Episode 29
Sean Tibor: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to teaching python. This is episode 29 non-traditional K through 
12 python. My name is Shawn Tiber. I'm a coder who teaches and I'm joined by my co-host this week Kelly Paratus 
Kelly Paredes: [00:00:26] and I'm a teacher who coats 
Sean Tibor: [00:00:28] we also have two guests on us on our show this week as a panel discussion.
We're joined by Bryan Caplan and Gabrielle Rabinowitz. Welcome ladies. 
Brianne Caplan: [00:00:36] I have nice to be here last. 
Sean Tibor: [00:00:37] Well, we met Gabrielle and Brienne at pycon in May of 2019 in Cleveland, and we were really excited to hear about the work. They were doing both Rihanna and Gabrielle work in non-profit. Traditional classroom settings working in after-school programs nonprofits ways to bring python coding to a broader audience especially as computer science is not always taught in every school.
So we are really lucky to have them here and we really like the way that they are approaching python education and as a way for social change as well. So just as brief introductions Gabrielle, would you tell us a little bit about the program that you're part of 
Gabrielle's Introduction [00:01:17] Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:01:17] absolutely. So I'm the Lead Teacher for the bridge up stem program at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
And this is a program that's been around for about five years now and it. Has a lot of opportunities the primary mission of the program is to increase representation of women in computer science. And the part of the program. I'm mostly involved in is our Brown Scholars Program, which is a summer and after-school program for high school girls in the New York City area.
It's a free program and they Learn Python here at the Museum and they learn how to code in a science research context. So all of the Python they're learning. They're learning how to apply it to answer scientific questions and taking advantage of the resources at the Museum start answering those 
Kelly Paredes: [00:02:00] questions.
That's amazing. We're so excited to talk later about how you bring that python into the science curriculum. It's going to be a really big highlight for me and Sean as we as we dig into this podcast 
Sean Tibor: [00:02:12] we him. You were a couple of different hats in your in your. Professional coding life you're a data scientist and also an educator can tell us a little bit about both roles.
Brianne's Introduction [00:02:23] Brianne Caplan: [00:02:23] Definitely. So I'll start with my role as an educator. I'm the founder and executive director of a 501 c 3 nonprofit called code your dreams. We help students build Community Focus applications from ideation to final product. Our core program is a weekly after-school program for both middle and high school students and like Gabrielle were also a free program.
So we're really intentional about reaching students who don't currently have access to Quality stem education opportunities. Our curriculum it's all about project-based learning and giving students experience into the entire product development cycle from design thinking to UI ux the programming with python product management and and finally to sales and marketing so our students where lots and lots of different.
Hats there so that's what I do as an educator. And then I also work full time as a data scientist that a company called Edo vo whose mission is to make better lives for everyone who's connected to incarceration. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:03:32] I remember we had that speaker at pycon come and talk about Rehabilitation and what.
Other places are doing in order to to rehabilitate people back into society and I've read up on your bio. I'm really interested to hear more about both of those aspects. It's so exciting what you're doing for social good and for the communities. 
Brianne Caplan: [00:03:53] Yeah. Thanks. 
Wins of the Week [00:03:54]
Sean Tibor: [00:03:54] So we like to start every week the same way.
We always do and it's always exciting for us to have. Guests on the show to hear a little bit about what's been going on in your week. And what's happening. We always start with the win of the week, which is something good that's happened inside or outside of the classroom something positive to share.
And so Brienne we're going to start with you if you have a window of the week to share this week, 
Brianne Caplan: [00:04:16] definitely. So code your dreams. We recently recruited a brand new cohort of volunteers and I'm super excited. So I have to give a shout out to our amazing volunteer coordinator Victoria and we'll be having our official kickoff event this Saturday.
For our volunteer teams, they have the objective of improving Upon Our python curriculum materials on GitHub. So my one of the week is even before kick-off to of our fabulous volunteers already submitted three different pool requests this week to improve lessons on data structures if statements and loops.
So giving a shout-out to my volunteer Nikki Marino there and also on functions shout out to the Meetup admin another wonderful volunteer on that one 
Kelly Paredes: [00:05:05] sounds exciting. That's really cool. 
Sean Tibor: [00:05:07] Is your GitHub available or open for people to take a peek at if they wanted to see more about what you're teaching.
Brianne Caplan: [00:05:13] Definitely, it's believe just github.com code your dreams 
Kelly Paredes: [00:05:17] and will provide the link at the end of our show notes if you make that available. Yeah. 
Brianne Caplan: [00:05:22] Absolutely. Cool. 
Sean Tibor: [00:05:23] All right Gabrielle, it's your turn. You have something a window share this week that that's positive inside or outside of the classroom.
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:05:29] Yeah, I sure do so. Yesterday was mine and the students first day back in the classroom after a number of days off our program normally meets on Mondays and Wednesdays after school, but due to a number of holidays and Indigenous people day. We had a lot of days off. So there was a challenge there of we had only had our very first two class sessions before then the I was worried about momentum being lost but I used the python flashcards that Eric Mathis have developed that is provided by python that's provided by.
No starch press and so I started off this class by having the students review the concepts. We had gone over with the flashcards and I think right away restored that momentum. They remembered some of the concepts that I think they otherwise would have forgotten and so that helped us start the day off with a.
I'm going forward. 
Sean Tibor: [00:06:17] Yeah, those cards are great. I think they really work. Well for getting kids thinking about one concept rather than the entire ocean of python, right? So it's a great way to get them moving and thinking and Diving back ends. I'm glad to hear that it's working over there for you as 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:06:33] well.
I think the terminology can be really intimidating and we're throwing a lot of new terms or terms that we're using in different ways. And I think having them start off the day by reviewing the what those words mean in the python context can be super helpful. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:06:45] I think it also helps build that confidence.
If once you hear these words if you can if you can at least grasp onto some sort of definition or understanding, I think it's such a great feeling for a student to go. Oh, yeah, I know that so well done exactly when and Sean. How about you? How's your win? 
Sean Tibor: [00:07:03] It's been kind of a tough week because we are in the middle of our final project for the quarter and I say it's a tough week because it's a chaotic week.
It's a lot of things going on in a lot of students asking for help and questions and things like that. So there's a lot of technical stuff happening and I think the the win. Was yesterday and it actually started off with a couple of girls that I think we're in over their head on the technology.
They had reached pretty far for something and it was a little bit far out of their grasp. And so I called the timeout and said hey, I think you need to maybe rethink this project and how you could approach it in a different way because. It's just you're not there yet. You're not ready for it. You will be but not right now and they seem pretty dejected by that.
I think they were frustrated and didn't feel good about it. And then today they came back in and they had rethought everything that they wanted to do. They had done some research. They had found some things that they thought were more more within their reach and they made so much progress today and it was such a better experience for them.
And so it was like. You know have taking something that could have made you feel defeated and turned it into something that was really positive and they just regained their momentum in less than 24 hours. It was it was it made me feel a lot better about where they're going and I knew that it would be a better outcome for them that they would instead of walking away feeling dejected or demoralize that they couldn't get something to work.
They felt confident that they could make it work and that things were happening. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:08:36] That's cool. I love this 20% time opportunity that we have at the end of the quarter. I think that's going to be my my one of the week. I actually have two. I'm sorry. I'm cheating. So one of the students we gave him the trellis from Adafruit which we've seen we've played with a little bit of code, but we really haven't actually coded anything and he made a huge.
Breakthrough today with going in and finding some code and starting to realize about the grid pattern and what the buttons were called and I thought that was really cool. But the huge win was from one of my students who's on her fourth iteration of a game that she's been working on all. Quarter long on and off on her own time.
First iteration was with just two basic list popping in making a list choosing a random item from the list and now she's starting to build functions and it's a Cards Against Humanity. She hasn't looked online for the code at all. This 200-plus lines are all her own her own code and she's just really digging into it.
And she's one of those students that you have to ask her if she has any questions. She just sits and she was widened grappling on something. For about three days and I fixed it and now I have 10 more problems. I was like welcome to coding. So it was such a great win today to hear her say but I'm going to do it.
I'm going to finish this game before the end of the year and I said awesome. I love it. So it was a good one. 
Sean Tibor: [00:09:59] Nice. Yeah. I watched that also, and I thought it was really great. She just was was just tenacious in her approach to get it get it done. So. You know one of the things that Callie and I enjoy about our role as teachers is that we get to see students every day like that.
We get not so much that every day is a tenacious win, but that we see students every day during the day and we get to see their progress as they are learning Python, and we wanted to talk with the both of you to understand more about non-traditional roles outside of a traditional classroom or School setting and learn about.
How you are approaching python education and computer science education and I love the the two different approaches that you've got in your program between product development and science research. So I think we have a really great conversation about this but to get started. How did you each get started learning python or learning computer science?
How Did You Become Python Educators? [00:10:56] How did you become computer science Educators? 
Brianne Caplan: [00:10:59] Well, I started learning python during my first job after college somewhat due to boredom. Actually, there is a competition at my work to build a product any. And I decided to compete and the idea I had was for a software tool that would Aggregate and analyze industry news for our clients.
And I knew I had to do things like web scraping and natural language processing and a whole lot of network analysis. And so I didn't know much about python, but I heard. Through the Grapevine Google and Twitter that python was the language for the job. So I dove deep into Python and never looked back previously.
I was doing a little bit of C sharp and JavaScript and this endeavor for learning python was entirely project-based learning. So I ended up building that MVP from scratch and just a few months and. Won the competition and I don't think I could have ever learned what I did and that short few months.
If I didn't have this sort of project to drive my learning so I think. This experience that I have I always think about to why I'm personally such a big proponent for project-based learning. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:12:20] I love that your we're going to have so many more conversations after this podcast. I'm such a big project face learner fabulous 
Brianne Caplan: [00:12:31] always happy to discuss 
Kelly Paredes: [00:12:33] absolutely and Gabrielle.
How about you 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:12:36] I love I noticing the parallels between what Brenda said in my own experience. So I learned how to code in graduate school. I was in a program at Rockefeller University studying molecular genetics and looking at really large data sets of RNA transcripts so sequences and basically my data sets were so large at the time.
I was still using Excel for data analysis and my data sets were just crashing Excel. Right, I needed I needed to learn something new but did not have the right tools for the task. And so I was lucky that there was a python course being offered at that time. I was able to take and similar to Bree and I had a project right?
I had a specific goal. I needed python for I needed python to analyze these genetic data sets and find out we know the differences in gene expression across the different. Data sets I was looking at and so I was really excited to learn how to use Python for that. And now when I am teaching students I have that same approach right we're using learning python for learning how to use it to answer scientific questions.
Kelly Paredes: [00:13:40] Yeah, it was something that was shot and I always talk about it's the the fact that you have to have something to work towards in order to Learn Python. It's something that Shawn told me at the very beginning when I was when I was learning python. What is a project you want to do? And I think when you when you don't really have a need you don't really see the point, but once you find something that you're passionate about and you want to solve python comes a lot easier.
Professional Influences on Education [00:14:04]
Sean Tibor: [00:14:04] So Gabrielle will stick with you for a minute how has that experience of learning python to be able to answer scientific questions and and analyze data how has that influenced your role as a lead educator, you know, it does that, you know has that influence the way that you're designing the curriculum in what ways is that.
Helping these students find a better way to conduct scientific research if they have some coding skills. 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:14:29] Yeah, I think it's really at the heart of what we do here. I think it's that my experience and background was the reason why I was you know a fit for this position and able able to do what I do here at the Museum.
It really is in its moving entirely through what we do. So from the very beginning when the students are learning. Every coding concept they immediately have a scientific application to apply it to so when we first learned data types, we went down to one of our Halls here at the Museum the whole planet Earth, they collected data and information about you know, the minerals and rocks inside of our planet and then they came back and decided that those values to variables and okay, you know.
The age of this rock is a better put as a float or an integer or string and so just from that very beginning from then all the way up to later on. We'll be working with authentic scientific data sets. Its as you mentioned Sean, it gives the students a reason to care, you know, a lot of our students are excited about science but are intimidated by coding at first, so they know they've they've had science classes at school most of them.
If not, all of them have not had coding. Classes are coding experience as before but by giving them this connection where it says, okay you want we all think this thing is cool. They all think science is cool. How can we use coding to answer answering these questions? Because that's what you know, professional scientists are doing these days as I learned myself.
This is such an essential tool for scientific inquiry. 
Sean Tibor: [00:15:53] It's amazing. I'm having one of those moments where I'm a little bit blown away right now by like having my perspective changed because I guess having more of a formal Computer Science Education. I always always taught here are the data types and now here are some examples of those data types and to go the other direction and say, Here's all of this data in this domain area and then say now what data type should it be 
Kelly Paredes: [00:16:17] I love it.
I'm sitting here looking at him going. Oh my gosh my head spinning. I cannot wait to go back to the science teachers because I'm the person that is like I hate Hardware. I hate hardware and I'm struggling to get my head around hardware and I'm here playing with matplotlib and numpy and graphene and and I'm like.
Why doesn't anyone else find this so 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:16:39] interesting the dark side? 
Kelly Paredes: [00:16:41] I must I'm a pre-med student in from college. So I think that's why we connect so well on nana nana. Booboo. Keep that in the keep that in the podcast. I'm sorry computational science will get back to us being serious here. That term I read can you explain what computational science is is that that collection of data is what is that?
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:17:05] That's a great question. I can try. I think this is one of those questions that I mean one of those Concepts that everyone has their own definition for you know, we Define the bridge of stem program as existing at the intersection of Science and computational. Worker computational science and what that often means is, you know, a data analysis data visualization.
That's the easiest way to think about it, but there's especially nowadays are so many more ways in which coding and computational work are relevant to science. So we've got machine learning modeling statistics, right? All of these are ways in which you can apply coding to scientific inquiry. So I think any time you're using coding to facilitate scientific.
Work 
Brianne Caplan: [00:17:49] that's 
Sean Tibor: [00:17:50] computational science. Excellent. So Brianna, I think I'm hoping that you'll be able to show us kind of how your experience is a product designer and coming from you know, that that project where you are competing to create a product. How is that influence your curriculum design in the code your dreams program?
Brianne Caplan: [00:18:07] Definitely. Well, I'll just Echo what Gabrielle said is that we need to give students that reason to care and I think my experience having a project that allowed me to dive deep into python that really drove how we built our curriculum so our curriculum is. It's divided into four parts. We have discussed design develop and deliver.
And this goes through the entire product development cycle. So starting with discuss students at code your dreams begin with learning about the design thinking process. So they think about communities that they're a part of. What makes them great and beautiful but also what everyday problems they see in their communities.
And then from there they come up with an idea for an application. They can build that solves that Community problem and then that takes our students into the next phase of our curriculum. Which is called design so our students learn the fundamentals of user experience and design they prototype their Ops.
They test them with Target users in their communities. They iterate test again and so on and so on. So at the end of this phase our students come out with a final design which leads them into. Develop phase where they start learning basic coding fundamentals in order to actually develop that application to final product.
It gets a little bit tricky here for us because each curriculum is entirely. Specialized for the applications that our students are developing. So if we think about a student team building a chat app that curriculum looks completely different than a student team building an app with a core mapping function for example, so at the end of this phase our students have their apps they create glass caps using python.
And then that leads them to their Final Phase, which is deliver. We're students focus on delivering their amazing extraordinary apps to The Wider Community. They learn things like problem statements and elevator pitches the cores of sales and marketing. So like I mentioned before this goes through the entire product development cycle from start to finish.
Students wearing tons of different types of hats and the purpose or I guess the hope is that although not everyone wants to become a python programmer. That's fair. I did most people don't but there should be a part of the process that Sparks some sort of passion in every student who goes through our program 
How much Python is in your curriculum? [00:20:50] Sean Tibor: [00:20:50] and in terms of the are in general and I know that this is a little bit of a guess but in general how much of your curriculum is actually.
Computer science coding python things about versus those other skills that you mentioned around product development. 
Brianne Caplan: [00:21:04] It's about 70 percent sixty to seventy percent. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:21:07] And how long are how long is the the course? 
Brianne Caplan: [00:21:11] So our core program runs coincides with the school year. Sometimes we do smaller programs for schools where it's like an expedited boot camp type.
But yeah, our core program is the entire school year 
Sean Tibor: [00:21:26] and you have both middle school and high school students in your program. Right? 
Brianne Caplan: [00:21:31] Right. We've done one program. That was first through third grade. That's not our core competency, but it was definitely the most adorable class I've ever taught. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:21:44] So it's interesting to me both of you do not.
Come from an educational background. Correct? You guys are you guys were never never teachers like Shawn you you were other curriculum other areas of expertise. Is that correct? 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:21:59] Yeah. I came from science research and academic background. Along the way though. I always took advantage of opportunities to do science Outreach and going into classrooms.
And I was always sort of like I want to be teacher right always sort of popping into classrooms whenever I got a chance, I think one experience and really bridge the gap for me was I got a chance to serve as a temporary faculty at Bard College as part of their citizen Science Program. Where I was part of a cohort of teachers and we got to develop a curriculum for their sort of inter term course that all freshmen have to participate in a sort of a science literacy course, and that was the first time I got got to really get my my.
You know hands dirty with real curriculum development and I really fell in love with it. So ever since then I've now that I'm in informal education. I definitely do feel like I'm playing catch-up sometimes with taking advantage of as much educational professional development as I can and learning from people who've been in the classroom for a long time.
But yeah, that's that's sort of my my history 
Kelly Paredes: [00:22:58] there. I find it. I find it incredible because I think that one of the conversations that Sean and I often have in that kind of stem to how we came about is that it's hard to find. People that can teach computer science so well and with a well-rounded curriculum and it's just it's interesting as brown was talking.
I'm thinking oh she was pbl practice. Oh, she had the design thinking curriculum. Oh, she had design technology. And as you were talking about how you went about and just totally flipped. Flip the switch at how we were thinking of how we approach python teaching. It's just so interesting how you can bring in these pieces and not come from an educational background.
I just kind of proves our point that. It's really necessary to bring these in into a classroom. 
Setting Up Spaces for Learning [00:23:46] Brianne Caplan: [00:23:46] All right, 
Sean Tibor: [00:23:46] so tell us how you create the environment for your students. You know, Gabrielle showed us our her classroom on on Zoom before we started kind of gave us a look at her classroom. How did you come up with that space?
How do they get started? And then Brianna like as you're developing these programs for other schools? How did you create that you know both a physical and. You know virtual environment for for your programs as well. 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:24:10] So I inherited this classroom. I was not part of the initial design for it, but I'm very lucky that whoever designed.
It did a great job with it. It has both a more formal more formal education sort of. Side where there are small tables with four chairs around them still small table setting not not, you know lecture format, but they're their screens were students. So there's I can you know, show them show them code or show them slides and a whiteboard, but we also have a back of the room.
That's a more informal space with cushions and chairs and that can be moved around and the students often will come back here for breaks or before or after classes. Sometimes will come back here. Just have a discussion type. You know phase of the of learning and we call this room the den, right? We don't just call it the classroom called the den and I think that gets at our vision for it, which is that it's a comfortable space.
It's in fun space and it's a space that feels safe to learn and to 
Sean Tibor: [00:25:10] explore Briana. How do you create the environment in your in your teaching space? 
Brianne Caplan: [00:25:14] Yeah. So code your dreams we. Sometimes have to be a little bit creative about what we make our classroom whether that's computer lab or a school or a coffee shop or really any space that we can find, but I think one thing that stays true for.
Whatever physical location that we have is that we would describe our classes as similar to what Gabrielle said just as open collaborative creative. Definitely silly at times just a fun place to be since we are in after school. Program and I think that one big thing is as teachers. We definitely put a lot of care into creating these open and positive environments for our students to be able to take risks and be themselves, I think.
I find that learning something new especially something like a programming language which for our program our students have not had any prior experience with it's often stressful and it can cause a lot of anxiety and I felt that too when learning a new. Programming language. So we make sure that we give students everything.
They need to be successful wherever our classroom is at programming and that definitely goes well beyond coding fundamentals. So we make sure to teach students things like. How to stay relaxed while debugging so it definitely shouldn't be a surprise for anyone that things like meditation practices or breathing exercises for example incur occur in most of our classrooms.
Brianne's Tip: The 5 Things Exercise [00:26:59] Kelly Paredes: [00:26:59] Yes, you gave us that one to put pine cone and I use it a lot. In fact today. We took a moment to just breathe in and we didn't do the how do you feel? How do you see? What do you see? What was it again? Can you please tell us what you you told us at pycon Bridge? What do you feeling 
Brianne Caplan: [00:27:15] so I find that a lot of times when programming we get so involved in our heads and it becomes important that we kind of get grounded in our own bodies and what's happening in the now so our students practice the five things so you look at.
What you start with what are five things that I can see right now? Like I can see this coffee cup and my phone and this laptop and the tree out the window and so on and then what are four things that I can hear? What are three things that I can feel? What are two things that I can smell and then what's one thing that I can taste and for some of my students that really brings them back to the here and the now and can alleviate some.
Stress in the moment. 
Gabrielle's Tip: Intentionally Generating Errors [00:28:03] Sean Tibor: [00:28:03] No, one of the other things that I like to I think Gabrielle brought this up at pycon was how to get comfortable with the things that often make us uncomfortable in coding and I think it was in particular. It was error messages Gabrielle. I think you had a really great way of getting students to.
Not feel anxiety or trepidation when they encountered an error and I wanted to see if you would share that with us as well. 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:28:24] Absolutely. Yeah from the very beginning. I try with all my heart to tell the students that are messages are friends not to be afraid of them, but I can tell them that as many times as they want.
But what I've learned is that. One way to get them to experience that is I have them intentionally create each kind of error message that were likely to encounter. So they give them code that works and they have to break it in as many ways as they can so they have to create a syntax error. They have to create a name error.
They have to create a type error and by flipping that we're all of a sudden getting the error messages the wind moment. As opposed to a moment of oh, no, I failed. I hope that that can search them on that process of recognizing. Oh, these are messages are actually good information for me and not something to be afraid of 
Sean Tibor: [00:29:09] and I think it also adds a measure of control right if they're causing the air to happen intentionally.
There's this intent behind it. They feel like they're in control of it now instead of something that's happening to them, right? 
Kelly Paredes: [00:29:20] And then the great one salute Lee and when the that output comes back in the trace back they can see that it has exactly what they made as they are. I think that's a great five minute challenge going to try that next quarter.
I'll let you know how it goes. 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:29:33] Yeah, I love that 
Brianne Caplan: [00:29:35] game of vacation. 
Challenges Faced By Underpriviledged Learners [00:29:38] Kelly Paredes: [00:29:38] Absolutely. So you guys are both working with the under privileged minorities. Tell us a little bit more about. What got you into teaching for social good? How does that it takes a special person to to really have that as their focus 
Sean Tibor: [00:29:55] and I wanted to just make sure we understood to are these necessary underprivileged people or they people who are just under represented people may not have been given all of the opportunities to be in a stem field or for a variety of reasons just to have haven't chosen to participate.
Brianne Caplan: [00:30:13] Yeah, I can speak for code your dreams. We focus on low-income neighborhoods as well as underrepresented communities in technology. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:30:23] Can you like expand on is it is it the school system that that lacks the funding? For us and we come from a different type of school. We come from an independent school.
And so we don't often have the opportunity to know what's not available. I have worked in Peru and I have gone to under privilege and under funded schools in Peru, but I've not really seen. As many as I should in Florida or in other places in the United States, and I'm not sure a lot of our listeners understand that that really exist sometimes.
Brianne Caplan: [00:30:57] Yeah, so well, I'm originally from Baltimore which has its fair share of public education challenges like Chicago, which is where I live now and what I've seen especially with Computer Science Education is that. The problems occur in four Big buckets. So first is lack of teachers so over half a public school districts in the nation's report that they struggle to recruit and retain certified and effective stem teachers, and we also just know that most.
People who are graduating with a computer science degree don't go into teaching. So it's not a surprise that we don't find as many teachers with those skills actually in our Public School classrooms. So that's number one number two would just be you know computer science. Is newer in our classroom.
So we lack that sort of standardized curriculum. There are a few organizations and universities who are trying to come up with some sort of standardized curriculum, but there also needs to be training available for current teachers that are actually in the classroom and then. The third bucket by C is really just lack of gear some schools that I work with.
They might only have a couple working computers. They might not have a fully operating computer lab which would shock a lot of people there just is a huge disparity even in the same public school system from one school to another so if you don't have a computer it. Is probably pretty challenging or it is very challenging to than even teach computer science.
And then the last bucket which is related to number three is just lack of funding. So I usually Source a study that's released by the education trust every year and looking at just Illinois, which is where I live. Schools in 2017 were underfunded by about 2.4 billion dollars and that's a lot of money especially for the schools that need it the most and that.
Is it you know, they're already underfunded. So to put more money into training teachers for computer science. Specifically just isn't happening 
Sean Tibor: [00:33:20] Gabrielle. Can you tell us a little bit about how the bridge up program approaches this and who you primarily serve in terms of the communities around the.
The museum. 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:33:29] Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, we serve everyone in the New York City area. So it's not just restricted to schools or that are near the museum. We have students from all the borough's. I'm not sure if we have anyone from Staten Island actually, but we do have students from New Jersey and even Pennsylvania if they have family members in New York and are able to get here for example for our summer program.
We've had people participating from as far away as. As other states and the way we the first of all the program is just for women for young women. And so that's already an underrepresented group in coding and especially at the higher levels of administration in the tech industry, but beyond that we also Focus the program on students who have had limited access to coding classes and resources so far.
So that's our way of getting at the student population that we think has the greatest need for a program like this, you know, increasingly New York City's beginning to offer. Computer science in many classes and many schools but not all there are a number of programs. And those are also growing in number which is great.
But we find that the students who there are some students who are already sort of on that path either through school or through an extracurricular. They are already. Learning how to code which is wonderful but we want to be that that open door in that Avenue for students who haven't already started on that path.
Sean Tibor: [00:34:45] Nice. That is really cool that it's you've got that kind of reach geographically to get to so many people and give them this opportunity. I think that's really a great great way to think about. The community that you serve is not necessarily being in the immediate area, but being broader than that and more inclusive of people, you know, and the needs that they have 
Recruiting More Computer Science Teachers [00:35:07] Kelly Paredes: [00:35:07] and I want to touch back on.
I think your third bucket about there's not a lot of teachers out there who. Are able to teach coding and this goes into the the kind of question that Sean and I have how can we get more teachers like me? I've no I didn't code I used I did Lego robotics and I did a little bit of HTML and I got into python about a year and a half ago.
And I just said well what the heck we're going to do it. So how do you think if there's any magical way of getting those teachers to switch into coding do you have. Maybe any ideas or suggestions because I think if we get more teachers out there who can code then we'll have more opportunities at least two if not necessarily directly teach it and computer science, but at least bring it into the curriculum say it science teacher a math teacher any suggestions.
Brianne Caplan: [00:35:58] Yeah, well, I think it's definitely challenging and putting the onus on teachers to be the ones to drive their learning trajectory to me just isn't fair because we know teachers they're the busiest people that we know and so to put that honest on them. Isn't going to work. I think that as Professionals in the technology space.
There's a lot of things that we can do to help support our teachers helping with little things like or big things like curriculum development for teachers helping with teacher training coming into the classroom with teachers and teaching alongside. I think that has whether you're a software engineer or a data scientist.
Whatever it might be in technology. I think that there's a lot of opportunity to do a lot more to help support teachers. 
Sean Tibor: [00:36:54] I think Gabrielle. Did you want to add to that? 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:36:57] Yeah. I just had a couple of other suggestions. I totally agree with what Briana was saying as a person who works in a cultural institution.
I encourage teachers to reach out to local museums libraries. See what these. Sorts of organizations already have in place that they can take advantage of it could be something they can bring their students to but it or it could be something that can be taken back to the classroom increasingly resources.
Our education resources are being put online even if they are originally connected to an exhibit or something that took place at a museum. And then I also think that the hour of code is a great way that teachers can get a first. You know first step in that direction. It's a really low time commitment relatively speaking.
It's something that you can try out and see how it goes. And I've spoken to a lot of teachers who for whom that was their first foray into bringing coding into the 
What Does This Achieve? [00:37:46] Sean Tibor: [00:37:46] classroom nice. So  I did want to ask you  as you're working with the students and as you've brought students through your program the question is so so what so we've taught students about computer science.
We through a variety of ways. We either through a product design lifecycle or through scientific research. So what so what has that done for them? And I know I have my own so what I'm trying to get your perspective on what this can do for students like having this education what has this done for them?
What have they been able to achieve as a result of learning Python and learning computer science as part of your program. 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:38:23] Yeah, I'd be happy to I'm lucky enough. Now that as I've been in this position for two years some of the students that I my first students.
I taught are now applying for college and it's really exciting and thrilling for me to see hear from them and to hear what the way there now looking at them. Themselves on their Futures. So one student in particular and thank you God when she first started. She was very nervous about learning how to code.
She was learning English as a new language at the same time as she was learning Python and and yet she always had that that enthusiasm of okay. I'm ready for the next thing. I'm ready for the next thing. I think that the supportive Community. We've created here. The sense that it's you're not getting a grade you're not getting.
You know, we're not failing you if you get an error message. But that instead this is just a space where you can explore and experiment with other students was really beneficial for her and I've now heard from her and red. She even shared with us her college essay wherein she talks about this program and how it was a space where she was able to discover her confidence in herself.
And now she's applying for college to do statistics and computer. And so, you know, they've really a lot of them have really found not just a passion for coding but a sense of themselves as empowered, you know people in the world and so that can that to me is. Really tells us that at least in some cases were accomplishing what we set out to do which is not just teach people how to code but Empower these young women to know that they have what it takes and that they can go forward with confidence that the total 
Sean Tibor: [00:39:57] I don't even know how to say how to respond to that.
That's amazing. That's everything that got me into teaching in the first place. Was that hope to help. People discover their strengths and discover who they are and what they're capable of doing and so I'm just I'm thrilled to hear that Brianne. I don't I hope you're able to follow up on that because I was pretty amazing.
I 
Kelly Paredes: [00:40:18] am 
Sean Tibor: [00:40:20] speechless after each one. 
Brianne Caplan: [00:40:22] Yeah. I wish I was able to go first. Well, I think from what I've seen with my students at code your dreams opportunities like these are definitely. Life changing especially working with students who attend schools that are extremely under resource giving them the opportunity to have an idea for themselves have their voices.
Heard and then actually create Something Real from start to finish. I think that just that entire process on its own is incredibly impactful as an individual to be able to see that you can have an idea and then make it. Come to life and have your hands in the entire process of getting it there. I also think that these types of opportunities are really important because it creates some sort of passion and Spark for students.
They might not have felt that spark in. There during the school day but giving students the opportunity to learn something new and create something real I think is really important. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:41:37] I'm not sure if you're familiar with pbl and project-based learning the actual pbl works, 
Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:41:43] but their whole philosophy is about getting in 
Kelly Paredes: [00:41:44] front of an audience.
And you said something earlier about how your students need to deliver their product. Are you hoping are you seeing change within the community from any of these products? Have you had an opportunity to see that happen yet? 
Brianne Caplan: [00:42:00] Yeah, that's a great question. I definitely think it creates a lot of excitement for communities to see students who are only in middle or High School actually create technology that impacts everyone or certain people who live in that community and.
I think it not only impacts the community at the end of the program where they're actually giving their final presentations. I think it makes an impact in the community. Even the journey up to that point since all of our students our Technologies are serving people who live in their communities all of their user testing also occurs.
In their community, so I think they're testing with their peers or testing with neighbors and family and friends and I think just because not just because only they're getting this sort of Education in the program. They're sharing their learnings and their entrepreneurship to a whole ton of people who they meet with.
Day today, 
Kelly Paredes: [00:43:05] excellent. I want to get I said one more question, but I have one more question. So, you know, I I love with both of you do and we wish that we could we could help more but is there anything you want to share with with our community and in our listeners about anything that they can do or they can help or maybe how they can start a program or go to a museum and have a program like Bridge up.
Any suggestions on how other python East has out there can can promote computer science and for social good in their communities Gabrielle. 
What More Can We Do? [00:43:40] Gabrielle Rabinowitz: [00:43:40] Well, I mean if anyone is listening is in the New York City area and encourage them to encourage the young women they know and 9th or 10th grade to apply for our program applications will be opening again this winter and so the link I'm sure that that Sean and Kelly will share with you all about link to our budget.
Brown Scholars website and then for anyone who works in the museum it Museum sometimes especially large ones like the Museum of Natural History have can feel like they are institutions that are stuck in the past and I hope that people can see what we're doing here as an inspiration to to not be afraid of to bring in new technologies and new approaches to.
Teaching in these spaces and and to coders and python East has definitely like I mentioned earlier to Educators, but this is true for everyone just reach out to your local Museum or Library see what they're already doing with regards to coding and see if they would like you to come and be a guest speaker.
I work with students be a mentor because I know we for example are always looking for female coders in the New York City area who want to come and speak to our students. Either come to us or host us at their tech company. We like to show our students what they could be in store for them in the future 
Sean Tibor: [00:44:56] 3 and you have anything to add to that in terms of how pythonista is people who have a background in computer science or product development could help bring Computer Science Education and product education to their communities.
Brianne Caplan: [00:45:08] Definitely, so to speak on behalf of code your dreams were always looking for volunteers and many different areas volunteers to teach actually in our classrooms volunteers to help out with things like curriculum development, which means you don't need to be in the Chicago area, and I've actually I recently.
Been reached out by someone who lives in the Boston area who is interested in bringing the code your dreams curriculum to Boston. And so if any python he's does out there are also interested in having this type of curriculum or programming wherever they are then I'm always happy to help and see how we can make that work together 
Kelly Paredes: [00:45:53] exciting news for both of you guys what we 
Sean Tibor: [00:45:57] can wrap up here.
I think just by saying we're. Totally Blown Away by the work that you're doing. It's really amazing. And ever since we met you at pycon last year Kelly and I have spoken about the amazing work that you're doing and how we really had to get you on the show to hear more about it and learn more about what you're doing.
And so I also want to say thank you for doing the work that you're doing. It's really important that we have a diversity of people represented in computer science for a whole variety of reasons. And so for you to lend your talent and your voice and your thoughts to this area is really important to me personally, but I think also to our community at large I'm not going to speak for Kelly, but I can see on her face.
It's really important to her to right now, but just our community at large what you're doing is important and it's an investment in our Collective future as a community. To be bringing more young students and talented students into this field and I just I'm so thankful that you're doing it and thankful for the for you to join us on the show and tell us all about it.
Brianne Caplan: [00:47:00] Well right back at both of you.
Wrap Up [00:47:05] Sean Tibor: [00:47:05] Well, I think so with that we're going to wrap up and and we'll definitely want you back on the show in the future to talk more about the programs. If anyone wants to reach out to Breanne and Gabrielle. We will have links to their respective programs on the initial notes will also can also find both of you on Twitter.
So if you want to follow. Each of these talented women in the field that they're working at and see the stuff that they're doing every day. It's always great to see what they're doing. We'll post a link to their Twitter handles on on the show notes as well. If you'd like to follow us. We're at teaching python on Twitter and you can always send us.
Thoughts and comments through our website at teaching python dot f m so with that we're going to sign off. This is Sean 
Kelly Paredes: [00:47:49] and
this is Kelly signing off.