Raw Recording
Sean Tibor: [00:00:00]  welcome to teaching Python. This is episode 58. How do people figure out what they don't know? My name's Sean Tibor. I'm a coder 
Kelly Paredes: [00:00:24] and my name's Kelly Schuster Perez. And I am a teacher 
Sean Tibor: [00:00:26] who codes this week. We're joined by two of our favorite people in the entire world. A few of our coworkers and colleagues.
I have Roslyn Jackson, affectionately known as Ross. Hey everybody. And I have Jessica Gilbert. Hi everyone.  Ross is a science teacher and really brings a lot of interesting ideas and perspective and is always pushing the envelope in the way that she teaches in her science classroom.
And we thought she'd be a great person to have for this topic. Jessica is doing a lot of amazing things in her classroom, teaching American government. And makes a lot of really interesting connections and tries to teach government in a way that isn't traditionally taught. So really breaking down these paradigms.
So I think we all share this goal together of helping kids learn new things and figure out things that they don't already know. So we're going to start though, before we get into that topic, we're going to start with the same. Same way we always do each week, which is the win of the week, celebrating something good that's happened inside or outside of the classroom.
And because we like to torture our guests a little bit, we're going to make them go first to make 
Kelly Paredes: [00:01:32] them play rock paper scissors, maybe it's 
Sean Tibor: [00:01:33] something to let them choose. But Ross, because you're here next to me and because you're squirming more than you, Jessica. 
Ros Jackson: [00:01:40] Okay. Thank you. One of the week.
Sean Tibor: [00:01:43] Yeah, we'll start with the one of the week. 
Ros Jackson: [00:01:44] A win of the week. I made it to Wednesday. I finished my grades are due. The students are effectively studying for a test so far. Does that count is that computer 
Kelly Paredes: [00:01:56] you made it to Wednesday was the first way the best one. So 
Ros Jackson: [00:01:59] the fail of the week though, is that I made a mistake on a study guide that a student caught, but, and I guess part of the win is I totally owned it and use it as an example of, okay guys, this is why you don't rush through your work.
And I fixed it after the second class. So the other classes won't see the mistake. Well done. What 
Sean Tibor: [00:02:20] an awesome win for the student though, when they can find, 
Ros Jackson: [00:02:23] yeah. I love that. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:02:24] I actually love that part. Yeah. But it makes you human.  The fact that they get to see you make mistakes is okay. I make tons of them every single day.
And I tell them all the time this is why you shouldn't be watching TV while you're doing your weekly overview. Exactly. So fabulous. All right, 
Jessica Gilbert: [00:02:38] Jess. Okay. Even though I had time to prep through Ross, we're still going wing this. So my win of a week is that my project is that I'm launching on Friday is almost done.
Thankfully, because Kelley helped me with my rubric because my fail of the week is that I keep staring at my project and I can't figure out the last few steps. So I have it all mapped out. I have it all organized, but I just cannot accomplish the last few steps. So thankfully during lunch, Kelly helped me with my rubric.
And now I can actually launch my project on time. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:03:08] And it's a very interesting project. It's a game development about the constitution and the constitution, which I know very little bit about separate I'm being taught slowly every single day. That's 
Sean Tibor: [00:03:20] why it's good to be friends with 
Kelly Paredes: [00:03:21] the government teacher.
Exactly. We're trying to code the constitution. Something that Eric math is gave us the idea about, yeah, that was rough. 
Jessica Gilbert: [00:03:28] That was rough 
Kelly Paredes: [00:03:29] Word by word. All right, Kelly, you're up? Okay, cool. So my win of the week, this is our new quarter and I have I don't know if it's my blogs or teaching today, teach you I'll do the teaching today.
Cause I have been writing a lot of blogs and from the blogs, I was thinking of new ways to save my sanity for the sixth graders. Cause every quarter it's the same thing for the first four or five weeks. It's I can't it's too hard. Whatever I'm confused. So today I had a really nice in my eyes and hopefully not a lot of the students' eyes presentation on mental images, trying to get them to understand or have a Image in their brain about what is a string and what is an integer.
And I wanted them to always think of a string as a happy birthday banner. If I take an operator and multiply it times two times my string, there's going to be two happy birthday banners on the wall. However, if I take a two and I put it in a calculator, A different object. When I multiply it times two, it's going to come up as four.
So I was hoping that they would see the difference thinking of the quotes on a string as a literal string, holding up the birthday banner and the calculator holding the integer. So I'm hoping that saves me a lot of grief. In the future, even I understood that I'm a great teacher. What can I say? And my fail is I wanted to keep going on the blog posts.
I wrote three blogs. And I am like stuck on paragraph one and I don't think I'm going to be getting out in the next, but it was on a roll. I had three at three and two weeks. So we 
Sean Tibor: [00:05:09] did well. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. You're definitely three further ahead than I 
Kelly Paredes: [00:05:13] am. So three times, three times two.
Sean Tibor: [00:05:17] So for me the win this week, we're going through a lot of review, just like you are in your class, Kelly. Because it's the new quarter. It's the first week. This was day two. For my eighth grade students and this class I taught today, the students were going through and making a calculator and, addition, subtraction, multiplication.
And I said, Oh, and here's one, how do you get the remainder? And four students or five students all said, Oh, you use the module as operator. And I was like, yes, they get it. Like they weren't. It was something that we hadn't taught yet or covered. It was things that they remembered from previous years and this class is just on it.
They're just remembering things are getting it. They're engaged. Like we finished 10 minutes early today. I was like I that's it guys. That's all I've got. That's all I can do. So zoom kids enjoy your extra 10 minutes. And then I showed the kids in the classroom how to do like pigeon pose for running and stuff like that to stretch out their legs.
So it was a really good win. The fail of the week is that the extra 10 minutes that I found at the end of that class is literally the only extra time that I've had, like the entire week, the fail just keeps being there. I keep running out of time to get things done, and there's always something left over.
So I'm working on how do I. Find more time in the day or say no to some stuff, because I'm just running out of time everywhere I look. Yeah. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:06:33] I totally think like all teachers can relate to that. You come back from the break and you've had all this time and you're like, Oh, I should have done this.
And I should have done that because on Monday morning, it's like a door in the face. You just run out of time, but Hey, only five more months ago and we made it to Wednesday. Yay. 
Sean Tibor: [00:06:53] Yeah.  Let's go into the topic then really this idea of how do people figure out what they don't know is something that Kelly and I were talking about.
And we were recognizing that as we are teaching computer science as a subject, one of the things that we want our students to be able to do is this ability to figure things out so that if we're not there, they have the right skills, the resources, the ability. To go figure out a problem on their own. And some students seem to do this very naturally and other students, it's just a real struggle.
And as we were talking about this, we both realized that we don't actually always know what we mean when we say figure it out.  We wanted to unpack that and understand what do we mean when we say figure it out with the idea that if we understand what that means. Then that's something that we can teach.
So it's something that we can help our students grow and develop with. And we also realize that, although there's probably a lot of things that are shared among whatever subject it is, there's also a lot of things that are probably different based on the content that you're teaching and what does figure it out mean in different subject areas.
So that's why we invited Roz and Jessica to join us today to talk about what this means in humanities and in science and in other subjects, other than computer science. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:08:12] So let's just back up a little bit on the learning outcomes. From all learning theories, the concept of doing something going through the process of failure, going through the process of, struggling in your mind, looking at things, looking up information, asking questions, that process of figuring out, we know that it is very effective.
For learners. There's a couple of articles I'll post within the show notes. And this byline is wisdom is knowledge gathered through experience is something that we both develop a lot in our classroom. And I know that Roz and Jessica, you guys do it as well. How do they dig into it? Just putting a little bit of learning theories on this, as I'm on the trend, but figuring out makes learning better for the students.
But like Sean said is sometimes we're not necessarily helping that skill along for those people that can't figure things out. And I think that's where our problem lies is when we tell a student, Hey, figure it out. And they're not adept at figuring things out what other skills can be put into place in order to help that student.
Sean Tibor: [00:09:23] Yeah. So Jessica, when we came to you and said, Hey, we want to do a podcast about how you figure things out or how your students figure things out. Where did your mind go when we came and asked you that is that 
Jessica Gilbert: [00:09:33] something that you were hoping basically said, don't ask me. Cause I don't know the way to the, my, my personal brain works.
Like I just don't know how I arrived to the places that I come to. And most of it, and I was telling Kelly about this before is that I just jump in if life is a pool, I just jump in. And when I start to drown, I start to figure out what I need to do. So having to go step by, step into that process. Is one of the hardest parts of teaching for me and evolving as a teacher is because I just do things.
So breaking things down into those small steps is really a struggle for me that I've had to evolve in over the years because I just see a problem. And then jump into the middle of it and then try to come back up for air. So 
Kelly Paredes: [00:10:13] That's, I think that's similar to Shawn. So I think that's, what's interesting Sean, when he gets into a problem that he wants to solve.
And I don't think he's struggling for air, but he just gets so into it of trying to figure it out. And that's a different for me sometimes figuring out I just want, I've called Sean before and I'm like, I hate this because I can't figure it out. So there's like different personalities and I've read a lot about that.
Of some people are just good at being in that swimming pool, drowning per se, but you get out. You swim. 
Jessica Gilbert: [00:10:46] Yeah.  You start to, you have to figure out the pieces. There's not an option. If you're in the deep end of the pool, you get out. You need to figure it out until, you're setting yourself up for that struggle.
But that struggle is also fun because then you need to go find the equipment that you need and the extra pieces of knowledge and you build it up yourself. And I don't know where that exactly came from. For me, it might be a history student was spent four years doing research. So maybe that's just something that developed through that time, but really that's how I do projects.
That's how I do units. That's how I lesson plan. It's always here's what I need to do. Here's the end goal. Figure it out. 
Ros Jackson: [00:11:23] I'm a little bit different, I like to use stuff. To me, I am a procrastinator. I do stuff at the last minute. I am definitely a kind of let's get there. Let's go.
Let's do it. I don't like to ponder a whole lot of stuff, so I will jump in, but I would jump in with tools or with people. So if somebody has done it before, they've probably done it better or they've made mistakes that I don't want to repeat or need to. So I'm going to serve somebody out. That's where I was both Kelly and Sean.
And then I'm going to Google it and I know Googling it is like a double-edged sword. Yes, I'm going to look up and see if somebody has done it, but if it looks too crazy, I'm going to keep searching and keep searching until I find something that fits for me. So I do like to figure it out, but I will take different sprinkles from people, from things, from different tools and then put together my own solution and make it mine.
 That's hard to teach to students. Because that  takes years to learn.  In class instead of telling them , quote, unquote, figure it out, what I'll tell them is, I don't know. And I'll say, but how can you do that?  If they tell me, I don't know, , Oh my gosh how are we going to figure this out?
Oh my gosh, you have something in front of you. That's  the most , powerful tool known to man right now. What do you think you should do with it? Let's open it up and look, and then they served and this doesn't work or. Did you ask a friend she's pretty good at this? Did you ask her? And so modeling for them what I do, like going to different people.
And then when you see that light bulb go on, it's okay, they may not get even what I thought. Most times they get something better than what I was trying to get them to get, because they use the same process, but they had different tools and then they found a different answer. So it was how I do it.
Kelly Paredes: [00:13:09] That's really cool. That's actually  With modeling as well, but this idea that, Oh that is a problem.  But, I really think you can figure that out and you're showing them, I've watched you in class a couple of times, or a couple of times, a lot of times teaching and you do have that way of stepping back.
 The main case is that  all four of us  don't give the answer right away. We don't give them or try not to give them the answer right away. Yeah. 
Sean Tibor: [00:13:36] Because the faster you give the answer, the faster, the next question comes in 
Kelly Paredes: [00:13:39] you, but it's so easy just to give the answer, go away.
Here's the answer, 
Sean Tibor: [00:13:44] right? Yeah. I find myself using that. I don't know approach a lot. Even when I do know, because, for the most part of all the stuff that I'm teaching, when it comes to the technical side of stuff, I usually know the answer,  I've got the answer to that. It's rare that I have something that I really don't know.
I wouldn't say it's like super rare, but it's rare. But there's a lot of times where I just don't know the answer to the teaching part of it or the learning part of it or whatever. And so I like you, I do the modeling that behavior. What can we use? What resources do we have? How could we start? Where would be a good place to begin?
Do we even understand what we're trying to figure out before we go figure it out? So I. Ask a lot of those questions of the students to try to prompt them to do it. And what I find interesting is when you guys are, you all are doing that in your classrooms for other subjects, and, finding those different ways to help the students engage.
What I've seen  is that  watching students go through that process from the outside is fascinating. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:14:42] Yeah. I was thinking, this is question for you guys. Because I've always told the kids from the get-go and I, we, all of our listeners know that I've only been coding for three years.
I am by far not an expert. I have sixth graders that are starting to surpass me because, I taught them maybe a little bit in fourth grade and they've just blown past their attempt. Cause they're in it, they're in it to win it and I'm okay with going. I am just facilitating your instruction.
I'm going to guide you in the best way. I don't know the answer, but you guys being  the experts in the classroom, you are the expert  science, teacher's the expert and everything about the constitution and government. Even when I need a question answered, I don't go to Google. I go to Jessica.
But how is that? How does that make you feel? Or do you ever find like giving up and not giving the answers hard? 
Ros Jackson: [00:15:35] I'm not here because I do have that issue and I will admit Kelly has helped me become better at not giving the answers because a lot of times I was focused on getting to where I needed to be in the lesson, but is  way more fun to talk to the kids.
I like messing with them. Then when I know that I have to mess with them, that helps me get out of my own way. And let them do it.  I am okay with telling them that you don't know everything.  I tell them that's what most smart people know that they don't know everything.
 That's a good place to start. And sometimes I tell them, like in, by now it's the middle of the year. They know. That I'm messing with them. When I say, I don't know. And I actually have to tell them like, seriously, I don't know this, so you need to try to figure it out. And then they're like determined to figure it out.
And they find all of this stuff. Ms. Jackson, here's this. And I T email it to me so I can actually learn it myself. That's a very cool and empowering thing for them. And for me, because next year that's going to end up in the lesson. Cool. 
Jessica Gilbert: [00:16:35] That's awesome. For me, it's a little bit different because I'm not teaching a science like you guys are I'm teaching government and governance is interpreted differently by lots of people by lots of different perspectives and no perspective of is wrong or invalid in my classroom because every perspective and every opinion stands.
So when I have learning goals, I have content goals, but then I have I guess thinking, interpreting goals for them. Metacognition goals for them. So it's not just learning the three branches of government and can you recite it to me? Cause that doesn't really matter, but can you see it in current events is Congress within their rights?
Is the president within his rights? What does the Supreme court doing? Are they supposed to be doing this? So a lot of it is interpreting. And so a lot of my essential questions are just open-ended. So when they're coming to me with questions, First of all I know Ross and I both teach question formulation techniques that we teach our kids how to ask questions so they can get to better knowledge when they do the research.
But when they come to me with questions, a lot of the questions aren't cut or dry. They're not like when's nog duration date. I find, I'll tell you that, cause you can Google it, but what is Congress doing? What is the function of the Senate? What is, these big questions that we're doing, we just finished revolutions.
And it was like, what are successful ideals of revolutions? I don't have an answer for that. That's not for me to determine. They have to determine it through what they have learned. Therefore, I just walk them through the thinking. They just need to talk it out the way that we talk out my lessons, like when I don't know.
We all sit down at lunch and I go Oh, I'm trying to get to this point. What do you think? And we talk it out and build it together. So that's what I ended up doing with kids that leads them towards realizing that they can do it themselves or talk at this point in the year. They can talk to each other more than they talk to me.

Sean Tibor: [00:18:20] It's interesting because  I loved my government classes and my social sciences. I had a really strong department when I was growing up and going through school.  It's interesting because what you're really evaluating is not necessarily whether they have the right answer, but if they are formulating the questions well, if they are articulating their thoughts in a nuanced and effective way, if they're using persuasion effectively to convince others that their perspective has merit and value.
Jessica Gilbert: [00:18:49] Yeah, it's just based in the content. So you have to know that there's three branches of government and the legislative branch has Congress and it's the house of representatives and Senate. But that information is just Googleable. That's not the important part. It's how does it work together?
It's systems thinking it's process over product. Yes. So my rubrics are much more based on the step-by-step. All of my PBLs have those checkpoints in it, but they're all grading. Process, and there's always reflection. It's not necessarily, can you take a quiz and tell me how long is the presidential term?
That's not interesting. It's the functionality. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:19:26] It's funny because we've had this question before from some of our Lister listeners, how do you grade programs or product or code and how do you make sure that kids don't cheat? I think for us the end product. Is really irrelevant. It's pretty much how, when we gave them a process or we gave them a a challenge.
What process did they go through in order to reach a product? And most of the time, the kids that have incomplete products, the ones that are figuring things out are the better products are more of the AA students  of a code. Or you can see  that ability of figuring out. And again, it goes back to that.
What about those kids that don't figure out? And I want to switch that cause that's where I'm stumped, trying to figure out for those kids.  I point to our mindset, growth mindset, staircase, and I'm like, you're on the, I can't do it. At least you got to go to the, I want to do it stage and that's, as far as I've gotten to, how do I get kids to figure it out, at least start changing their mindset.
Any other ideas, you coax them in, I'm putting you guys on the spot, but this is where we are. 
Jessica Gilbert: [00:20:35] So there are questions, those questions. It's the same thing I do with my six year old is he goes, mommy, I can't do this. And I go how do you think you should start? And then it's the same thing because we have students, I have some students that are coming into my mind right now that are just anxious.
They just don't want to get a bad grade. So they want to ask you every step, just as a confirmation to make them feel better. You know who those kids are in the beginning of the year. And every time they ask you a question, you don't say it meanly. You say, listen, you're intelligent. I believe in you.
What's the next step. And you guide it back to them. And to the point that they start to build the confidence that they don't have to come to you all the time now, do they still come to me? Yeah, but I continue to do the same thing. Read the directions.  What did the directions say?  Sometimes you have to force them to read the directions out loud.
Cause  their brains moving too fast. They're not comprehending and they have to stop and read it out loud to you. And then you go, what's the answer. And then they know, 
Ros Jackson: [00:21:28] honestly, I do exactly the same thing even to something  as simple as when is the test again? And I will tell them it's on the weekly overview it's there. I don't tell them when the test is, did you check the weekly overview and then they have to pull out their computer and look, what date is it?
Oh, okay. Even though I said it 50 times in class, it's the same thing, but I also think if you're trying to teach kids how to figure it out, it depends on the kid too. Some of the process of questioning back and forth, there are some kids that I can question in a different way, and there are some where I have to stand over them, still ask them questions, but it's a different kind of prodding.
It's a little more gentle. And then there's some, I'm like, no, I'll do go look, figure it out. And then they get it. So it depends on the kid too. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:22:19] So two things.  I'm reading this other article that I'll post in our show notes. It's about.  Cultivating the skill of figuring out. And this article was just saying, why are some people good at figuring out?
And it goes in line with what we were talking about one self-confidence like, okay. Yeah, we were drowning in a pool, but I know I'm going to be able to make it out. Belief that it's the right way to do things, figuring out I know in my heart and deep down that if you figure out as a learner, you're going to be a better person for that.
And then self-reliance. Believing in yourself to find it. The other one that is really important. This goes in line with what you said with questioning is knowing that the failure and this was from the article, knowing that the failure won't have high costs. So guess what? It's okay. If you don't figure it out, I'm going to be here for you.
I believe that you can do it. Like you said, Jessica, I believe that you can do it. I know that you're intelligent. I know that you're capable. You might have self doubt. Don't worry. Life's not going to, suck you in the middle of the hole. You're going to figure it out. I'm going to be here for you.
That was really interesting kind of way to keep as a teacher to keep those four things in your. Mine, even though it gets lost. Sometimes I think I'm going to write it on the wall again, 
Ros Jackson: [00:23:35] actually is something that I do. If I tell, because usually when you're in class, you're like troubleshooting like multiple kids at a time.
So if I tell one student that I know is capable of doing it on their own, like the no, dude go figure it out while I'm helping the student that I have to stand over when you're helping them. When you're done helping the student that you have to stand over, even from across the room and he thinks I'm not listening.
Did you find out the answer to that question so they know, okay. She'd been just zoned out. No, you're still responsible for that. You gotta check it. Cause I know, like you said, I have confidence in you. I know you could figure it out. Oh yeah. Ms. Jackson. I got it. See, I told you, I knew I was right. You go out a little bit.
Sean Tibor: [00:24:13] Are there specific skills that you see as being critical for figuring things out like the ability to Google effectively or.  Asking good questions, anything  that stands out to you as being a more important skill to teach or to learn as someone who's figuring things out?
Ros Jackson: [00:24:30] No, all of it.  All of you guys are saying, especially just, you can't be afraid to do it. You have to have confidence to do it. Kelly was saying. But you also have to notice the safe space. So yes, I taught you my kids. I pretend I don't know, but they know that I'm going to go over it repeatedly until they get it.
And to the point where sometimes I'm telling the kids, the ones who know it and who have it, I'm sorry guys. We're all in this together. So yes, you may know it so you can help me explain it to them. Or we're all going to listen to this again to make sure that we all get it. We're not leaving here until everybody's.
Got their process and knows what they need to know. So it's almost yes, I'm going to torture you, but we're a family. We're all going to get it together. So I guess some of that, it all goes together. I am going to, towards you. I'm going to make you learn it. You will never forget that I made you do it, but you're going to come back and you're going to know your science concept.
So we're good. 
Sean Tibor: [00:25:28] And as I think about it, and I reflect on how it works in my classroom. It's hard to separate out how much of this is skill development versus attitude. And that confidence that, is that attitude of I'm going to figure this out and I'm going to solve it. And I'm going to find a way it's that determination and the discipline to see it through.
That seems like it's just as important as the. Skill of, I know how to use Google really well, or I know how to ask the right question or  I can try things out and know how to fix it. If it goes wrong or progress from failure into success, it feels like that ability or the skills and the attitude are so intertwined that you can't really separate them out.
You can't just be great at Googling without that resilience of being able to try again, when you don't get the right results. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:26:20] Exactly.  I'm thinking about this  it's so interesting. Cause  we all have that same skill desire, but we all come about teaching things a little bit differently.
 I was thinking  for me, when I figure things out I have to do these mental images. And I know that you do a lot of these mental graphing things in your class to help figure things out.
 I was trying to apply some of that, those concepts in coding, because Sean and I were like, we're always here, we're either talking or coding.  We have to stop every once in a while to  yes we tell them we can do it, we also need to stop and say, okay, no, you can do it.
I need to model this for you. 
Jessica Gilbert: [00:27:00] Yeah. Yeah. I used tons of models. I model everything so there's models. And then now since we use Screencastify all the time, I Screencastify  me going over rubrics. I Screencastify a voice recording of the rubric so I can explain it to you so you can watch it any time, how to make research cards so you can go back and review it.
But we do so much visual thinking. In terms of Sketchnoting I have whiteboard walls, so the kids can draw out any concept at any point. And I make them draw it out because it makes them break it up into smaller parts. This year I implemented EDU scrum, which means the kids have to map out their own projects.
So they get the rubric and then have to backwards plan. What tasks need to be done at what time? And they have to move color-coded post-its across the wall as they complete it. So it makes them organize their project because I don't even give, I don't even get deadlines this year. They bring in the work when it's done.
And I just let them know when like they're starting to fall behind, but they're completely in charge of trying to learn their own time management too. And at the beginning, It was a hot mess. These kids were at the bottom of the pool. You're like, how could you do this to me? And can I switch out?
But that was also, like rod said early, it's about fostering the rules relationship. When they know that you love them and they come to trust you, they know you're, they're not going to sit at the bottom of the pool for you're going to help them climb themselves out. But they have to do the majority of the work.
And once they trust that you're not going to fail them and  everything's not a hundred points and it's going to wreck the quarter. When they know that you grade them and check points. Once they understand that feeling, they trust you that you'll never let them go. And it builds them up to us.
And then they have more confidence to take those further leaps. And now, as we've moved into the second project, now we're jumping into the third project. They don't stand next to me  crying anymore. They're like okay. I got it. I'll watch the videos. I'll come back to you. 
It's been great. Cause I do a lot more small group instruction than I do large instruction this year. And it's given me a lot more personal time with all of my kids, even my virtual kids to problem solve and talk them through it. So I feel like I know my kids even better this year because of that. And it's that visual thinking?
It's that organization? It's the reflections. It's the small group instruction that helps. Yeah. I love 
Sean Tibor: [00:29:11] watching the way that the interactions have changed in your classroom this year, compared to previous years. And the way that kids are asking questions, the way they're interacting with you, the relationship is different.
It's changed for this model.  What I also see is that it empowers the students who get it to go,  and they go with their friends,  they're with their group, they're moving forward, they're getting it, they're moving, they're going. It empowers them to move ahead at the pace that makes sense for them and the students who have always struggled 
they're the ones that are asking all the questions and they're setting the pace for the whole class because of what they need in order to move forward. They're pulling it together in a better way because they have that experience of the hot mess and turning it into something good 
 They're building their confidence and their ability to move forward. In a way that I don't think they've done in 
Jessica Gilbert: [00:30:05] other, they're doing it collaboratively because  , their group mates are teaching them. So now the kids that are flying high or going to a higher level because they're teaching their friends and those kids are not standing next to me, just asking repetitive questions and the peer pressure of it too helps is that they're not going to sit next to their friend and be like, can you explain direction?
Number two to me again, they're going to read it themselves again because . They'll do it to me. They're not going to do it to their friend. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:30:30] I wrote something on the board because I started a new book.  Another show knows. I have so many things to bring to the show notes.
 This is what happens when we have December break, but it's called high expectations teaching.  I wrote it on the board as I started to read and Sean smiled it's called effective effort.  When I wrote effective effort, it went coincide with this whole figuring out.
 The kid that's not putting effect of effort in is the kid that's usually struggling. Was figuring things out and effective effort is not just try harder because telling the kid, go figure it out, go try harder, go do this is not helping them. And then that demoralizes them. And then you don't, you're not seen as the person that is there for them, that caring aspect that both of you guys show and I wrote around effective effort is smart as something you can get.
 That's  where  this whole figuring out is just, it's so cool. If you put the right type of effort, if you work with your partners your peers, if you know how to question or come back with question, if you know how to Google, if you have confidence, if you have belief in yourself, then that effect of effort allows you to figure things out.
And that's really important in coding and. Humanities and science and all the other lifelong skills. 
Sean Tibor: [00:31:54] Is there any advice that you would give to other science teachers or the humanities teachers? If someone came to you, who's like I got to do something. Cause my kids are just struggling to figure it out.
Is there a place to start or something that one thing that they can do in their classroom tomorrow that would help get them going on that, 

Ros Jackson: [00:32:13] Honestly, Sometimes I get good ideas from asking the kids. If I'm stuck, just, on it. You know what guys that lesson yesterday sucked. I was bored. You were bored.
I didn't enjoy it. If we had to do this again, how would you do it? Like I love pictures. Like I have stuff going on in my head all the time. So I love projects. I love hands on stuff, which is why zoom for me sucks trying to figure that out, but we're working around it. What could you make?
What could you do? Is it a video? Is it a poster? Could you make something at home? How would you do this? So if you were teaching this, if you were going to teach your smaller sibling or your cousin or somebody, how would you do this to make it stick? How would you make it your all own? And you got 15 minutes.
Go, let me see what they get. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:33:01] We do that a lot for coding. That's not a big  crime, but it works. It's fun. I think you did that. I think you did that on day one for your eighth graders, 10 lines of code on what? I don't know, go figure it out. They 
Sean Tibor: [00:33:15] were having trouble getting started. So I just told them, start, just start do something.
Ros Jackson: [00:33:21] And it will be like a deer in the headlights for the first five minutes. Like what, you're not going to tell us what to do. Nope. And right now, you can't see it cause you have masks on. But usually when I do that, I'm like grinning from ear to ear the stats and you're laughing at us. I'll be, yeah.
It's a perk of teaching. Yeah. Go for it. Yeah. 
Jessica Gilbert: [00:33:37] I have to second that because I could not figure out what I wanted to do for this unit. And so I sat down with a group of my kids and said, so far, you've done this. Then you've done this. What's the next thing that you want to learn about? Like in conjunction with my content.
And they were like, I think that'd be great as a game. And I was like, Great next unit is game design and that's how the whole thing kicked off was just their idea. But in terms of teaching, if you want to teach your kids to be independent and you want them to be self-starters and you want them to be thinkers planning and scaffolding is the most important is the scaffolding is that if you want your kids to have a certain kind of cognitive journey, You need to scaffold it out perfectly.
I never show up the morning of and just go man, whatever my units are planned, the next 13 weeks are planned for me. And day by day, they're planned graphic organizers are planned. Research cards are planned. They're all modeled. Everything is planned. 
They really don't know what to do when we say go critically. Think they don't know what that means. You guide them through it. And it's open-ended enough. That they can bounce around within it and still be individuals and still own their own learning, but it needs to be scaffolded because they don't know how to go from step one to step four.
They just can't make the leap yet. So the scaffolding and the planning and being meticulous and yet hands off at the same time is always the balance you're trying to strike. Yeah. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:34:58] Yeah.  I was writing down these. I was writing because I want to go back and  relate this with coding for our listeners.
Of all this stuff that really actually applies. You'll probably  remember some of the lists, cause I didn't write them down. I had to go get a pen, but, and then I typed it. Some of the things that we came up with scaffolding, we do that in coding, scaffold the lesson provide layers for that project here.
We're going to start off with this chunk of code. And look, when we add onto another piece of code, we're going to add on a function. Huge believing in the kids. I know you got this I'm your cheerleader. I know it's hard figuring out. As Ross says socks. But I believe in you, right? You go do it.  We all go and allow them, the kids to work together.
That concept of it's gotta be quiet. I hate it. Yes, I don't want you copying and pasting someone's work. And I don't want you copying and pasting someone's essay or someone's answer. But I do want you talking to a friend because we, the four of us, we modeled that a lot. We like when we have issues, when we have problems with.
What curriculum we'd go to each other and talk it out. I got guiding guiding them along through the process step by step. Oh, you don't. Maybe if you put an input in here, what if you change that into a function and I'm sorry, I'm going to throw some code in for you guys. Kind of helps and answering questions with questions.
I love that. Question technique. The ability to not give them the answer, but ask them the question to generate. Another question helps them to think about it. Modeling. Here's how here's a way of doing this. Can you use that in your piece of code or can you use that to figure it out? What else did I miss?
I was going to 
Sean Tibor: [00:36:39] add to it never under estimate the power of a journal or taking notes. So for your own process of, you're trying to figure out how to teach, figuring things out. You can always demonstrate it to students, but if it's something that takes longer or is more complex, write down the steps that you're taking, as you're taking it, make a journal out of it so that you can share it.
And if you're really bad at keeping journals, look at your search history. What did you search to be able to get to those answers? And use that reflective time of analyzing what you did and how you did it, and the steps that you went through and reflecting on the process of figuring it out can help you teach it.
And that was something that I had to learn as I started teaching, was that a lot of this stuff I was doing instinctively or intuitively, and until I broke it down into those smaller pieces and I had to document the steps that I went through to be able to teach it. That was like my first step. Now the downside of that is that's how I figure things out, which is often very different than most of my students or my colleagues or anything like that.
But at least gives me the self-awareness and perspective to be able to talk about the different parts of that and be able to share that with others and show. When I got stuck on this part, here's what I did to figure it out. And show how that fits into the other 
Kelly Paredes: [00:37:57] context you highlight and a very important thing of the way that you taught me, how to figure things out.
 I don't even have to say this to anymore, but I used to say to you, okay. I just need to vent and talk about this code. Don't answer my questions.  That was another way I learned from you of how to figure it out. Now he knows. Sean just knows. He's I'm listening to you. Okay.
Because he just keeps nodding. I'm sure nothing goes in from time to time. . That's letting the kids talk through, getting them to talk through what's bothering them. What's keeping them stuck.  What hold up is there, I think is a really good skill. 
Sean Tibor: [00:38:36] One of my students today that clearly thinks out loud, 
she speaks her thoughts and that's how she processes it. And I told her, you can say a question out loud and say, this is not a question for you to answer. I just need to ask it out loud. And then you can also say, no, this is a question I actually need you to answer so that we could figure it out together.
But I gave her that permission. Like it's okay. If your process is to speak it out loud, to process it verbally and run it through that part of your brain. It's okay. Just let me know. Do you actually want me to answer this or not?  This has been a great conversation. I know we're all getting towards the end of the time that we have together.
Any final thoughts to share anything that you think would be helpful for someone who's learning to code or learning to figure things out or teaching others how to figure it out, that they should consider as they go through this.
Ros Jackson: [00:39:27] I guess, just don't quit. Just go for it. You know what I mean? Just go for it. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:39:31] I agree. So I just want to, I just want to say that if you're teaching coding or you're a developer or you're learning how to code, I think something is to be said about reaching out with people or to people that aren't necessarily coders when you have issues.
So even if it's, even if they don't know what you're talking about, when you're talking about code, it sometimes just helps to have that person or that different perspective that. Different way of thinking to help you figure things out. So 
Sean Tibor: [00:40:05] just thankful that we got a chance to share Roz and Jessica with our audiences, they're two of my favorite people to teach with.
And alongside I've learned so much from them over the last three years of being a teacher. And whether  we're celebrating together commiserating together, , talking things out it is always been. One of the things that I look forward to is the opportunity to learn from each of you about how to be a better teacher myself.
So thank you for joining us on the show to talk about these things. 
Jessica Gilbert: [00:40:35] Thanks for 
having 
Sean Tibor: [00:40:36] us.  If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can always send us a message through our website. It's teaching python.fm. We're at teaching Python on Twitter.
Kelly is at Kelly Perez on Twitter and I'm at SM Tiber on Twitter and at Sean Tibor on GitHub. If you want to see what I've been up to, nothing super exciting. Sorry. 
Kelly Paredes: [00:40:56] Oh, that's right. 
Sean Tibor: [00:40:57] Yeah, we actually did a poll request together. So you learned that thing, right? It's always learning. Nice. Nice. So if if you also want to support us, we'd like to thank all of our Patrion supporters.
You can find the link to sponsor us on our show notes. So for teaching Python, 
Kelly Paredes: [00:41:12] this is Sean, and this is Kelly signing off.