Hello and welcome to Teaching Python.
So good afternoon Kelly. How are you doing today?
I'm well, it's the middle of the week for us teaching and right before the holiday break. So things are are fast and furious. We have a lot of things going on and I'm really excited about the time that we have right now because there's a lot of really great things happening. But before we get into that I want to ask you a couple questions just to get to know you a bit better. Where did you grow up? What how what town did you grow up in? but then where did you grow up professionally? 

What a great question! So I grew up in a little town called Sebastian. I was actually born in Miami Florida, but I grew up in Sebastian, which is about three hours north of Miami. One Middle School, one high school with couple cities the really small town mentality. Growing up professionally though. Wow, so I have to say that to my professional life grew when I went to England and it was I had such a great opportunity cuz I went to London England to work right at the same time when technology was blooming it was in 2003 and the the British curriculum got changed and they started putting ICT which was their technology course and Makerspace more of like an engineering course into the curriculum as a mainstream think so. I think I learned the most during that time. How about you? I know that you you grew up in Alaska

I grew up in Anchorage Alaska so very much the opposite of where we live now in Florida in so many ways, but I was born and raised there and I think it's a lot of who I am today, I grew up in in the biggest city in Alaska to buy Alaska Standard Time a city kid, but it was a good childhood. It was a lot of outdoor activities fishing and camping and everything. And I also had have a nice time to grow up there because there was a lot of tax revenue from oil money. So a lot of that was being put into technology education right and purchasing a lot of technology for classrooms and for teaching that the rest of the country didn't have access to yet. So it's a really good time to be going up there. But I think the thing that could probably illustrate the most of what it was like for me as a kid was the summer of my summer when I was 10 years old my mom sent to us sent my sister and I to a week-long camp over the summer that was the computer Wilderness Camp and in the morning, we would learn about computers and technology and in the afternoon, we would go rock climbing and canoeing and mountain climbing and Hiking through the mountains around Anchorage. So it was a really great experience and the one the reasons why it's so memorable for me is the way the instructors integrated both halves of it together. So the end product product of deliverable that we made at the end of the week was each of us created our own page on the computer using desktop publishing software, which was so groundbreaking at the time but we wrote about our experiences that week and we integrated photography. We scanned in the photos from the adventures that we had in the afternoons when you're out doing our Wilderness Adventures. So is a really great way to bring both of those things together in a really unique way and that always stuck out to me as this is kind of who I am and indicative of what I really love and it's those kinds of experiences where you can take two things that seem very much at odds and bring them together in a unique way that is so exciting for me and teaching that's that's our goal and in my professional kind of adolescence and growth was was at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, so I have the opportunity after graduate school to go work for P&G in the It department and while I was there, I was had the opportunity to transfer into the marketing department and work on digital marketing projects for Procter & Gamble and it was such a great time. This was 2005 to 2009. When a lot of the really new areas of Internet advertising and social media search advertising. We're really growing and just exploding at that time and and that was something that I really got to take advantage of in and learn so much during that time, but it was a really fantastic opportunity. 

We constantly have those professional growth. If we if we were adamant about it and we are constantly and we and we have this professional growth. I don't know Peak and I think we bring in so bringing though. I bring in the small-town small-town kind of feel into my teaching and I also I bring a lot of stuff from the the UK where I where I taught and now I'm in another kind of professional growth and so are you and where at this moment in our lives where you know, I'm learning how to code at a deeper level and you're learning how to be a teacher. So it's kind of interesting how those two plan that kind of leaves us nicely into our topic for today because as teachers one of the things were seeking for ourselves as well as you can for a student's and especially Parsons is this idea of clicking flow, right? So, what is that mean to tell me a little bit about what you're seeking with the flow in a class?
 At that point of time in our quarter right where it's at 67 week Mark where we've been teaching the basics and everything and I I'm seeing I'm seeing the kids really getting into their flow of their coding where where the challenge is is just about, you know hard enough to keep them, you know struggling but they're starting to apply what they learn the skills. So it's not too hard and they're able to get into this this mindset of codeine and it's it's it's just a calming feeling in our classroom in the end everything turns from that that point of anxiety of not knowing what they're doing to this point up though, you know, I don't know what I'm doing, but I can totally get into it sound like in the room when flow when you achieve flow of times when they're getting into
 There's like these these little noises that they make coating but most the time it's a silent so we can turn the we can turn the coffee music house music on and it's a nice calming atmosphere always call it the like it's like the Apple Store feel where everyone's just in there and just doing their thing. So there's really not a lot of conversation. The kids are are working on a project are working on a challenge and and just working through it for me. When I've seen that happen it it does depend on the activity. So it's an individualized activity where they're expected to do something in code and and they achieve that state of flow all you right here are the clicking of the keys on the keyboard. That's true. That's true difference though is when you're doing pair programming or coding together, what you tend to hear is really focused bursts of communication right where you can tell there.
 Goofing off not getting sidetracked what you're hearing is oat do that. Oh, yeah, and we have to do this and there's that flow back and forth between the two people working together and you can tell that there's a level of Engagement and enthusiasm in that conversation is very different than when there may be working on a project and they're not really into it and they start to get off track. That's what every teacher wants is that that engagement you can you can you can judge your teaching style your facilitating Style by how well the kids get into a flow and I think it's one of those one of those moments that remind you while you're teaching where you just automatically you don't have to reprimand or repeat or redirect them back onto a task and the state of flow and codeine. I think I think it is a remarkable feeling. It's just something that keeps us going back in and sticking through those first six weeks of a hardness of hard time.
 You know, it's interesting to you. I had the opportunity to observe a lot of different teachers this this year already and see how they work in their classroom flow takes many different forms, right? And that was one of the coolest things about observing some of these other classrooms cuz for us flow looks like people get what kind of dive into the coat right with the absorber get immersed into the coding experience any kind of see them disappear into it, which is a really cool thing to see but you not been another classes were achieving flow is a very different thing right? It's about I watched one teacher who's working through grammar and syntax and structure in a language class and she got to the state of flow where she was doing like kind of a call and answer with the students and the it was the level of Engagement that you saw and the way the kids were absolutely focused on the next question that she was going to ask and six or seven of them would razor have the same time, right they were eager to answer because they knew it and I could do it and they were gay.
 It was just like you can see the sense of like leaning forward into the the Lassen and it was amazing because it was it was so skilled, right? And it was something that that really work for her. So fore I think for me and for you are a sense of flow and what we're seeking is tailored to our style and see if you get the opportunity watch other teachers and see how they achieve flow. It's well worth the time because I think it will help inspire you to try new things and try different approaches to that aspect whether it's an English or math or science that's where you know, you've helped them because it's almost like this psychological effect where I don't know if there's a Northern Trust Me endorphins involved with the state of flow, but that's where you catch them into wanting more and I see the difference between one of my two periods of teaching my one. You get to witness that flow state where I know I can push them away.
 And I can give them a little bit more of a challenge than my other classroom because they haven't reached Florida at a constant state with my my one pair that has reached so I can give them a lot of harder challenges and get introduced newer Concepts to them. And I think it's because they have this thirst to reach that satisfy the stage. So it has to be indoor fan base will have to research that. There are some books that have captured this right where they're working for that so you can flow for like the benefit that I see is it when students have that state of flow going their level. The way that they acquire knowledge that acquisition is so much deeper into much more intense and it really happens at a faster Pace. Right? So in the same block of time, you can see them pick up in you no understand and integrate and then transfer multiple Concepts simultaneously what they're really like me.
 Connections and it's all fitting together and and they're retaining that knowledge better because it is more satisfying more engaging more interesting it it unlocks. I think a different part of the their brain when it comes to learning universes that same amount of time. They might only be able to pick up one or two things right and and not in a great and a cheese at transferability of the the knowledge if they're not in that flows day and then the code doesn't become intimidating any more. It becomes more of a challenge that they know they can they can get to and I think that's what we we seek we seek as a teacher's are urged to get to that point where they're not intimidated by the code. They know it's a struggle. They know it's going to be hard. They know they're going to have to go through some sort of research or to ask the right questions, but it's something they can achieve such a wee. Wee.
 She cannot see the flow also, so productivity increases dramatically when you've achieved flow-rite and I think you can talk to you pretty much any code or any program or computer scientist network engineer technology specialist. Whoever whatever their title is, right and they can tell you and describe how much better it is when they achieve that state of flow right there able to produce more coat it tends to work better is more creative. It's more elegant were in the works more efficiently, right and that without flow state produces a better product the better outcome professionally when you achieve that flows date and so the the best programmers are the ones who can consciously activate that they know what they need in order to achieve that flow State and they know how to how to get themselves there. Right a little bit of flow in my coding as well. But I know my spirits are smaller than yours. So and I think that's what you kind of notice with the kids. I give them about it, you know, 10 to 20 minutes of a flow state.
 are you know that they are fully engaged and you can tell also that you're not clicking off so they may not have the best that the perfect code as as the programmers later on. But you know that they're so engage that they're not clicking off the page or are randomly searching or fiddling with something and I think that
 that state of flow varies as you get older right or I should get more involved or knowledgeable with those Basic Skills Center and knowing how you can achieve that flow state, right? That's so doesn't happen right away. Right what you call it the click right now and that not to be confused. There's actually I think I found a library called the click and I don't confuse that person in Python. There's actually a library called The Click so tell us about the click because you need the click I think before before the flow cuz I got something else. I think what we get really excited about as we're teaching our our course we end we teach you about a 9-week wheel it takes about two-thirds that course before the click happens and it it's interesting because the The Click is like the Rubicon, right? Is it once you go past it right once you achieve once the click happens like
 Different things have changed for you, right and not every student actually gets that quick some of them get all the way through the 9 weeks and it never happens. Right and that's okay other students actually click before they even start the course right there already coders. They get it all the things put the click is really a the best way to describe it is it's when all of those pieces of knowledge that you've been painstakingly acquiring about coding all the things you practice all things. You've tried all the things you struggle to learn and understand suddenly rearrange themselves in your brain and it just makes sense, right? Oh now I get this right and it doesn't mean that someone you become a super hacker code or you know wizard what it means is all the things that you put together just a sembled all the sudden all the sudden and the way I can describe it is like I used to when I lived up in Northern climates or is a lot colder you keep a bottle of water in the trunk of your car right and gets below freezing and it can actually achieve this thing called a supercooled state where
 Has the water so pure and there's no no hard edges for it to freeze on it will go below freezing temperature and stay liquid. Right but then as soon as you hit it sharply, right it will instantly crystallized. Right? So this is like that moment of instant crystallization that happens for students were they didn't get it and then something knocks that loose write something changes that state of matter and it goes from a liquid to a solid like that right click and it is one of the coolest most rewarding things to see as a teacher is when a student has that click and it usually come somewhere in the sound of a Moment of clarity Epiphany encoding and I think it's one of the best things that I can help students achieve in computer science because it's not just that they know how to code is they know why they cut
 Right. I call that the light bulb Moment by moment. And we do a lot of metacognition and in school here and I'd always tell them what is that aha moment. When was that moment in your in your unit or in your class? Where you at? Oh my gosh. I got it. And that's your click. Right and we look forward to that and like you said, it's really interesting because I would say about two-thirds of our kids get the click or the or the lightbulb moment about this time, right?
 That is such an invigorating the time for us and at beginning of the quarter. I always tell the kids I said you got to trust the process. I am going to confuse you. I'm going to put you in a state of confusion for the next six weeks probably for some of you just wait for the click. You're going to know and remember this day because when that click happens you're going to go and you're going to tell me and I'm going to actually see it before you do. It's good. It's a good feeling is that that thing that were seeking right? That's that's the whole point of this course. It's not really to teach the kids python. It's not really to teach them how to use an if/then structure. It's to have them get how this all fits together and why it's useful right why this is a useful skill on something. So there's a lot of things we do to encourage both click and flow, right?
 You know, there's some things you need to recognize beforehand when for example with me what I'm looking for the click I'm I'm looking for that moment where they start to see and be able to answer questions right when they start to go to answer their own questions and once it's happened, that's also where I start to see them have the confidence to make change and take risks and fail because I know how to fix it. Right cuz I've been reading a couple of bucks and it's it's funny because all the books have a different name for all this right. I'm and then the book learn better. It's
 In order to be a master of 10,000 hours. I forget you probably wouldn't hurt. You've heard that who said that it was probably in like 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in anything concept based on you have to have a bunch of knowledge. My finkster book on coffee breaks. He was actually saying the quote about Abe Lincoln if you give me 4 hours to chop a tree so I think that's what happens with the click if we spend a lot of the time I know I know I spent a lot of time on vocabulary and in translating with the common features of python that certain lines of code and then when we do all this and get this Foundation of you know, here's a hashtag here's a function. Here's here's a piece of code that does this and so do you see do you pointing out?
 You see that this is a library and we have to put this library and this code and that librarian that code all that mumbo-jumbo that I give them and you give them for the first 5 weeks once it starts to take form. And then once they start to see the pattern that's where you're going to to see more of the click come fix the clock that makes it happen sooner is the coding challenges that we do right? The ones were no we do a fair amount of exercises where it is repetition and it's a coat along and we you know, and we'll talk a little bit more in a few drops out about Total Wines & Co challenges everything but it's once you give them a challenge and you say okay go try this go do this. You have to solve it yet to figure it out that process where they don't really have the safety net of the teacher or the other voice Mark. Canha. She already gets the coding but they have to figure it out that struggle understand. It usually results in the click happening fast.
 So we've seen that, you know, we we do coding challenge. That's I guess the number challenge, right and we give them part of the code and they have to figure out the rest of it. You do some really interesting things with code commenting that helps with the quick so you can talk a little about without looks like I really based my my whole python teaching on how someone would teach a foreign language and I think we're going to talk a little bit. I know I'm going to write a blog about as a foreign language, but I feel it's translating you have to in order to learn a foreign language. You have to not only be able to speak it and practice speaking it everyday but you have to be able to read it and instead of giving them a word and having to memorize it. I have I give them the foreign the foreign word Python and then I have them commenting on it and I feel like them having
 To research what a certain function is or having to talk out. What is it that they're reading in Python and put it in regular English. It helps them to trigger something in their brain and they're also writing it out on paper for the first four weeks. I make them right out the code with the description and I think that really helps that connection between the hand in the brain doing it the three different modalities and I just I just feel like keeping those Basics even though they don't really fully understand what it does for them keeping the basics on those vocabulary words and then the commenting on the code helps to bring it all together. I've seen that as well. So the more that we can bring in some of the activities of one of the things that we do early on is increase our students to flow charts and how to draw flowchart and think about the process of what a program is doing in a visual way rather than a a code way. So it helps them associate that
 Everything that we do is out a lot of pseudocode, right which is a fantastic tool for all programmers. And in a really is used everywhere, but that idea of pseudocode helps give those students the freedom and the confidence to be able to say I know how this should work. Even if I can't get the code to actually work right or if I'm missing a piece and they can write it in their own words, then they know how to search for it. And I think that's a hard thing because if they can't put it into
 Vocabulary that's you know, they're normal vocabulary than how are they going to search for the answer anyways, and that's one of their struggles tell me what a bit about what kind of activities seem to result in flow the most often like what sorts of exercises do you do or challenges or units tend to the Roy C the most flow happening challenges. I'm a real big advocate for the Pomodoro method where you have 25 minutes of solid working and five minutes of off time while with middle schoolers, it's better if you have five minutes of solid working.
 In like 5 minutes out of all time. So I like to do the five minute challenges where the kids can ask me a question. They're not allowed to talk really to anyone. I want them just on struggling and trying to figure it out themselves and most of time they're engaged. What is the 5-minute challenge tell me about how that works in your room in the morning when they come in on the board. There is either typically there's a piece of code or I'll do it two ways. I'll either get in the piece of code. Tell them to write out the code tell me what that program is doing and then they would have to explain where what those lines of codes do with comment feature. That's at the beginning. But today I actually gave them a flowchart.
 With a program and it was pretty well written out and what they did is they they took the flowchart and then they had to write it in Python code and the last step was really hard and there's a lot of struggle but I made them struggle for a bit and then at the end of the five minutes, they know that they're going to get help and we always go over the answer. So I tend to find out you know, that that click happens and that's where we know we can push him a little bit harder or show them a new way of coding something interesting about that. It's not always the same students to solve the challenge right? It's usually a different student each time. Why do you think that is stating that came and you know how to code and he was always the one getting all the answers first and I think what happened was he had a background a little bit of background in coding?
 I'm starting to find out that the other kids are catching up to where he is and he's not always the first but I really do think it has to do with the amount of words in the code, you know, there's a difference between math and Python and there's a difference between being a list. Some people can really see the list and read it out and understand what's going on and some people can really see the math today's was a lot of math so was an interesting group of kids that got it and they were different than the other ones. So, yeah, I guess it just has to do with the mabesa Kirkland behind it. Whether it's more English kind of bass versus a more science mess could be and what I like about the students that we have is that you can really see that some students have strong suits in some areas and other students have completely different strong areas, right?
 so when we give them projects or challenges they can go to those areas where they can build from their strengths and and lever something that they're talented at and then apply this layer of coding and computational thinking and problem-solving to it that they didn't really have six weeks ago right that they're acquiring and they're using and as I said to them last week after many of them achieve that click in their coding challenge, so this is knowledge Burns not knowledge given right and knowledge learned that you have to fight for any of the struggle for and when is going to stay with you far longer than knowledge that's given to you so that I think we both have that same philosophy disseminate a lot of information to them and I tend not to go to lecture a lot because of this because if I just disseminate the information it goes in they can regurgitate it but I don't think the quick or the flow will ever come out of a child who just
 Repeat what you say. So it's the actual struggle and the processing it was funny. I was just thinking while you're talking about another incident where a quick happened differently. It was during the pie topped with the pie top in the breadboard where they were prototyping some kids just a backup for the pie top is a a Raspberry Pi based laptop computer that has a lot of exercises in it around circuit design and programming in working with different pens on the Raspberry Pi so you can we put together this fantastic couple of weeks with the students where it's as much learn about Electronics in the Raspberry Pi encoding as it is about reading comprehension and interpreting and understanding instructions and being able to follow those directions autonomously, right? And so. That unit. Is it something that he's working really well for you and so I just want to give out background on what it is before we jump in that why it's working.
 Later episode that's actually called my grit and perseverance unit cuz he has a lot of needed. But thank you. Yes, as for the pie topped there. Is there a couple kids that really got into a state of flow with that and I don't know if it was because of the anesthetic features, but I had a lot of kids who did not reach. I don't know maybe a quick or flow at all during the pie topping again. It was because the wires that they needed to connect in the circuitry was something that they had no prior knowledge. No background knowledge on so that was a great question. I was still I'm still thinking about what state what makes them quick and what makes them flow. Yeah. I think that's something that were that's why I think that were learning in this computer science unit as well because as much background as we have and coding and teaching and everything, it's a new combination and this is our first time teaching computer science in this way. So the things that were learning now,
 You know and that the tactics in the strategies that help encourage that clickin flow you are different than what we've experienced in the past and work finding new and better ways each time we go through this to make it happen to things that we do know one we cannot predict based on the student is great at math. Right and that means they're going to happen faster for them or the student seems more outgoing and engaged or more quiet and reserved. You can't look at a student and predict when the clutch is going to have a certain pattern that we do that it's going to happen in about the sixth seventh week at least for two-thirds of our class, or is it a two things? We know we just haven't quite figured out exactly who gets the click at what point does our machine learning for Predictive Analytics, right?
 And I think that's that's the part that really is the Delight though, right is seeing those students that experience that click and really get it that maybe no one else expected them to have it right as I have and I've seen everything from a you know, big hulking football player to you know of the team member of the gymnastics team or the cheerleading squad have that click moment and is just it's just amazing to watch. So I think we're at we're all way we always wait for that.
 How to get it right so it makes it it makes it so much fun. And so enjoyable make something new every time I have those little clicks or those little moments where light bulb goes on as I'm learning something new. It makes me appreciate that big light bulb moment that they have for the first time and I I usually try every time it happens to pull that suit in the side and say, how do you feel right. Now? How does this feel to have that quick moment? We're now it makes sense where before it did and they usually see it feels amazing. Right and I say that's why we code right? That's why we solve these problems is because that feeling of I get it and it makes sense in this thing. That was a struggle for so long. It's finally working that feeling is addictive right in the best possible way. I think that is your one goal not to make sure that you put
 Kotor or a person that's going to go into programming and I tell the kids all the time to be honest. You're not you don't have to be a coder. You don't have to be a programmer. You don't even have to continue to code once you get out of our courses, but what you can always take with you is that state where you get it and where you can enjoy being in it and you know, we're happy to take questions or any comments about when you when you experience clicker flow with your students when you're teaching python, so you want to tell them about our Twitter sure. So we have a new Twitter account. We're at @teachingpython on Twitter. Feel free to reach out to us with any questions or start a conversation there. We also have our website live now. We're at http://www.teachingpython.FM and will be launching our blog soon to so we're going to be reaching you in both an auditory way and a textual way so that you can catch up with the latest things that were learning in.
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 Launch her first episodes on the website now. So we're kind of we record a little bit in advance of our our episodes being published. So it's been really great to see our first set of subscribers tour podcast joining in we'd like to add in the future and email section or a conversation section where we can talk about questions that have come up or thoughts of people have had so pleased to go ahead and send those into us use the Twitter account to connect with us and we'll be adding a Gmail inbox for you as well in the near future so that we can get all your questions via email as well. So yeah, this is Kelly and Sean, signing off