Episode 51: Inclusivity and Engagement Sean Tibor: [00:00:00] hello and welcome to teaching Python. This is episode 51 with Jeff Olson, and this episode is going to be all about engaging students with the right language, putting them first. My name is Sean Tibor. I'm a coder who teaches. Kelly Paredes: [00:00:27] and my name's Kelly Schuster Perez and I am a teacher who coats. Sean Tibor: [00:00:31] So warm. Welcome this week to our guests. Jeff Olson. Welcome Jeff. Jeff Olson: [00:00:35] hi. Thanks for having me. Sean Tibor: [00:00:36] Well, we're excited to have you. we have been following along what you've been saying since the education summit at PI con 2020, it was all online. And, the talk that you gave really caught our eye, because I think we're in complete and wholehearted agreement with you. So we're excited for a good conversation. Kelly Paredes: [00:00:54] Absolutely. We have to give a shout out for Eric Mathis. Cause he actually reminded us. He was like, you need to get Jeff Olson and talk about his topic as well. And we're like, Oh yeah, we did watch that one. And that was on our list. Jeff Olson: [00:01:05] That's so exciting. Kelly Paredes: [00:01:07] know. So Eric Mathis was, had listened to you. So that's a pretty big win in our book. Jeff Olson: [00:01:13] thanks, Eric. Wow. yeah, it was super fun to give that presentation. It's also kind of contrary to almost everything I usually do. Like my general emo is save 70 to 90% of the time for it to be student led. And then here I have this task of like talk for 45 minutes. so I am glad to know it. Wasn't a total best. Sean Tibor: [00:01:32] bust. Kelly Paredes: [00:01:33] Excellent. Sean Tibor: [00:01:33] Well, we, we really enjoyed it and it really crystallized a lot of things that we've been discussing over the past couple of years as we've been teaching Python. So we're really excited to have you. And before we get into, is that big, main topic? We're going to start with the same place we always do, which is the wins of the week. So something good that has happened inside or out of the classroom and as is our custom, we're gonna make our guests go first. So, Jeff, it's your turn to share something good. That's happened to you over the past week. Jeff Olson: [00:01:57] that sounds great. this week is the beginning of our downtime and like self refinement, minute upper line code, where I work. And so I got to spend most of last week sort of. Relearning react, which is a framework that I really like, and also haven't had a ton of time to get great at. So I was following a tutorial and the win is I got my learning goal done. I have the react app that I wanted to get up and running up and running it's dumb and silly and follows the tutorial lockstep, but it feels really good to have crossed the finish line on the timeframe that I had hoped to. That's rare. Kelly Paredes: [00:02:32] that's awesome. I know what it feels like to get a timeframe, accomplished. It's very rare for me to get accomplished, but check that's awesome. Sean you're next. Sean Tibor: [00:02:42] All right. Well, well, my one of the week was the latest, humble bundle is out and it's another set of books from, no starch press and I've bought their Python set of eBooks probably twice now or three times from the humble bundle. But this one is like a much broader set of books. And I picked out a book to start reading that I'm really excited about. It's called if Hemingway wrote JavaScript. And it is fast . So essentially the premise of it is the author had a dream in which he was asking all these famous authors to submit programming assignments. And he was picturing all the different assignments that they submitted and he decided to start writing about it. And so it's fascinating. He goes into the style of pros that each author has. On the same exact problem. the whole first four authors are all about the Fibonacci sequence and he goes directly from Hemingway writing this really sparse utilitarian kind of get out of the way. Pros to Shakespeare and it's the same exact solution to generating the Fibonacci sequence, but written completely differently. And he weaves in kind of the style of the, the literature and the author, as well as some, unique and elegant things that you can do in JavaScript that maybe aren't, correct per se or the preferred way to do it, but are really creative and interesting. So it's been really fascinating to read. So I've gotten through the first four. And I've had everything from, Hemingway and, Shakespeare to magical realism and absurdism, literature. It's been really fascinating to see. And it really, for me, kind of highlighted that link or strengthened the relationship between language and programming, over math and programming, there's plenty of math and programming, but really, it feels like if you're good at language and you're good at seeing how things fit together and the logic behind it, or the illogic sometimes then you're going to be a much stronger program or more creative programmer. Kelly Paredes: [00:04:36] Very cool. Very cool. I know. I'm not going to read that though. I do heavy. I know Sean will be like, Shawn's going to be like, he reads very fast. I read slow. Jeff Olson: [00:04:48] I am loving that endorsement for two, two reasons. One, my background is as an English teacher, my first four years in the classroom, whereas a high school English teacher and the, I think that's super influenced the way that I teach Python, because just like you said, the, the creative way is often already been. Issued by the expert as not the best way of doing something, but I think students deserve huge props for when they find that way of doing it. So that's thing one and thing two is, I just think if you're trying to recruit CS, teachers, go check your English department. Everyone immediately goes to math and you're like missing a huge crop of people who would love this. Kelly Paredes: [00:05:24] Absolutely. We're trying to actually recruit science and history, but I mean, I was giving Shawn a hard time and he always brings these books and him and our other friend always brings us books. And I have about 20 books on my nightstand. that's cool. I'm glad you got to know another humble bundle. I'll get to it in a couple of years. That's awesome. All right. so I guess mine's totally off topic too, is the wind for me was, digital citizen is something I used to do a lot in the past and we, we kind of dropped the ball the past year or two with teaching about digital citizenship. And so I was trying to make it more relevant. Than what it always had been of. Here's this, here's your digital footprint. And I pulled something together, something I learned from my 10 year old and my six year old, was dude. Perfect. Have you heard of dude? Perfect. Yeah. There's five college guys and they do these crazy shots and what's really cool about them. Cause they kept, my kids kept watching it on YouTube and I'm like, what are you watching on YouTube? this cannot be good. Why are you watching these guys make these crazy shots? But when you start to look more about them and read about them, they're really based on a lot of faith. And they do a lot of good things for everybody in the world. a lot of charity benefits and et cetera. So I brought that into my sixth graders, thinking that. How am I going to teach digital footprint and building a positive footprint? I started with that and it was just a good feeling to go, all right, I'm reinventing digital citizenship for at least these sixth graders. And they can start building a positive digital footprint versus the commenting that they're doing, in YouTube or on, on games and stuff. So that's a good one, small win, not as big as Shawn's humble bundle, but it was a way. Sean Tibor: [00:07:02] Well, and now of course, the other favorite part, which is the fail of the week, and I've got one here that I'll share. and this is part of, one of the other hats that I wear. So I manage the iPads at our school on our iPad server. It does all these remote management things. And I've talked in the past about how. And I've automated a lot of this with Python, scripting and everything to make it a little bit more automated and faster and remove some effort from the system. But I think I made something a little bit too complicated or a little too sophisticated and it made a bug that would have been maybe minor in the software, much more amplified and magnified for one of our teachers. So. was something that maybe it would have still happened to anyways, but I probably made it worse with some of the things that I was doing. So I spent the week trying to clean up that mess and recover data and, and fix things and make sure that it didn't happen again. So it was a little bit of a reminder that, maybe a simpler, but more effort driven solution might have been the better bet. so I'm working on fixing that and rethinking it. So. It's something that helped me reset my expectations for what I should be doing and how to manage some of this stuff. And then it's also now thinking about, well, how do we make sure we have adequate backups for everyone and making sure that they have what they need. So it was a good reset on the week, but it was definitely some late nights trying to figure out exactly what happened and digging down like seven layers of root cause to figure out why this had occurred. Kelly Paredes: [00:08:26] Yeah, that was a hard one for you. But if you've ever seen anybody who can just dig into a problem and focus, when there's me screaming in the background, I had a bunch of sixth graders that Sean he's like in it and it's a fix it. So it was, yeah. Good. Come back from that. Jeff, do you want to share your, your fail or Jeff Olson: [00:08:44] Yeah, I'm happy to, I mean, it goes yeah, as long and it's part and parcel to my win for the week, which is I spent most of the week learning a different way of writing react. And at the end of the week, went to deploy it and was trying to deploy it on a new site. And couldn't like just, I, I still haven't figured this bug out. It was Friday afternoon. I was trying to finish. I didn't finish and it's okay. I'm on a break. but sometimes I don't. Yeah. Sometimes you don't solve a problem the same day. You find the problem. And that is okay. I'm at peace with it. Kelly Paredes: [00:09:13] That's good. That's good. Oh my fail. I was trying to decide mine was actually just, I think it was a personal get very, personal lately with the fails, but I had a student who I've been, this is my second year teaching this student and, and we were going really well this year and he just kind of stopped trying, and I feel like I failed on my part. And so I've been, I'm trying to scramble the last two weeks to. Push them. Not that I want them to love coding, but I just want him to try as he was before. So, usually around the sixth and seventh week, we have the kids with their light bulbs coming on. They're loving it. They're in their own flow. Sean and I kind of take a step back from teaching. We're just like, yeah, it's, it's your project of learning. And we don't have to teach for the next three weeks, but this one's been a little bit of a struggle. And I think it set me back. To how I'm going to fix that or how I'm going to help Sean fix that when he teaches them next year. But yeah, it was just a little bit of a personal, a fail for me, just seeing that happen as a teacher, you want everyone to feel successful somehow. And that was my fail of the week. Jeff Olson: [00:10:21] I think it's also so easy to, to take with you the. Tightness that you had with your students and the connectivity you had at the end of a school year. And I, for one, at least always at the start of a new school year, it always takes me a little while to remember Oh yeah, I put in three, four months of relationship building effort before I got my students to the place where they trusted me and believed that this information that I am sharing with them is actually of use and worthwhile. And it is hard to, it's hard to restart that process. Kelly Paredes: [00:10:54] Absolutely. Absolutely. Sean Tibor: [00:10:56] also more complicated too, because some students will jump in day one, they're ready to go. They trust you implicitly. It's, they're on board from the beginning and other students take longer. So it's not just that all of them are take about three or four months that said every student is on there, own timing for that. And then it's built like one conversation at a time with them or one lesson at a time. So that's why this. it's more complicated. I think then outsiders, think to build all these relationships with students that you have to really work with each and every student to, to gain that trust and to be able to get to a place where the real learning can happen. Kelly Paredes: [00:11:30] absolutely in it. And every student is different. So, which is kind of cool. Cause it, it goes into our topic for today about putting our students first and really engaging them in their, in their language. And I think putting that, Students my fail and the idea of how did we connect? Not necessarily about language, but just keeping our students in mind as they are each individuals. Sean Tibor: [00:11:54] So where to begin, well, let's start by introducing you, Jeff. So Jeff, you're the director of curriculum and instruction at upper wine code, a recovering English teacher. And, Jeff Olson: [00:12:03] that's correct. Sean Tibor: [00:12:04] yeah. and you, have contributed a few things that we'll link in the show notes here that I think everyone would find interesting. the one that I think was probably the clearest to me. And just by a nose, like just slightly ahead was your article that you wrote that says, students don't need simple examples. They need clear ones. And I think that this is something that you see pretty much, which everywhere, any sort of tutorial that you read, any sort of training, the examples are all really simple. Well, they're kind of these toy examples. let me make a function. A plus B. And return that value. It's well, I can just do a plus B, why do I need to write a function for it? that makes no sense. so you go into more detail there and we'll, we'll talk more about that, but you also gave a talk at the PI con education summit this year, recorded of course. So it's available for everyone now, about foo and bar, most diet teach less and do more with context predictions in playtime. And this is something that was really interesting to us. the, the idea that. the way we teach and the way we engage is far more than important than the content that we're teaching. the content follows that engagement. If a student is engaged, they will get the content. If they're not engaged, it doesn't matter how much content you give them. They'll never really grasp it. so Kelly, kick us off with us. Kelly Paredes: [00:13:18] I have to say, I'm a science, math person, Jeff, you're an English person. Shawn's, Shawn's an engineered everything, coder marketing. He's got a lot of strengths, so I, that's why we can float back and forth. But I, I kind of want to start at the beginning with your English and vocabulary and all of this development talking about languages because. I think many teacher coders believe that learning how to code is a lot, like learning a foreign language. I've seen a lot of people write some, some articles about that. And I've even toyed around with the idea of writing a book, but that's long ways down the road, but this whole idea that there's a lot of vocabulary at the, at the end. And I think you touched a little bit on some of this and I just wanted to let you speak and share your, share your knowledge Jeff Olson: [00:14:12] Yeah. I think that kind of drives it. The heart of. The difference between my two experiences, right? Like when I learned actual foreign languages, maybe I was given one or two words to start, but following that point, I was only given vocabulary when I absolutely needed it. Everything is more about what is the of this? And so chapter one is often, hi, my name is Jeff and chapter two moves on to what's. The weather in chapter three is where could we go to eat? And so there's a really clear purpose for every chapter in a foreign language textbook. And. I was handed a completely different model for teaching English. The model I was given was like, just give the vocab words. And then when they've gotten those vocab words, give them more vocab words. And then when they've gotten those vocab words, give them more vocab words. So for context, this is in a language and composition class. We are focused primarily on rhetorical devices and analysis, and that requires a pretty big bank of knowledge, of different ways to write something and why you might choose to write it one way or another, and the names for those different ways. Great makes sense. And I loved it when I was in high school taking that same class. And so my assumption was as long as my students know the difference between solipsist and Zeugma, then we're good to go. And the fact of the matter is they just did not find it meaningful in the same way that I had. And I think I took it as a personal blow. Like my teaching is bad for a long while. And to be fair. Yes, of course it was a first year teacher, but the. A real takeaway, wasn't actually teach better in this same framework that you've been trying to do. The real takeaway for me was flipping the framework entirely and thinking about what is the actual purpose or reason you might need this? And so, as I transitioned from full time English teacher to half English, half math, to full math, to full computer science, the, the journey that really never went away from me. And I think the first time I ever had that. Inversion of priorities, like figure out what you want to do first and then paste on the vocab at the very end was at a math PD led by Dan Meyer, who is the person who introduced me to the concept of pseudo context. He didn't coin it. He credits the author and I forget her name because I haven't actually thank you. I haven't read, I haven't read Kelly Paredes: [00:16:30] See, I do my research. Jeff Olson: [00:16:31] There it is. but most of them, my awareness of it comes through Dan Meyer specific application in math contexts and realizing that that was actually the same thing that was plaguing computer science concepts, Is the idea that, you need to know what a function is and you need to know how to write one. And then once you know what it is and how to write one and how to use one, then you might eventually find a situation where it's useful and. The real purpose of a lot of that is inverting the purpose of language, like language. We need it to give names and words and structure to the things that we already know how to do and already need. We don't want those vocab words for the sake of playing with them in the hopes that they might one day become useful. I'm meandering, but it's that like? How's that for a start? Kelly Paredes: [00:17:16] That's good. I was, while you were talking, I was, I was putting myself in that first year of teaching and I was a science biology person, and I too was memorize memorize vocab, vocab, vocab. And I kept saying to the parents and the progress reports, their child is not connecting big ideas and the conclusions, there's no connections through the topics that were discussed and what's happening in the lab. And of course there's not because it was only vocabulary that was given. And it wasn't, even though we were trying to do application, the application was weak. It was, I'm going to do my, my bubble lab because that's the way I do. my, scientific method and here's here are variables and this is what you have to do. And there was just no reason the kids didn't understand what they were doing or why besides the fact that they had to go through these steps. Jeff Olson: [00:18:04] Yeah. Even my students who played the game with me, who memorized all the rhetorical devices and aced the rhetorical device quizzes. When it came time to actually apply those in their writing, sometimes what would end up happening is we would have an essay that would say something like the author uses repetition to get their point across. Or the author uses is solipsist to connect, to ideas. And, and they are basically just writing the definition there. And the application or purpose of it was almost always this generic. To make their point. And at the time I very much thought there has to be more, I know that you are knowing and noticing and understanding more. And now in retrospect, I look back and realize this is. The same situation where I've asked them to memorize something without of context, and then just hope that they will magically be able to put it into context when context arises. I think that's why the first 20 times I taught functions, it didn't work because the first 22, and as I taught functions, I would find that students were hard coding the return value that they needed for the one test case that I had given them, because I have asked them to create a function without explaining to them like, The repeatability and the abstractness of it as the purpose of it. and again, it's on me. I've got to find out why these things are useful before I say, Hey, learn them. Kelly Paredes: [00:19:17] Sean's been doing a really cool thing, trying to teach the classes and objects, and it's been a learning process and I kind of want you to talk through that because I think this is a good place as where we're learning that. Vocabulary. Oh, class objects methods, kids don't really understand that. And then we pull it in. So Sean's been doing an amazing job with that. So, sorry, bring that in. Sean Tibor: [00:19:40] Well, I mean, it's my first time through. So like a first time teacher, first year teacher, it probably needs some work, but, what has been really, I think working well about that is I haven't positioned it as here's this thing that you need to know and is just inherently better. It's been positioned as I'm starting with, with something we've already done, and we're going to try a different approach to this and yeah. Show you a different way that we could do this. And then let's talk about what was better, worse pros and cons advantages of this approach versus the other approaches would be, and it was fascinating because each of the students had their own reasoning for the whole thing, It was basically the make a deck of cards, deal cards. And so I had done it. Last year with lists of tuples as a deck of cards, right? And this year we created a really basic card class and then a debt class. And we implemented some methods and even some, some, Dunder methods in that. And I could go around the room and two students would say, I love this because it seems more structured and clear, and it just makes more sense to me. And other people said, but I really liked the list and tuples like, yeah, you maybe had to do a little bit of more work in some places, but I know lists and tuples and I can do that. So there was no right answer to it. But the conversation that we had was the most critical part. Now they know that they're, there's this thing of classes and objects that they could use if they wanted to, but they also know that it's okay not to use it, that they can use a different, different construct or a different way of approaching it. And that's great too. As long as you can solve the problem for yourself. Jeff Olson: [00:21:09] Yeah, I love that. And. At the beginning of my journey, I think I understood that it's important for the sake of. Diversity of opinion, right? validate these two different perspectives. But over time I've realized actually let them play with tubals enlists in replace of class for as long as they can. If, if this is the tool that they are finding to be the most useful for what they have in front of them, then let them keep playing with it. And eventually a problem is going to come along. That is challenging enough that that student might be open to revisiting this other structure that they've learned. I did not. I feel that way when I first started teaching and it's taken me a long time to grow into a place of comfort where it's okay with me to have students who are along for the ride where it's great, please do these five exercises with me. And then if you still hate objects at the end of it, you do not have to use them for the next, at least three weeks. We may touch them again later. And even that it's kind of a compromise, right? Acknowledging you have a preferred way of learning. I need to make sure that you at least feel not. Terrified of these things so that if we revisit them, you'll know what we're doing. and then, and then it's back in your court, then it's your choice. Again, I've loved that shift. Sean Tibor: [00:22:22] you got to give them permission, right? Like it's okay. Like you have permission to not go to this area. I mean, there are plenty of professional programmers who do not use classes and objects at all. They might utilize objects, but they may never write a class because frankly they've found a way to do it that they don't need to, and they're more comfortable or they found an effective solution without it. So. we don't have to use something just because it's there, there's so many different ways that you could solve the same problem. And that's kind of the, the beautiful thing about coding and math and, English and yeah. Science is that there are so many different ways that you could approach the same problem. Why would we try to box our students into just one way? Because it really limits their ability to feel like they're participating. In their own learning, That there, if I don't feel like I'm involved in it or that I have a stake in it, I have to do it one way. Then I really don't feel included. Like it's not for me then. Kelly Paredes: [00:23:15] yeah. I was, I was just thinking, because I've had a couple of aha moments for my own learning this year. we won't go into all of them that have been happening, but I just started teaching the sixth graders, OBS the vocabulary words, object and method, and I never felt the need to teach them. What does it mean as an object? What does it mean as a method now that I might not have felt the need in the first year, because I had no idea really what I was teaching. I was at first, I just started learning how to code and I was just like, okay. But we came up across, cause we used code challenges now in the classroom. And it's a written formula kind of where they have to code for their newbies. And a lot of the instructions are use this method on the object. And I realized that it was a something that students needed to learn at that moment. And I started thinking though, how did I get through. My solving of coding problems without that vocabulary. And it's because I didn't really need it. I didn't care what it was called. And it's been an interesting turn of how I've been teaching of pulling in the vocabulary after we do it. And a lot of times I'm yelling at, I yell back at Sean, make them hashtag it, make them prominent because it sounds silly. But, we learned, and we've been using this practice a lot is if they write about it, Or if they teach someone else about it, it helps solidify it, but they can't teach somebody or write about it if they don't know what they're, doing. So it's this fine line between vocabulary and, not vocabulary use and coding versus not just coding. And it's a, it's an interesting, you kind of go in a Jeff Olson: [00:24:57] definitely. Sean Tibor: [00:24:58] to that point though, one of the things that I can't remember exactly where I pick this up, it may have been like in a communications class in grad school or something like that. So, most of my writing after high school was business focused, It was business writing courses and things like that can be tremendously boring, but highly effective. And the professor that I had was really great about helping us think about the way we write and the way we communicate and. One of the earliest lessons that we had to learn was the way that jargon, excludes people from the conversation that excludes people from communities without an intending it to be that way. Because if they don't know the words, then they're not part of that community. And it's a way to signal to other people that, Hey, these are the words that we use in our community. you have to know them to be a part of it. That's one of the things that we've been working on in our classroom is how to teach the right amount of vocabulary without letting it become exclusive jargon and excluding people from the conversation. So, Jeff, you had some thoughts about this, in your articles and in your talk, what, what can teachers include or what can we start doing? Stop doing, continue doing to, to help solve this problem. Jeff Olson: [00:26:04] I think I can honestly only speak reflectively. Cause I don't want to, to jump in and assume anything about where you're at, but I can speak for myself when I say that in my original learning trajectory. Like when I started learning, I just didn't care what anything was called then a little bit further in, I felt really. Deeply interested in learning what everything was called. I wanted to know what everything was about and what folks meant when they said function versus method, because I've learned Ruby where functions are methods, and didn't understand the broader conversation around the difference between those two things. And if you don't, that's fine. You're still right programmer. But then from that, the next step, and this is this place that I was really toxic for me and also for my students, is there was this moment where I knew just enough that my motivation for asserting correct vocabulary was actually rooted in my own imposter syndrome. It was rooted in this own feeling of I've never studied computer science. At the college level, I've never been a paid developer. I've been teaching it for two and a half years. So at this point I should know what everything is. And every once in a while, I would have a student who has just immersed themselves into computer sciences, their sole hobby, and the absolute terror of being exposed of knowing a little bit less than one of your students about a thing is a phenomenon that I think it's maybe a little unique to computer science. I think in most other things, disciplines, the expectation is that you have gotten. An entire college degree and at least a teaching certification. And this is this one weird world where it is entirely possible that you have a student in your room who knows more than you do. And if you are not confident enough in the value that you provide to your classroom, then it's possible to let your fear of how that one student thinks of you drive your decisions about how to build your instruction. and the huge danger of that. I, I think it. Is obvious, but I will say it anyway, is that you're then going to craft a classroom that is designed for one of your students is likely to exclude most of the rest. it's likely the center of that person's learning experience and the beginners who already felt stressed about joining this environment now are being asked to listen while you and your top students spar academically about whether or not it's better to write this as an anonymous function or as a named function. And at the end of the day, don't have that conversation in front of your other students because you have the platform and you have the, you have the attention, the focus and everything that you say when you are standing in front of your students is going to be the perceived to be important to the class. Maybe not important, but important to the class. And so the. Burden is on you as the educator. The burden is on me as the educator to be aware that anything I give airtime to in the front of the room is something the rest of my students are going to think is deserving of airtime. And it may not actually be the thing that they need to be focused on right now. So. That is kind of my biggest growth area is I've learned this slate of lines that I use when a student says something that I don't know that really asserts my comfort with knowing less than they do. And over time, I think I'm in that situation, I would expect to be in it less often. But I actually think I'm in that situation, like just as frequently as I always have been, but it doesn't phase me as much anymore because now when a student has something like. Is that a reference type or a value type. I am really comfortable saying, what do you mean by that? the first time I asked that question, the student shot me back a look that was like, how can you not know this thing? And I've since learned a lot more about it, but a similar question like that saying, what do you mean by that is really comfortable for me and jumping in and saying, I'm not actually sure. Do you want to check and let me know what you find like these sort of go tos that I have. Have made me a lot more comfortable. And what's weird is I haven't actually lost the respect of the students, who I was worried about losing their respect too. That's the other half of this that was really surprising to me. Those students tend to be really excited about being given the opportunity to guide their own learning because they're ready for it. I think that's what they're saying. When they jump in with those weird questions, it's I'm ready to guide my own learning and all they need from you is an opportunity to say great, go for it. Sean Tibor: [00:30:15] Go for it. Well, and kind of a weird way. That's yeah, a huge sign of success in the classroom, That if your students begin to know more than you do about specific topics, it means that you must be doing something right. That they're, really accelerating and moving ahead. So it's something to be celebrated and encouraged, finding healthy and productive ways to do that, that don't alienate the other students and help encourage them to, take their own journey and keep working forward is, is really the trick, right? that's the key to making it work. Kelly Paredes: [00:30:42] my favorite. My favorite same thing is, Oh, that's interesting. Why don't you send me that code? I would love to look at it because, and then what happens is I get a student that sends me a code. That's like a thousand lines long and it takes me forever to look at it. But at the same time, they're able to share what they have accomplished. I want it. Stop and kind of shift gears for a second. I want to go back and I want to look at these three topics that we've just touched on all of them. and I want to kind of give them a vocabulary. We're just because we're going to include all of our listeners with their language. But where we kind of were talking about inclusive language, how do we, I know Python and the Python world. We really want to make sure that everyone's included. And when talking about not excluding them with jargon, we've also kind of taught, touched base on this pseudo context and I, and whether we give real issue or real context in our teaching, and I kind of want to come back to that and dig into that more, because I think that was something. that was interesting as well, with inclusive and pseudo contact. And then we also just touched on the relevance and accessibility. So those are the three topics we jumped back and forth. So I will let Sean pick where he wants to really just dive in and we're going to define a vocabulary Sean Tibor: [00:32:02] Actually Jeff, why don't we start with where, where you would like to start? Jeff Olson: [00:32:06] Yeah. I let's start with pseudo context because it's the one that I am the most immediately ready to jump into. And I also think it stands neatly on its own. The Kelly Paredes: [00:32:16] let's define it. This defied CSR Jeff Olson: [00:32:19] The concept of student pseudo context is this type of weird Frankenstein's monster of a problem that emerges when you are adhering to the mandate from. Different standards, academic standards, they have real world examples, right? And so what you end up with is a situation where you are pasting them this abstract nonsense problem onto the background of a real world image. My favorite that I show up all the time is this picture of a tornado from a math textbook. And you CA you're told this is a. Picture that accompanies a real world problem from a math textbook. Can you guess what it is? And anytime I'm leading a session, I let everyone guess in the chat and to date, no one has correctly guessed it. People guess area of a cone, which is a great idea that people guess maybe wind speeds or like fluid mechanics, or even just the, the speed of the tornado. And none of those are correct. The correct answer is the area of. Parallelogram. And the reason is they give you this area on a map that is under a tornado watch and they say, what is the area of the map that is under the watch for this tornado? And the answer is who cares? Like what, what is the volume or the area of landmass have anything to do with anyone? Like maybe, maybe an interesting question would be is my house. In this area. And can I figure that out based on coordinate geometry, like that's kind of interesting, but nothing, nothing about the image that they've presented to me, it gives me any motivation for finding the information that they want me to find. I can come up with 20 better reasons to find the area of a parallelogram. off the top of my head. Let's do a jello. I need to know how much jello I'm buying to make this like goofy. Shape for a party it's dumb, but at least, at least the thing that I'm finding is an actual thing that I would need to find Sean Tibor: [00:34:13] Yeah. The classic one that always jumps out at me is the two trains leaving from opposite ends of the country. One's traveling at this speed once traveling at that speed, it would point to the intersect, I'm going to be looking out the window. Do I see a train or not? Like, why, why do I need to know when the trains are going to Jeff Olson: [00:34:25] we'll hear the horn coming. Like we're going to be fine. Sean Tibor: [00:34:29] And if I'm, it happened to be in charge of the rail schedules and that suddenly becomes important to me, like then I'll learn it at that point, but I don't need to know that in sixth grade pre-algebra or something like that, it, it, this idea of a. Problem that has real listic sort of context, but isn't actually real, I think alienates Morgan students, because their first thought is not, Ooh, that's a really interesting problem. I want to solve it. Their first thought is why do I care? Kelly Paredes: [00:34:56] As an educator, you see that though in a lot of, in a lot of subject areas you see, and they. Been researching about this, the pseudo context versus real ish context versus real context. You see that in math, you see it in science because you make this, same lab that they've been doing since I taught science and not going to tell you when, but, it it's such, it's so fake because I think sometimes doing real. Real programming is hard as Sean takes for points. Sean built this hand sanitizer hacked it, put it, connected it to the Alexa, puts it on a display on the screen shows how many times the kids have of have, Use the hand sanitizer that's real context. It took him forever and most teachers do not have the complete, like Sean does to do something. That's really context. Cause it takes a lot of time. I told you he's really good at problem solving, but it's something that the kids are engaged with. They ask, how does he do that? I'm like, well, it's a simple conditional statement. Oh, it's a sensor or blah, blah, blah. That gets more kids engaged in our classroom. Then me saying, okay, if this, then that. Okay. And if your age is 18, which they're 12 who cares, then they're going to have to drive a car vote. But Jeff Olson: [00:36:18] Yeah. The, the definition that I've been using in my talks about pseudo context have, has been okay. A pseudo context is any time where the question you're being asked to solve is an uninteresting question or the tools you're being asked to use are not good tools for the job. And I think that's really helped me sort of reverse engineer. A definition of real context, which is maybe a little broader than what you were just talking about, Kelly, but the concept still stands, which is anytime that you are being asked to solve an interesting problem and given tools, that can do the job. I think that that's a really interesting definition and that's sort of lent itself to this. Sort of third brand of problem solving that, Dan Meyer actually does a lot on his blog about pseudo context, which is things that aren't actually problems that necessarily need to be solved in a certain specific way. But that can be, and the there's one where you are. Finding the amount of packaging you will need to wrap a series of, I think like 22 candies. And so you can put them together in different dimensions based on the three different factors you can come up with of that number. must not be 22, then that's not important. but the, and ultimately the end goal is going to be to optimize the packaging, right? if the ribbon costs this much and the packaging costs this much, then what shape is going to be the best to package that in. But. He doesn't lead with that question, He just leads with a couple of different images of candy and then asks students like, which one's best. Why, how do you know here's how much paper costs now, which one's best? Why, how do you know? And sort of that piece was doling out of information to make the question more and more interesting is a really, really cool way to give students the ownership of a problem. That if you had started by giving them all of the information would have been a bad question, right? The question of here are some number of pieces of candy. Now please package them up in the most efficient way paper cost. This much ribbon cost this much. I don't want to do that at all. But when I was sitting in that PD, I, I was so eager to answer the next question that that doling out of information felt like a gift rather than a burden. Sean Tibor: [00:38:30] burden. Yeah. And it mimics what we actually experience in our working lives and our personal lives and everything is that w no one knows the exact final problem or the solution to it. We all know the next step and the next step and the next piece and new requirements emerge as we solve for the last ones. I mean, my first job out of college, my boss gave me a project to work on and I said, okay, well, what is the end look like? What is the solution of this looking like? And he said, I don't know, that's why I'm paying you. So you're going to go figure out, it's like half of this, come back to me when you've got it halfway. And we'll work together to figure out the rest of it. And so that idea though, was that like, wait a minute, once I'm out of school, there's not a problem. Set with a defined answer. It's we have this problem we need to figure out. And we'll kind of know the answer once we get there or as it's pieced together, And each new piece of information we get we'll change our answer slightly or dramatically. And I think that that's more realistic, right? That that's a real scenario. Even if the context may not be something that you're working on, typically that positive sort of loop that you go through is, is more important. Jeff Olson: [00:39:39] Well, and to Kelly's point, doling out that information in a way that replicates that real world process takes a lot of work. You have to be conscious of where all 30 students in your room are in their journey through this problem that you've given them. And if you are. Still approaching your classroom as a place where students need to be controlled where students need to be made to do work, then you won't have enough energy leftover to dull out a problem in an interesting way. Kelly Paredes: [00:40:06] absolutely. It takes me back to like our conversations all the time about this backwards by design planning or project based learning kind of idea, personally, all those little, all those. Words that get thrown around in the educator realm. but the thought of trying to design a project, a lot of teachers go in and say, Oh, I'm going to have the kids, may this. I think it's really what really works for us in the computer science. And I think as good educators, Sean and I go in, okay, well, we're going to teach this basic concepts. I have no idea , what's going to happen. And we're just going to go with the flow and we're going to teach the con the other concepts as they're needed case in point with my sixth grade, I always call it the ice cream social invite at the end of the third version of the social invite I have, which way books I have. I had, I had a secret agent code and what I was going to use to kill off the intruders. It had nothing to do with the actual invite, but I set the stage as I need you to learn how to do conditionals. I need you to do a list and a couple of methods on the list. And if you want to have a unicorn Barry ice cream sundae app. Go for it. But most of the time it doesn't even come out. Anything like that. So I think it's a hard thing as an educator to just let go of , what you call your project. But at the same time, Oh, it makes grading so much better. Jeff Olson: [00:41:27] Well, and, and it makes the process of doing the project so much more joyful, right? Like we have a 10 day immersive course that we run and the best rate of days are the project days. And the first project day is a calculator project, which is so boring. I got bored just now telling you about it. They end up building. I've had a pet calculator. I've had a, a horoscope calculator. They take it in so many bizarre, wonderful directions. Yeah. And I think that learning to relinquish the control over what the finished product might look like is the only reason we got there. Sean Tibor: [00:42:00] there. Kelly Paredes: [00:42:01] true. Sean Tibor: [00:42:01] I don't know that it's hyperbole per se, but if you come up with a finite number of solutions, these are the only solutions that can exist. That's the only solutions that you will receive. if you focus more on the problem statement, or the starting point and you leave that. Solutions at unbounded, you could literally have a stick and create something that changes the world. it's a, maybe a, infinitesimal chance of that actually happening, but yeah, you've left the door open for that, that this idea. Yeah. It could be something that is actually so unique and brilliant based on the same prompt that everyone else got. That you could get something that is completely revolutionary. And if you have a good prompt for that, maybe your, your calculator was something that, seemed like a pretty standard prompt to start with, but they come up with a way of calculating something that nobody has been able to calculate before because of their unique insight and brilliance. That's something that I think is the Mark of a good project or the Mark of a good problem is am I leaving enough room in the solution space for something truly wonderful and unexpected to happen? Kelly Paredes: [00:43:04] yeah, that kind of takes us into this whole, I just wanted to touch on this. personalizing the class. And personalized learning. I think there's that both things happen when you relinquish your end goal as in the project type. And I'll just focus on the outcomes and just to define these two, personalized learning is where the pace and the, the way that the student gets to the end goal is. Is individualized for that student. Whereas when we're actually personalizing the learning we are going in and, and, and making sure that we're using the vocabulary, their context, they understanding we're hitting them where they need to be at their language at their level. So there's those two topics that happen. I have a child that can only do the. Ice cream social invite, and that's fine because they achieved their goals and it was at their pace. And I am allowing them to do just changing of the names or something. I'm thinking that they're personalizing level, so , that's been really interesting thing. And that's from ISTI I found this article by Richard Culotta and I'll put it in the show notes is talking about those personalized learning versus personalizing. So it's pretty cool. I'll just leave that, there. But I know you wanted to also talk about, and Sean's really, talks about this a lot. Is the inclusivity part. Jeff Olson: [00:44:29] Yeah. I think transparently most of what I've learned about writing specifically writing inclusive curriculum, writing inclusive lessons has come from mistakes that I have made, and I can walk you through one of the most salient and obvious examples is. When I first taught object orientation, we taught object orientation and the objects we built were gnomes in the curriculum that was handed to me. And it was just weird. It was such a noble attempt at being whimsical and fun. Cute. But the end result was that it was just really unclear what we were doing. And so I played around with object orientation until I came up with something that I thought was so good. And it was. A basically like a role playing game, like a rock paper scissors, very much in line with. for those of you who are my exact age and no years older or younger, there was a game on Neo pets, the website where I wasted so much of my, preteen and teenage years where the whole thing was just like, you click a button and then some random number generation happens behind the scenes. Fighting occurs. You lose health, you might win. You might lose. That was it. You can replicate that perfectly in Python, object orientation. And so I did that where you are leveling up and gaining skills, and I thought it was so cool and so fun. And I went back into my classroom and taught it the next day. And it was. Really fun for, I would say six 60% of the class, maybe 60% of the class had a way better time with object orientation in that iteration than had had with the gnomes. The previous time, like our end of day feedback was significantly better. It went from most people panicked to about like half of the people feeling pretty good about it. And my co teacher at the time, just. Flat out challenged man said, Hey look at actually who had a better day and who didn't. And it broke down overwhelmingly male, which isn't to say that the women and nonbinary students in my classroom don't enjoy video games, but it is an industry that has historically spent all of its marketing dollars, courting, young men and has historically left young women out of the picture. And so it's unsurprising that all of these mechanics and all of these things that I assumed would be common knowledge to all of my students. Like health and defense and attack are really comfortable and really fluent for the young men in my classroom and really foreign to not all, but some of the young women in my classroom. And that was. It seems so obvious, right? Like looking back and reflecting on it. Of course, if you are relying on an example that some folks will have done and other folks will have not, that you are likely doing something that is going to alienate the students who haven't. Cause they're learning two things at once, They're learning the abstract concept of how a role playing game works and also the concrete. Mechanics of writing the code. And anytime you are learning two new things at once, this is like a deep conviction that I have that not everyone agrees with me, but if you're learning two things at once, you are not likely to master either and the follow ups to that, like I don't actually think it's possible to create an example that. Is universally applicable to everyone, but my object orientation example has shifted pretty significantly. And now we build a users for any sort of general like social media site. And while it is entirely possible that a student might end up in my classroom who maybe hasn't signed up for something, because that's how their parents approach privacy on the internet. Great for them exciting. I'm also aware that the lines that I'm drawing there, aren't going to also neatly fall in line with. Gender biases with race biases in the computer science field. And so that's sort of the test that I applied to them now is I want them to apply to the widest possible range of students. And even if it's a super wide range, but still disproportionately disadvantages, the students of color in my classroom or the women in my classroom, then that's an example that needs to get rewritten. Kelly Paredes: [00:48:31] yeah, I found this on the internet and I didn't put it where I didn't quote who it came from, but inclusive language is effective language and it was just talking about, it gave a couple of, and I went through a couple of things, truly generic. It's truly generic. So if, if you keep that generic, language, then you're going to. Hopefully be inclusive for the whole. And I read this article from Carnegie , it says for those of you who have social media, for those of you who have played video games online, by making that statement first you're, preparing the brain for those people that say, okay, it wasn't me. But it's okay. That it wasn't me because there, that teacher is addressing for those of us who have done that. So I thought that was, these were a couple interesting Sean Tibor: [00:49:22] interesting things. The implication of that though, too, is that anytime you say, for those of you who have you, the next thing you need to do is another example, right? For those of you who have not. Here's another example. and, and one of my not so secret goals this year, teaching object oriented Python for the first time is I want to collect student examples. So the best examples, the most relevant ones are going to be ones. That come from the students. So I started with something that's, fairly familiar for all of our students with it, which is just cars, right? So we had a parent class of cars and then we could subclass that into different brands or different types of cars and they got it and it made sense and everything. But then I had one of my students, do object oriented. Rabbits. So here's a, a rabbit and this is a short hair rabbit, and this is the long hair rabbit. And this one is, so she was sub classing, rabbits based on breeds and types. And then she could create her own rabbits from that. So she actually had two short-haired rabbits and a long haired rabbit, so she could make rabbit objects and she was getting it. It was so clear for her when she put it in her own framework and it made sense. So I am definitely borrowing that example to be able to share with other students and say, okay, This is an example of how a student can take this concept and turn it into something for themselves. What's an example that you can come up with. What's something that you can think of that you can subclass or that you can see the inheritance relationship between these objects and these classes. Kelly Paredes: [00:50:46] And I think this, I think this topic, even though , we all, and I say we all in a general, but we all want to make sure that we do this all the time. Sometimes it's not always at the forefront of our teaching where, but it should be. I mean, thinking about these things of how to always be respectful, you don't necessarily know your kids, like you said, at the beginning of the class, , and if you make an assumption or , if you go down the wrong path, you might lose that child and not have them want to learn from you. So it's something that sometimes gets overlooked, but I always have to pull it back into the front of my mind saying, is this relevant to them? Is this respectful of them? Sometimes we assume it's a white American, but they're actually Russian, do you know where their backgrounds from? So , it's something that needs to be in the forefront of a lot of teacher's minds as we go along. Jeff Olson: [00:51:40] yeah, I also, I think that if you put the entire. Onus for being perfect and getting it right the first time and doing it completely siloed. And by yourself, on yourself, you, you will fail in that failure will hit hard. I think that one of the things that it's taken me a long time to recognize is that call outs our gifts, right? Like when a, an instructional coach comes and visits your classroom and says, Hey, Jeff, when you said this. Did you realize that you had used A-plus language? Like when you talked about blind spots in your teaching, did you realize that was ablest language? And my gut instinct for so long has been to be defensive to be like, but , I'm not literally talking about blindness and they're like, yeah, that's the point. That's what ablest language is. It's an opportunity for you to refine your language, to be more inclusive and recognizing, and. Forgiving yourself, but also resolving to, to get better immediately at those things is a really freeing pattern to put yourself into. And it still hurts. Like it still is hard to get called out, but it also getting called out, especially by your students, right? especially if you are. I asked for feedback from my students every day. That's something that at upper line code we always do in our classes. And if you see the feedback from your students being willing to tell you. Here's how, what you said was actually alienating or hurtful. That is actually a huge gift from that student and something you need to be incredibly grateful for. And so that I think shifting my mindset from can I proactively fix everything to, can I proactively fix as much as I can and still make sure that I have opened my ears and opened my doors for feedback so that I can retroactively fix what I miss. I think that's a huge shift and one that's hard. Sean Tibor: [00:53:29] It is tough in this year. Like I, I started looking at it just with, the names of my students, starting at the very beginning, that first day introduction. And I've told all my students this, if I mispronounced your name, I want you to correct me every time. I said, and I will make every effort to get it right. As many times as it takes. I said, I'm not going to be perfect at it, but I will never give up on trying to get your name. Correct. And if it takes me two times or 20 times, I will keep working on it until I get it right. And hopefully it never gets to 20 times. I'm usually better than that, but just knowing that that's an important to me that I'm saying their name right respectfully, and that I'm getting it as a starting point because it really shows that I care about. About who they are and what, what they're bringing and knowing that I am going to make mistakes, That I'm going to fall back into unconscious patterns. Things I have said for my entire life that I need to change. And every day we'll try to change them. And if I make mistakes, I hope people can forgive me. Jeff Olson: [00:54:28] Well, and I'll also jump in and say something that it's taken me a little bit longer to recognize, which is, I think it wasn't until maybe two or three years ago that I realized even the act of that student correcting me on the pronunciation of their name is a gift and an act of trust and, and needs to be dignified. And so I've, I've found increasingly. That 90% of the time when my gut instinct is to say, I'm so sorry, what I actually mean is thank you. , and probably both sometimes, right? I'm sorry. Thank you for correcting me. I really appreciate it. butt, pivoting guilt, which isn't super productive and to gratitude, which I think is, is something else that I've been focused on in, in my language. Kelly Paredes: [00:55:07] this is one of those things where some people say, but you're a computer science teacher. Yes. And. We also are in charge of the social emotional needs of our students, and we want them to be comfortable with learning. So being able to take a look at language about inclusive language, about context and the language about connecting to their likes and , their hobbies, personalizing it more for them is really how we get them to learn. To get them to, the place where we want them to be in computer science. It's interesting. So all we have to do is make sure that , we're taking care of the child and the learning happens. So it's pretty powerful stuff. Jeff Olson: [00:55:51] I would even argue that our responsibility to be conscious of how welcoming and inclusive our classrooms are is. The greatest because we teach computer science, We teach a discipline that has a Bismal rates of diversity at its highest levels. And that is if you read the stories, the narratives, the articles of, the women, the black men and women yeah. Who have left this field, it is never because the discipline is too hard. It is. Always because of the assumptions that are made about them and the challenges that they face that are imposed on them by other people, They're not actual challenges that need to be in place. And yet I think the solution to that should be at every level. But since I am a teacher, my solution to that is in the classroom. Kelly Paredes: [00:56:43] Yeah, I do have to admit though I do give a lot more fist bumps for girl power than boy power. So yeah, I'm like girl power. Jeff Olson: [00:56:52] I think, you've got it gotta be attentive to the fact that whatever props or praise you give out in front of the whole classroom, you were either feeding into a narrative or counteracting it and especially being aware of my own unconscious biases as a white man, I need to be aware of who I'm giving credit to and giving expertise to. and, and am I doing it in a way that is like legitimately and genuinely excited about what they've done because. A praise that is contrived or that is condescending isn't real. And so finding, these things that I can praise in my students who, are, are truly being exceptional and recognizing that the work that needs to be done to get to that place is work that needs to be done in me and in my teaching. and I think that's sort of been a huge focus for me this past couple of Sean Tibor: [00:57:36] couple of years, the other thing I would add to that just to. cause we can talk at length and I've experienced it firsthand. The amount of toxicity that's in the workforce in computer science and in related disciplines. But I, one of the things that I also believe strongly in is that computer science and technology can be one of the most empowering fields for, for learners, for people to discover strengths about themselves, new ways of thinking ways that they can accomplish. Whatever they set their mind to because it can be so, enabling for them, right? It's something that can make their vision come to life in a way that wasn't even possible. 15, 20 years ago, it's now even bigger. So this responsibility, I think we have in the classroom is to help students see that even if it's just a small taste, to be able to see that, wow, this really can change who I am. and what I can do is something that can be very powerful. And I hope that I'm creating my future coworkers, the people that are in the workplace that I want to be in in 15 or 20 years that are making it a wonderful, inclusive, exciting place to be because I'm putting in the work at this stage to help them see that this is possible that this is something that they can do, and that it's up to them to make it the way they want it to be. Jeff Olson: [00:58:49] Yeah, Kelly Paredes: [00:58:50] Well, w Jeff Olson: [00:58:50] we're only scratching the surface and I want to keep going for forever and we won't. So hit me up on Twitter. Let's talk everybody. Kelly Paredes: [00:58:58] I'll let you summarize Sean. Sean Tibor: [00:59:01] I mean, , we've covered a lot of ground here. and I think that , this is something that is still a work in progress, right? We're all making strides towards a, better classroom environment and better future environment. We all want to see progress happen in the way that our students learn and the way that we engage them. And sometimes that's at a macro level and sometimes that's very micro that's on us, personally, the one-to-one relationships with students. So whether it's the, the language that we use. The context and the realistic scenarios that we create and the way that we personalize the learning for our students, we're looking at weaving all of these together so that our students have the best possible learning environment for them to feel like they're a part of it that they can do it, that it's for them. And not just for that other kid over there it's for me. And it's something that I can do. And. I think that to bring it back to Eric who reminded us of the introduction. He said the uniquely challenging thing about teaching is not reaching the students who would already be reached. It's about reaching every student, every person in the, in the room where they are and helping them find their best learning and their best selves in the process. So, I mean, Jeff, I think we should definitely do this again. This has been a phenomenal conversation and really exciting. It makes me, even more looking forward to going back into the classroom tomorrow morning and doing my best for my students. And I can tell from the grin on Kelly's face, she feels the same way. so thank you for joining us. We really do appreciate it. And we would love to have you come back again and talk about. Well, pretty much anything you want to talk about. We'd love to Kelly Paredes: [01:00:31] Maybe we'll bring Eric in and we can talk about projects because we keep saying we have to get coordinated with Eric. So, maybe we'll just throw everybody into the mix and see what kind of length of a podcast we can Sean Tibor: [01:00:43] well, so, if you'd like to continue the conversation on Twitter, we're at teaching Python, you can always send us a message through our website@teachingpython.fm. We also want to give a huge shout out to our Patrion supporters who help make this all possible. if you'd like to, contribute or sponsor us. There'll be a link in the show notes for that. If you'd like to reach out to Kelly on Twitter, she's at Kelly Perez. I'm at SM Tibor on Twitter, and I neglected to look up a note, another social media network. I think I have a Facebook account still. I probably have never touched it in the last four or five years. please don't find me on. There's nothing, nothing to see there. Jeff, where can people find you online or working? They follow along with what you're doing. Jeff Olson: [01:01:24] the best place to find me is for sure on Twitter, it's at Jolson underscore codes, J O L S O N. Sean Tibor: [01:01:31] well, thank you again for joining us and we hope to do this again soon. So for teaching Python, this is Kelly Paredes: [01:01:36] And this is Kelly