college before I understood WHY you do experiments. It was all cookbook to me until then, completely disconnected from anything we learned in lecture. I figured they made you do it so you would have the experience of having done it so you could get a job following those kinds of instructions in the future. "Oh yes sir, I've done many titration experiments." I became a chemistry teacher and despite my experience, I advocate for having students do experiments.

There are many reasons for students to run experiments. It gives them lab skills which they can't get any other way - reading about titration is very different from actually having to work a stopcock correctly. For kids who are kinesthetic learners, or ones who need to SEE to understand, it helps them understand the concepts discussed in class. It can help them understand the scientific method in a different way and can help them understand the very nature of science research. (One of the reasons that I hated experimentation is that there's experimental error. It's all so beautiful and perfect in theory.) It's the same with programming and computer science. In introductory science classes, we use experiments judiciously, allowing students to gain the benefits but recognizing that there's a lot of material to cover and much of it is not best comprehended through direct experimentation. We should do the same with programming.

We should introduce students to programming as a tool without having it be the focus of introductory courses. Have them do it some, sure, but not at the expense of understanding the big ideas - most of which aren't about programming at all. Help students understand that programming is a tool, not an endpoint.

Crafty and CS-y

2008-09-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

Over on Learning Curves, Rudibecka Hirta has a post about knitting and CS, complete with annotated pictures! (I can't figure out if it's overly friendly to call her 'Becky' or overly formal to call her 'Rudibecka') It reminds me of a SIGCSE a few years ago, when I was working on a not-very-complicated lace pattern during a luncheon, using a chart. Dave F got very excited about the pattern because it is digital. He couldn't get over how cool it is that knitting is digital.

It makes me both wonder how many really random intersections there are between hugely different ideas, and wonder if the reason why a lot of geeks I know are crafty is because there is a significant overlap in the kind of thinking between CS and crafts like knitting and quilting.

Big Ideas in Computer Science

2008-09-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

I'm at a meeting where I was asked to determine the big ideas in computer science. Big ideas are defined as the things students will internalize and remember long after a course is over. An example in calculus is that I remember what a limit is, even though I don't remember how to calculate one.

Here are the four big ideas I thought of:

Computer tools are designed and the design affects what they can do.
Computers precisely execute instructions created by humans.

This would include abstraction – what the instructions look like and how they are translated between layers.
It includes algorithm creation and predicting what the computer will do given a set of instructions.
It can include flow of instruction.
It MAY include programming.

Computers are used to solve many problems across many disciplines.
- Ideally here students would design algorithms to solve various problems such as traffic flow, databases…
- It would probably include the limit of computing – what problems are computers not good for solving and why.
Computing has a role in society
- Ethics,
- Use of the tool,
- History of computing and how society has changed based on computing technology…

Motivating Students

2008-05-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

Because of a session on remaking the Image of Computing, there were a bunch of famous people at the NCWIT meeting this week. Perhaps the one of most interest to me was Kate Starbird. Not as much because she is a retired WNBA player (though that's pretty cool!) but because she's really smart, really nice, and really articulate. She pointed out that she was the only person there to talk marketing who also had a background in CS.

Remind me to tell you about the argument she and J Strother Moore got into.

But first, I want to consider the question of inspiring students to learn about computing at a deep level. When I Googled Kate, one of thetop links is to a great blog post she wrote. Here's an excerpt:

Like many of my generation, I grew up on a computer with little or no content, and if I wanted it to play, I had to be creative. I had to make it do what I wanted it to do. I went on to study computer science in college and graduated with a BS from Stanford in 1997.

My youngest brother Michael followed me there, and majored in CS as well. He works for Microsoft now. By the time Michael was nine our family had a game console for our TV and fantasy adventure games with elegant graphics on our Apple IIgs. He grew up playing Nintendo and Bard's Tale. He had an email account before he was out of high school, and knew how to browse the Internet long before I did.

Unlike me, though, Michael didn't write a single line of code until college. Michael was an extremely creative kid, but he didn't bother spending that energy creating loops, routines, and functions.

This is in line with a thought I had last summer about learning curves vs. quality of output.

When we were kids, computers were pretty limited in what they could do. You could write a program in BASIC that was almost as good as the programs you could get on floppy at those game swap events on Saturdays. You could buy BYTE magazine and laboriously type in the programs, seeing exactly how the program was put together. It was reasonably straightforward to create programs that were engaging, that your friends would say, "oh cool!" (or the 1982 equivalent) if you told them or showed them.

The world has changed a lot. A kid in the basement couldn't have written World of Warcraft or the Sims. In some ways the tools we have make it easier than ever to create interesting content - Dreamweaver making HTML and PHP at the click of a button, drag-and-drop programming in Flash or Alice, image manipulation with iPhoto or Photoshop - those were all inconceivable back then.

But the increased complexity under the hood - the higher computational power in home computers, the embedded systems throughout our lives - have also abstracted away our ability to tinker. Imagine taking apart your iPod to see how it works. Similarly, kids are so used to interacting with fun! neat! systems, that the introductory programs they're cognitively ready for aren't impressive enough. Hello World just doesn't cut it in our in-your-face media-rich world.

My students struggle with some of the ideas of CS. That a variable contains a value is a new idea for them. They're smart, capable, and they figure it out, but there are developmental issues - their brains aren't ready for all the deep ideas. Yet they will get turned off if it seems like too much work for too little payoff, if they can't make things that make their friends say, "oh cool!" (or the 2008 equivalent).

Seven Random Facts

2008-03-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, before I start grading, I just wanted to finish Jane's archives so I could delete them in good conscience. And I found a seven things meme, which sounded like fun, so...

Seven Random Facts about the Wicked Teacher:

1. I have never worked food service. I did decorate a cake once for pay - it was for the birthday party of the kid across the street, when I was a teenager. I had visions of entrepreneurship, but it turns out that I have bad time management and wasn't motivated enough. I've never worked as a waitress or cook or hostess or anything like that.

2. I have a huge sweet tooth, but I don't like candy. I'll eat just about anything baked, though fruit desserts are my favorites, like apple crisp, peach cobbler, baked pears, strawberry-rhubarb pie... I prefer those by far to chocolate desserts. I also love cupcakes. But then, who doesn't love cupcakes?

3. I have never owned a new car. I don't object to owning a new car, I'd like to have one some day, but so far every time the decision to buy a new car has come along, a great used one has presented itself.

4. I wear three rings on my left hand and usually none on my right. I also almost always wear a digital watch. I like having a watch that tells me what time it is and the day and date. My mother hates it that I will wear it even when it doesn't go with my outfit; she bought me a fancy dress-up watch that I try to remember to wear when it is appropriate. But I like the digital better.

5. My favorite word is fungible. My favorite computer science word is algorithm. My favorite amino acid is phenylalanine. I think it is weird that most people don't have a favorite word, though I don't really think it is weird that they don't have a favorite amino acid. (But they should!)

6. I am an elder of the Presbyterian church.

7. I love vegetables. I like meat pretty well, but I have always loved vegetables.

Transcending the Debate

2008-03-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

I've had a very scattered day and one of the things I've been doing is going through and deleting old blog posts from my reader. But of course I get sucked into reading them along the way, so it takes forever. But fun! This is why I have trouble sorting books or looking up words in a dictionary.

While perusing the archives, I found Jane's post about transcending the debate.

There are so many places this rings true in my life. I got into a conversation with a coworker on Friday afternoon about whether our faculty should be encouraged to have websites, forced to have websites, or left well enough alone. I think that at least they should be encouraged, but feel un-ready for the fight. Various among them will demand extra help, handholding, rules, no rules, and that I do a bunch of un-related tasks. (Our "internal web page" is a huge mess, which is nominally my responsibility, but also not needed since every teacher has a direct URL to their web space.) The coworker pointed out that I need to just tell them to be quiet and make a web page already, not get caught up in debating my own weaknesses where those weaknesses are not relevant.

Engaging with the faculty and staff about things they must do, even when I myself am not perfect, is a good place to start. I hesitate to lead, because I fear that they will point out all my weaknesses. Which is likely, really, but I need to stop worrying about it and just get out there.

For me, transcending the debate can also be the debate about teaching - curriculum, content, pedagogy. Every teacher needs to do what works best for them and what is best for kids. I think there are important ideas which all citizens should know about computing. I'm not sure what they are, but getting mired in the debate about whether Java is the best language for the AP or whether Alice's interface is too clunky isn't helping us discuss the important ideas. Don't get me wrong, I love a good debate, but as a discipline, we need to really focus on what is important.

Maybe the most important thing is assuming both intelligence and goodwill in others. This isn't a debate point, precisely, but I think we engage in the debate (any debate) and start thinking I'm right, s/he's wrong. Which isn't helpful - it means we're closed to hearing good ideas.

Now I should get focused and do some grading.

Organization

2008-03-03T11:47:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, we played the "guess a number game" where the kids thought of a number and I tried to guess it. We played several times and demonstrated experimentally that a binary search is more efficient than random guessing. (Barely! Sometimes random is more efficient, if you get it on the first try!)

Then we built the binary search algorithm in a flowchart, then I showed them the program. All that was good - we covered important ground. The students were Very Glad that I wasn't making them write the guessing game program, though, since they thought it was boring.

In class, they told me they've already used a website that randomly generates Shakespearean insults. So while they thought the project idea was kind of neat, and definitely better than the guess a number game, they were not as excited as I'd hoped. I pointed out that this was a program they would write themselves, but a number of them are just as happy using someone else's work rather than do the work themselves.

Then, and here is where the organization part comes in, we didn't get as far as I'd hoped in class. They got more confused by conditionals than I'd expected. So I slowed down and gave them an interim assignment, to finish a small program with a conditional in it.

The little conditional program is very similar to the Shakespearean insult program they're about to be assigned. I'm comforting myself that it is scaffolding, and for the students who need it, that is true. But for the students who are really bright, they're going to be bored.

I need to focus on being more organized, providing solid stopping points, and having very clear assignments that are logical. I wish I'd stopped earlier on Tuesday and given them a small assignment. Then we could have gone through conditionals on Thursday and assigned the Shakespeare thing on Tuesday.

Oh well. Better luck this week!

Teaching Programming

2008-02-27T11:31:00.000-08:00

We started the programming unit yesterday.

This year I'm switching from Perl to Python. I'm also hugely overhauling my teaching style. I was convinced by Vern Ceder (and various other sources, I'm sure) to get to graphics as fast as possible and skip the endless pedantic slog between here and there. In nearly all of the books I have used as resources, graphics are late, late, late. I decided to take a page out of the media computation book (not literally, but mostly only because I don't have a copy), introduce graphics as fast as I can and do lots of Just In Time teaching to backfill what students need as they care about it.

I want to mention my incredible gratitude and luck at the support I've received. Vern's presentation at NECC 2007 was transformative in my thinking about this unit. Getting to participate in the Chapman University workshop about teaching Python gave me the basics of the language. And most amazing, I have been meeting with Guido van Rossum regularly this fall and winter. He has reviewed my code, explained concepts without demeaning my lack of knowledge, and regularly reminded me what beginning programmers are like when I waver about presenting the material in this unusual, out-of-order way. He might be the nicest super-geek I've ever met, though Tom Zeller is right up there.

Day one went great! I started the students out in IDLE in interactive mode. We walked through print statements with strings and then numbers. It was great - the kids let right to the places I wanted to go, like learning about a syntax error when

2x2

didn't work the way they thought it should and testing what happens when you put math into quotes. I introduced variables super-quickly - in the past, variables would have taken an entire period, this time it was almost an aside, as a way to do math. Similarly, I introduced for loops and the range() function in about 3 minutes because I was up against the end of the period. The kids followed pretty well. I stopped to check the comprehension level several times and while it was slightly overwhelming, they were fitting it together pretty well. One thing that went very well was that I'd grabbed a few photocopies of their math textbook so I could show them how to use Python to program some of the problems they would face later that day in class. The whole concept of working collaboratively with other teachers is the subject of another post, but I was very happy at drawing the connection.

There were a bunch of things that went really well. It was very interactive, the kids were engaged, and they were typing right along with me. I think they really got that you can (and should) create hypotheses and test them right away. "What if you do blah?" "Let's try it" "Oh, cool!" They had terrific ideas and were able to figure things out really fast.

There were a few things that were, um, sub-optimal. For one, I had planned WAY more than I could reasonably teach in one period and didn't cut myself off fast enough - I was too excited about the connection to math. I would have liked to have given the students a small homework assignment to write a program and didn't have time to do so. I'm okay with it since not having homework makes the students happy and I'd like them to think programming is fun. Yeah, not optimal, but I'm looking for the silver lining.

Second, the Just In Time teaching requires the teacher to be flexible and able to quickly analyze situations to figure out what is going on and what is worth covering. Some of the time that worked well - on the fly I decided not to cover modulus and the sqrt() function in the math module. Some of the time it didn't work well. Their math problem was to determine five values of x that would make 2x-6>=3 true. I showed them how to do it but then was preparing to segue them out of interactive mode and into script mode since it had to happen 5 times. (This was also where loops came in, even though it meant skipping conditionals!) In one class, a student suggested just programming y=2*x-6>=3 and then iteratively changing x and re-evaluating y. Which, of course, didn't work right, but on my feet I couldn't remember that it was because y had been set by what the formula evaluated to in that moment. Duh. It wasn't horrible, but I should have known better.

Tomorrow I will show them two longer programs - one that is a "guess a number" game (binary search!) and one that generates Shakespearean insults. Then they'll be on their own to write a little program. So exciting!

Everybody Knows That

2007-06-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a workshop this week about how to teach Python. There are pros and cons to the workshop. Although I have what feels like a number of complaints, on the whole the workshop is good.

The course is giving me a lot of empathy for my students. I didn't understand what the goals of the workshop were or how exactly it was going to run and spent a lot of time yesterday trying to figure out what was going on and what to do. I also felt a certain amount of boredom. It was really hard to sit and focus on reading and programming all day. The little programming exercises were good introductions to the concepts, but they weren't terribly engaging.

I spend a lot of time feeling frustrated and stupid. Even though this is an introduction to Python, there's an assumption that everyone has programmed before, often in multiple languages. I think I'm the only Perl person in the room. My knowledge of Java is introductory and I don't know any other languages. I absolutely trust my ability to learn new things, but statements like "if you think of how to do this in Ada, it will be obvious" are upsetting. Lectures and discussions are in a different language. This morning's lecture was about functions. I knew some of the jargon, like arguments, parameters, and returns. But I had a terrible introduction (previously) to pointers and references, so the whole part of this morning's lecture about how Python passes arguments was significantly over my head.

I read a few weeks ago that a person can read fluently as long as they know 95% of the words - they can pick up 5% through context clues. More than that requires significant time and mental energy for decoding. So this morning's lecture was probably 20% words and concepts that I wasn't already familiar with. Too much to fluently understand, and of course, in speaking, once it is gone, it's gone.

The other part that is frustrating about not understanding is whether it is even important or not. I teach middle school. I strongly believe that I am an expert about how to best teach my kids. But I am not The Expert about what the Most Important concepts in computer science are. Is it crucial to teach students about pointers, stacks, passing by reference vs passing by... whatever the alternative is? If I were teaching driver's ed, is this comparable to teaching kids how to get on the highway (and thus by not teaching it, I limit them to surface streets unless they take a more advanced course later) or is it analogous to teaching them how to change the spark plugs - interesting, useful, required for advanced work, but not actually important on a day-to-day basis in running a car. (Remember, I live in California. We spend a LOT of time on the highway.)

The frustration is about the phrase "oh, everybody knows that!" It makes the part of the everybody who doesn't know that feel bad. I know my students will face it... I think it is inevitable, though it shouldn't be. It isn't just the jerk boys, it is prevalent. I want to remember to hold on to this feeling, so that instead of trying to teach them the things that everybody knows (impossible) I can teach them to persevere when they feel this way (possible).

Small Classes and Eye Rolling

2007-02-07T10:29:00.000-08:00

There's a hot debate at my school about what connotes small classes. We have about 20 kids per class which I think is fairly small, but turns out not to be small enough to be really proud of "small class size." (I know lots of public school teachers are all rolling their eyes. But we definitely have some public schools around here that have classes of 20, so it doesn't really set us far apart.)

We do have lower teaching requirements than many other schools - I only teach about 85 students at a time.

The thing I love most about not having thousands of students is the opportunity to get to know each kid well. And of course, they have more of an opportunity to get to know me too. I approach my classroom the same way as I approach any presentation, which is with a heavy dose of humiliation and a sense of humor. This is why two moments from yesterday made me laugh.

I was teaching a class about gears, because we're doing robotics. I don't have enough motors for every group to have as many as they'd like, so for the first time I decided to have them learn explicitly about gears so they will be more prepared to build moving robots with fewer motors than wheels. (They're all girls. Most of them haven't spent a lot of time considering how automobiles and other wheeled vehicles work.) Here's the thing: I don't actually know anything about gears. I mean, I can figure it out, but I am not a physicist or an engineer. Why I didn't ask the engineering teacher for help before class is why I approach class with humility.

First class: I'm explaining about gear ratio. It is going pretty well. I'm pointing out the prior knowledge, like "ratios." I show a 16-tooth gear and a 24-tooth gear and explain the ratio and the torque/speed issues. I say, "you can simplify 16:24." Then I realize that while they probably can, I can't. At least not in the moment, in front of the class. Which shows on my face, and I acknowledge. In front of E. Who went to the math contest last week and by far topped everyone else at our school. Who rolls her eyes. Which, if it were any other kid, I would totally put the smackdown on for that kind of disrespect. Here's the thing: E never rolls her eyes. She never speaks out of turn. I am so proud of her! (Also, she's particularly close to me so I'm pretty sure she'd never do it with anyone else.) (Also, I told both her parents when I saw each of them later in the day. They've been concerned because she is very quiet and seems fairly compliant, so they were as pleased as I am. Just wait till she starts doing it more often!)

Second class: I've actually got it that you can simplify 16:24 to 2:3 and I've checked in with the engineering teacher to make sure that I do understand the torque/speed issues the effects of gearing up/down. I'm ready. Whereupon I develop aphasia (a word I never forget, even when it is happening) and can't think of what the things on the outside of the gear are called. So I start the lecture by explaining that gears have pointy out things on the outside. The class asks, "pointy out things?" I turn around to the loudest of them (who I also adore) and accuse, "what would you call them?" "Spikes." "Oh. FINE then." (Yes, that was me with the 'tude. There's a reason my students are not demure and completely respectful and it works for me.) Of course, as the class starts teasing her about "besting the teacher" I look down at the handout I've given them and realize that all the different gears are labeled, "8-tooth gear," "16-tooth gear," etc.

Best semester ever

2007-02-05T21:42:00.000-08:00

This has been the best kick-off to seventh grade computer science ever. (I nearly started this post with "finally something has gone RIGHT".) I think it is a combination of factors, but in six years of teaching seventh grade CS, I've truly never had a year go this well ever.

One factor is that for the first time ever, I made a huge effort to jump immediately into CS content. First, I spent almost no time on class norms. I handed out a list of my expectations, pointed out that it is nearly the same as last year, when most of the students had me, and suggested pretty bluntly that since the students are in seventh grade, I assume they know how to behave in a class. I told them the major difference between me and other teachers is that I want them to ask me before they leave the room. I told them my two major rules, which are "no death" and "respect." I also told them there would be a quiz soon about the expectations, so they should look over them. Then we hopped directly into robotics.

* A note. "no death" and "respect" pretty much cover every situation I've come up against and manage to hit a number of my pet peeves as well. The kids are expected to respect me, each other, themselves, and the physical plant. No one is allowed to die or cause the death of anyone or anything else. Anyone behaving in a way that is likely to lead to the breakage of these rules is reprimanded. The example I give them is that they may not tip back in their chairs. This is because there's a high likelihood that they'll fall, crack their heads on the floor, and die. Ergo, not allowed per the "no death" rule. It also works out because my standard response to potential alarm (such as people tripping on cords) is, "don't die."

I have moved my robotics curriculum to be moreteacher-driven over time, but I've discovered that there's a good middle ground. The fastest way to get the students to know the things I want them to know is to guide them directly through discovering them, but they definitely get charged by more time exploring on their own. I almost went too far and had a very frustrating day racing around solving problems. I ended up putting together some handouts with guided activities and letting the kids just go on their own for a couple of days. They're so thrilled with what they're doing! Tomorrow I'll stop and bring them back together so I can make sure they all understand what is going on (I did collect the handouts but won't have time to assess them before tomorrow - possibly the biggest frustration in being overcommitted.)

I haven't figured out what to do for the first project. I'm torn between stealing an idea from another teacher of having the robots follow a course or whether to do the 'dancing robot' idea that I've done before. Either way I'll have to teach them gearing and how to deal with motors tomorrow. A little stressful - I'm not an engineer and am pretty weak on the hardware stuff. But we'll muddle through and at the rate they're going, they'll teach me everything I need to know.

Accreditation

2006-11-29T23:07:00.000-08:00

I am quite proud of myself, for today I officially said no to a request. As time goes by, I have been invited to participate in some really fascinating projects. When I'm interested in something, it is hard for me to decline to participate. This particular request was to participate in an accreditation visit to a school. Accreditation visits are fun, intense, exhausting, and interesting. Many people don't know about the accreditation process.

Accreditation through WASC, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, is an intense but straightforward process. It is a self-study for the school - there's an outline to follow, but essentially the school takes a long, hard look at itself to determine its strengths and weaknesses, especially in light of the mission. The school body writes up a very long document outlining who they are. Then a small team of people from other schools - 3 or 4 - come in for a multi-day visit to determine if the document is accurate. They observe classes, meet members of the community including the school board, teachers, students, and often parents. The team writes a response and sends it and a recommendation for a term of accreditation to the governing body who makes the final decision.

The most interesting thing to me about the process is that accreditation isn't about whether you're a "good" school. It is really about whether you do what you say. The example I give is snake charming (which came from an online discussion where a friend of mine accused my school of being a Wacky Ass Snake Charming school.) If you are a snake charming school, your mission is to teach children to charm snakes, and what you do is teach children to charm snakes, then you can probably be accredited. If your mission is to teach children to charm snakes and instead you teach children to raise hippos, then you will probably not be accredited. Obviously, there's some hyperbole there. But the visiting team has to work pretty hard to keep their own biases out of it - it doesn't matter if you teach the "right" English or Math, as long as you actually teach what you say you do. If you represent yourself to potential families accurately and they choose you, then all's well. If you lie, then there's a problem.

I find the whole idea very comforting. There's something about the idea that it doesn't matter who you are as long as you are completely yourself that is very freeing.

Bad Year

2006-11-29T08:40:00.000-08:00

I've been out of school the last couple of days due to a family emergency that came up on Thanksgiving. The emergency is, if not resolved, at least not an emergency anymore, for which I am thankful.

I started ruminating on this year. There's no question at all that this has been a terrible year for me - far too much to do, not able to do anything well, stressful and frustrating. But I was thinking about the effect on my students and on their (and their parents) perception of me.

I have a huge amount of respect and affection for my students. Even when they make me crazy, I think they're funny and smart and fun. I can't imagine anything I would rather do than work with middle school girls. I feel like my students respect and like me too. Even this year, I think the kids are having fun and learning stuff.

I wonder what the students and families think about my year. It is clear that not all of them understand what has been happening, though some certainly do. I hope that they are patient - that I have built enough of a reputation as a decent teacher that even the families who don't know me will hear that this is just an off year. Or that I'm managing to hold it together well enough in the classroom (when I'm there!!) that the students and families are satisfied that they're getting a decent education. Mostly I hope that next year is better! If a bunch of things come together perfectly (HA!) then things could be better starting in January, but you can guess how optimistic I am about THAT.

New course

2006-10-29T12:10:00.000-08:00

My short course starts tomorrow. I don't feel ready. I'm *not* ready, but I'm not unready in the ways I feel. Let me explain.

I am actually unready in the sense that I have no yet made the handouts for the first day. That will happen sometime later today and I'll go in to work to print them. It won't take long - I know what I want on them and mostly it is just screenshots. I also have to set up the student accounts so they can save, unless I want to just ignore it and throw a fit when it doesn't work tomorrow. Depending on how busy I get, that'll decide my reaction! (Unfortunately, my principal noticed this morning that I haven't submitted an entire class full of grades. They were officially due Wednesday, though I had an extension, but not really this long of an extension. I haven't done the assessment that will allow me to write the grades... Today could be long.)

I feel unready in the sense of not having totally sorted out how to introduce each thing, when to do what... I will continue mulling in my head right up until the moment I walk into class. I'm pretty sure I will start with a role play, but I might dive right into getting them to tell stories. Tomorrow will be light on the computer, the other days will be much heavier.

I will also feel more comfortable when I've gone through the tutorial again in preparation for the students to do same. There's a strong chance my laptop hard drive is dying, so that's a little stressful. Fortunately I have ways to work around it, including borrowing another one.

Important Topics

2006-10-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

I'm designing a new short course, and as I always do, I am starting with the biggest picture. (Note to self: LET IT GO.) So I'm compiling a list of the important topics that should be covered. I sent out a note to a couple of teachers and am considering forwarding it to the AP list.

The question I asked is, "what are the most important concepts in Object Oriented Programming?" I decided to limit myself to OOP instead of generally "programming" or "computer science" because I know I'll be using an OOP language. I am interested in the answer under any circumstance, though.

So... if it were up to you, what do you think the most important concepts of OOP are?

Not an expert

2006-10-02T00:32:00.000-07:00

When I worked as a consultant in the IU computer labs, everyone agreed that it wasn't reasonable to expect a consultant to know everything about every program. The problem, of course, was that each customer wanted you to know about *their* problem. You don't need to know about all that other stuff, just know MY stuff.

I'm feeling that way again.

This week it came up with my boss that I've been dropping the ball on a part of my job. I knew this. It is a part that I like, but it has been hard for me to prioritize higher than other things which are also important and also urgent. I nevertheless made time to work on it. Where it became clear to me that without some seriously intensive graphics design software instruction, I can't do anything. I pulled in the art teacher, who teaches Photoshop, and she was at as much of a loss as I am. I suggested to my boss that I don't have time for this anyway and it was suggested back that we can't afford to pay anyone to do this work, but we could afford for me to learn how to do it. Which presumes, of course, that I have *any* interest in learning how to do graphical design. Or any talent. I don't need to know how to do everything, just this huge sub-field of computing in which I have no interest.

Today I figured out a possible way to fix the problem without a degree. I think I might have done it, but I can't connect to the server so I can test it. I asked the resident expert for help and he was pretty accomodating. After going down some wrong path involving our home nameserver and before giving up, he did some kind of mumbo-jumbo that is subtly different, possibly, from something else he did in the past, neither of which (obviously) I understand. He figured he could mention that he manually changed a line in nameserver.conf.d (or something) and that the next time it comes up, I'd remember that there's a backup copy in nameserver.conf.hq-doesn't-work-here.d (or something). Because I'm so good with remembering all the .d stuff. I guess the upside of having the Mac servers is that at least I can use spotlight to find that kind of stuff, since people have a tendancy to say "just update the supergeek.conf.d" like I have any idea where that would be.

I'm significantly more willing to become a Mac expert and a Unix expert than probably at any point in the past 10 years. But I can't get expert on everything right.this.second. I am doing the best I can. And in the middle of trying to figure out the graphics-expert stuff is not a great time to suggest a crash course in nameserving.

On the one hand, I recognize that I am a huge whiner who needs to understand every aspect of every part of technology used at my workplace. I need to be able to step in and do every job without warning and it is clear that anything less will be considered abject failure by people whose opinions I (sadly) value. On the other hand, I am actually only human and it would appear that I need to get over caring what the people I value most think of me, since I am apparently destined to suck.

Personal Responsibility

2006-09-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

There are two sides to personal responsibility.

Personal responsibility has been a favorite catch-phrase of mine since I started teaching at my current school. It has helped me have higher expectations of my students and helped me be a better person. It is all about taking responsibility for one's actions and choices.

As a society, I think we've decreased in the amount of personal responsibility we expect people to take. We allow others to get away with excuses rather than demanding that they live up to requirements or their word. Think about how refreshing it is when someone accepts responsibility.

At the same time, I've come to realize that environment does impact an individual's ability to thrive. Perhaps this is best described as the difference between excuses and reasons.

It is important for individuals to take responsibility for their choices and actions. At the same time, it is our responsibility to cut people some slack in ways that are appropriate - to help the individual cope with their situation. This emphatically does not mean lowering our expectations.

For example, if I have a student who is having family trouble. I shouldn't accept sub-par work, nor should I allow the student to slack on turning work in. On the other hand, I can offer additional time in cases where it wasn't possible to complete the work for family-related reasons. Or offer additional help outside of class if the parents aren't there to offer guidance.

All things being equal, we should treat everyone the same. But of course, all things aren't equal. The trick is to help students develop their sense of personal responsibility while not simultaneously holding them responsible for things that aren't theirs. Maybe that goes for the adults in our lives, too.

Defensiveness

2006-09-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that in an interaction which causes one to react defensively, there is almost always an equal option to take the interaction differently with a different outcome.

For example, I got an e-mail from a parent explaining that her daughter had tried to install some software in order to play a game and it hadn't worked. They would like for the game to work and is there anything I could do? I told her to hit the help desk and I was sure she could get assistance. Unfortunately, she hit the help desk at a particularly busy time and was sent away because the game isn't a priority when people can't get work done. The mom wrote me back and described the situation. Understandably, there was some frustration on the side of the help desk and the feeling that the mom was perhaps tattling to me. I talked to the mom later, and it turned out that she wrote me only so I would know that the daughter had tried to seek help, since she hadn't gotten the game to work. In other words, the mom was feeling a little defensive that the daughter might get in trouble if she didn't tell me what happened.

I was thinking about this last night because of an interaction at a meeting I went to.

One person presented some things in Scheme, which started the age old discussion about what language to teach first. J offered the opinion that Scheme is perhaps not an ideal first language - yes, it does offer some advantages, but it has some disadvantages, too. I heard him mention that Scheme isn't used outside academia and thought that was a significant part of his point - we should focus on languages that are used in the real world.

Well, it is funny what happens when someone hits a sensitive spot, isn't it? So I ranted a little bit about teaching kids how to think and learn rather than preparing them for the working world. Whereupon someone else responded that he didn't think anyone in the room was saying that. Which had not been my understanding at all. So I stopped and thought about it and tried hard to listen more clearly.

It is inevitable to filter what we see and hear through our own experience. (My experience last night: heading to a meeting with parents right after this meeting, which made me nervous about being beat up about my curricular choices.) But it is really, really important to hear what people are trying to say and not what you think they're saying.

Equal and Equity

2006-09-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

Every time I think about posting, I have many, many things I want to say. I suspect other people are the same way, because I notice in my RSS feeds that there'll be nothing from some bloggers for a while, then suddenly several posts appear.

I had an interesting experience over the last few days. First, you should know that I've been reading quite a few feminist science bloggers lately. A lot of the time, I feel like feminists are whiners. I strongly believe that with rights come responsibilities and you can't have one without the other. But the bloggers I've been reading, even the angry ones like Zuska and Absinthe, have some good points.

For one, while it is possible and often likely that women who don't get ahead are not suffering from discrimination (but are, in fact, not that good), it is also hard to be a significant minority and much harder to do well. So some accomodations should be made due to the inherent difficulty of the situation. If you're in a swimming race and everyone else swims through water, but you have to swim through syrup, wouldn't you hope that you wouldn't be expected to swim as fast?

I've recently been working closely on some technology projects with some men. By this point, I've been burned enough times that I'm pretty sensitive to when I'm being treated poorly for being a woman. But with these guys it hasn't happened at all. They're fun, they're funny, we're working hard and getting things done. It has been a pleasure.

Better?

2006-09-20T21:58:00.000-07:00

Things continue to get very.slowly.better. It is time to start focusing on teaching, which would be wonderful and exciting if the classes didn't keep happening. I've decided to trust that there will be enough computers tomorrow and continue the unit I started 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, I didn't really feel that the first lesson went well, due to my being underprepared and I'm not even sure what I want to cover tomorrow, never mind how. I want to come up with a plan for the unit - novel thought! - but it is late and I'm really tired. I am also starting a new unit in my other course, which is equally unplanned. I have some ideas, but if I don't come up with something more solid it will go very poorly.

It doesn't help matters in the planning department that two of the things I let slide this fall were organizational. Over the summer I had to pack my entire office into boxes when the floors were refinished. I haven't had time to unpack yet. I moved to a new computer and haven't reorganized my files. I couldn't do a direct mapping from the old to the new because I stored things in three different places. So my office and my computer are equally disorganized with piles of documents everywhere. (My office also has piles of STUFF. Like the PVC pipe I'm going to make into a binary tree. I was storing it in my classroom but I discovered that someone thought it was trash and put it outside! So I saved it from the rubbish by moving it to yet another pile in my office.)

Tomorrow is also back to school night. I was supposed to have submitted a course description by Monday. I didn't even realize it until Tuesday. So now I have until tomorrow, and can hand it out when I give my talk.

The guiltiest thing for me is the way in which I have failed the faculty. We used to have "internal" web sites - password protected (which is asinine, but that's another post). The web server died a horrible and un-backed-up death last spring. A new one was installed this summer, but with no way for anyone to actually put up web sites. Supposedly there is now a way, but last time I checked, it doesn't work. Also, the way for parents to access it doesn't work, which is a separate issue. There also needs to be a main page that has links to the various sites, which I haven't made - right now there's just a page that says "there's nothing to see here." Also, if we get it working that the faculty can update their websites - on which they post unimportant things like homework calendars and assignment requirements - I think that my page might be the main one, not my teaching page.

Did I mention that my JOB is to be a teacher? I'm suffering burnout. I'm getting increasingly frustrated when people want me to do things that are NOT my job, because no one else will do them and they should be done. Yes, I am capable, and I might be singularly capable, but at some point I really, really need the time to do MY job.

The upside is that I have a kick-ass dress to wear to BtS night tomorrow, so no matter what, I'll look fabulous.

I cried and they asked if I was getting married

2006-09-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

One of the many frustrations this fall is that I don't have enough computers for all of my students. Two of my classes are doing a one-to-one laptop program, so usually they have enough laptops. (Though last week two suffered problems and the loaners didn't work. But I kept teaching anyway.) The other classes have 22 kids each. We have 24 computers. Four are broken. They're under warranty, so they'll be fixed eventually, but in the meantime, I don't have enough computers.

I discovered this DURING class. A class where I'd assigned the students to finish an assignment using software I don't expect them to have at home because it is very expensive. So I'm holding a broken computer, looking at a room full of kids in which I am going to have to tell one student she can't finish the assignment and has to spend the next hour watching the other students work. Meanwhile, I have about four other kids yelling my name because they can't log in. (The definition of "computer works" includes "runs the software I need to teach" but does not include "kids can log in".)

I couldn't take it. I don't know how to teach, in the moment, in that kind of chaos. I felt tears fill my eyes. So I thought, "okay, the only thing to do is to throw myself on the mercy of the kids and ask for patience." I sat on my desk and asked for their attention.

This is the best part.

"Are you getting married too?" (Another teacher just announced her engagement.) "No, she's already married!" "Are you really married?" "How come we didn't know you're married?" "Are you having a baby?" "Are you moving away?" It never occured to them that I couldn't teach them. If I had Big News, it must be personal.

It was quite the let-down for them when I said I just wanted patience while everything keeps breaking and not working.

And we made it through the day, through a combination of absences and students who'd already finished the assignment. I've switched to teaching Computer Science Unplugged until I either have enough computers or can come up with lesson plans for pair programming. I don't want to hold off on the computer stuff for too long, for a variety of reasons, but I don't want to just tell them to sit with a partner without thinking through how to do pair programming *well*, which means wresting my attention away from all the sysadmining I've been doing and actually being a teacher.

On the other hand, I got to teach binary on Thursday, which was fun, and Tuesday's lesson features a debate about the impact of technology on society, springboarding off the introduction of the word "binary" into the vernacular.

Equity

2006-09-14T04:32:00.000-07:00

This might be the most interesting argument for privileged people to reach out to create a more just world that I've ever seen.

Spin

2006-09-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling frustrated this year. I had grandiose plans to redesign my curriculum so it would be better for my students. Instead, I have been completely snowed under by non-teaching tasks. The non-teaching tasks are refreshing and interesting in their own way, but it turns out that there are only 24 hours in a day, no matter how hard I try to have more, so my teaching-planning has been one of the things to get dropped.

I am of two minds about this - and here's where the spin comes in.

On the one hand, it is a nightmare. I walk in every single day and fake it. I haven't made up a semester plan, lesson plans, or even handouts - to one class I do all teaching verbally and to the other I just printed off a copy of some handouts from last year. It is terrible. I'm disorganized, I'm pedagogically weak, I haven't even gone over my classroom expectations with any of my students and this is week two!

On the other hand, I am an amazing teacher. I am managing to pull it all off with a minimum of impact on the students. I can walk into a classroom with only the slightest of ideas of what will happen and keep students engaged and happy for an hour. My students are having a great time and we haven't wasted time going over rules they already know.

I hope never to go through a Fall like this again, but at the same time, it is kind of nice to know that I can pull it off if I have to.

Teaching methods

2006-09-04T23:53:00.000-07:00

School starts tomorrow. I'm simultaneously nervous and excited. Isn't it always that way?

My sixth graders are doing a special project, so while I'm not ready for them, I'm also less invested in some ways - it isn't really "my" curriculum.

My eighth graders are starting animation. The way I teach animation is to start with the history of animation. This year, I'm planning to have them use thaumatropes and zoetropes then have them make an animation with one. Then I introduce Flash, leading them step by step through learning to make animations.

This year I'm having kind of a quandry. On the one hand, if I could get them making actual animations right away, it would be so compelling. On the other hand, how can I get them doing great animations without first giving them the underlying understanding about how animation works? I recognize that I don't have to start with the history, but there is a value in stepwise learning, as long as it can be fun.

Lesson plans and portents

2006-09-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

I am a pretty poor documentor of lesson plans. I usually have a written outline for a lesson but it is usually 3-5 points, no details, outlining the major things we're going to do. At various points I've tried all kinds of different techniques, but nothing has ever stuck. I'm a wing-it kind of girl. This isn't to say that my lessons aren't thoughtful, merely that I don't write down what I do before or afterwards. Of course, I suspect my life would be easier if I wrote down my ideas clearly in advance and revised the plan afterwards, then I'd have it for the next year.

Well, I just wrote down my lesson plan for the laptop orientation for kids. That I gave last Thursday and Friday. From - you guessed it - a 3-point (but with 5 subpoints!) outline. I'm worried that this is a bad portent of the upcoming year - rushing to do things after they're due. But at the same time, I'm proud of myself for doing it at all and feel good that I or the next person will be ready for next year.

I am supposed to have wildly revised my whole curriculum and have written a new curriculum for a special project. I have done very little work towards either project. I am really hoping to be able to take a deep breath and do both soon, though I think not this weekend. Which is too bad, what with school starting on Tuesday and all. Fortunately I have some plans for Tuesday, so if I can just fake it, I can work my tail off on Tuesday afternoon and evening and hopefully things will fall into place.

Teaching Us

2006-09-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

Teaching Us is a video blog run by a woman who is passionate about education. It isn't specifically about CS, but it is pretty interesting. I like that she's trying to highlight what is *right* about education rather than decrying about what is *wrong* in education.

The first video inspired me to want to try video blogging myself. (I did eventually come to my senses and realize that I'm a word person, not an image/video person, I don't have the technical know-how, and most importantly, I don't have the time to get the technical know-how, though I'm sure I could figure it out.)

She ran into some technical problems that delayed the second video, but the wait was worth it.

CS Education

2006-09-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to split my two blogs. I've been thinking about this for a long time. I'm going to keep the other one as more of a personal thing - what's going on in my life - and have this one be reflections on my professional life. I'm not sure if I can do it - I have pretty weak boundaries about the private/professional split in my life - but I'm going to try.

Knitty Girls

2005-04-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of Intersession, and I'm teaching knitting and crochet. This go-round, it is all 6th graders and some of them already know how to knit. Today I had them make pom poms and taught those who didn't know, how to cast on and do the knit stitch. Some were more successful than others, of course. I'm on my own - no helpers except for Wednesday and Friday - but it went well.

I tried to show some episodes of Knitty Gritty, specifically the introductory one and the teen one. I had it hooked up through Tivo to Go. Unfortunately, there was some kind of thing with overlay and pixels and I have no idea what all, but even despite 45 minutes of troubleshooting and research, I couldn't get it to project. It turns out that I can't have it do dual-monitor, I have to project only in order for it to show up. So I should be able to do it tomorrow, but I put an episode on video tape just in case and will put another one on when I go to bed.

Tomorrow I'll teach crochet. I need to call the LYS and let them know that I'd like to bring the girls over on Wednesday so they can pick out some fancy yarn. I need to find out what my budget is, too! And make sure I have a driver.

Welcome

2005-02-18T18:59:00.000-08:00

This is an experiment, to have a blog about knitting, here.

This was a big knitting week. On Sunday, I went to Stitches West. Then on Wednesday, I hit a meetup in Saratoga. A little intense, but mostly fun. The meetup people were very impressed with the shadow scarf, especially that I designed it myself. They were very nice. Saratoga is not that far - only about 20 minutes! I had thought it was further. So I will go again. I'm not sure I'll make the weekly knit-in at Knitting Arts, but I might try. I guess I definitely won't this week, since I'll be in Saint Louis, being geeky at SIGCSE & the CS&IT Symposium. It should be fun!