Exploring CSEdResearch with Monica McGill

In this interview with Monica McGill, we discuss the nuances of identities in relation to conversations around equity, the importance of having many pathways in CS, designing games for purposes beyond pure entertainment, codeveloping CS courses with students, how researchers and K-12 practitioners can use CSEdResearch.org, our thoughts on bridging the gap between research and practice, opportunities for the field to continue to grow, the influence of outside forces on K-12 education, and so much more.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    each week of this podcast is either an

    episode with a guest or multiple guests

    or a solo episode where i unpack some

    scholarship in relation to computer

    science education in this week's

    particular episode i'm interviewing

    monica mcgill we discussed the nuances

    of identities in relation to

    conversations around equity the

    importance of having multiple pathways

    in cs designing games for purposes

    beyond pure entertainment co-developing

    cs courses with students our researchers

    and k12 practitioners can use

    csedresearch.org which i do highly

    recommend checking out our thoughts on

    bridging the gap between research and

    practice opportunities for the field to

    continue to grow the influence of

    outside forces on k-12 education and so

    much more as always the show notes

    include links to more resources related

    to this particular episode you can find

    that at jaredaleri.com or by simply

    clicking the link in the app that you're

    listening to this on in addition to the

    resources and all the podcast episodes

    on my website there's hundreds if not

    thousands of free resources related

    computer science education on my website

    including a link to boot up pd.org which

    is the non-profit that i work for where

    i create 100 free elementary coding

    curriculum so make sure you check that

    out if you haven't but with all that

    being said we will now begin with an

    introduction by monica i'm the founder

    and ceo of the nonprofit organization

    cssresearch.org and i'm also a parent of

    three adult children two little furries

    and the spouse of a really good guy so

    if you read a story about your journey

    in cs education what would the titles of

    the chapters be so chapter one would be

    choosing my major computer science or

    music chapter two providing code

    correctness at the national computer

    security center chapter three becoming a

    contractor with computer sciences

    corporation

    chapter four stepping out of the

    professional space to raise kids chapter

    five hey how about teaching full-time

    while getting a doctorate as a single

    parent chapter six how about teaching

    full-time in a teaching college and

    doing lots of research because i'm

    curious and i want to make the world a

    better place and chapter 7 no let's just

    do research do it well and help make the

    world a better place that way i love the

    titles of those chapters what are some

    of the interesting things that you've

    learned along the way in those chapters

    well there is no doubt that i'm still

    learning a lot every single day which i

    think is a good thing one of the things

    i've learned is that many of my core

    values were actually shaped as a kid so

    the ideas around fairness and equity

    were part of my parents beliefs and then

    those beliefs may not always manifest in

    what they did but for me it was

    their impact i think in their

    perspectives that really shaped those

    thoughts that i have now

    one is that i watched my mom struggle to

    go into the professional working world

    during a time where women still weren't

    doing that as much and another is that

    despite the fact that you know i have

    two brothers my parents were very

    insistent that no matter what i was

    going to get the same opportunities that

    they did and this is a time where

    you know in the news the ongoing battle

    one that i remember is that girls were

    you know fighting for the right to

    actually be able to play sports in high

    schools

    and k-8 as well and the arguments

    against that were just at that age i

    thought that they were so stupid but i

    think that that had impacts on me too

    that why

    can't girls play sports in school

    because that's why are we even asking

    this type of question yeah and what's

    the equivalent type of questions that

    we're asking today yes there are so many

    and the same types of arguments and the

    people who now you know would have their

    girls in sports in k-12 they're making

    arguments about other ways that we need

    to work to keep people in their place

    yeah it's really interesting the overall

    discourse and how it shifts we do make

    progress over time but it's a struggle

    to get there and it takes sometimes

    decades before the thing that we're

    fighting for just becomes commonplace

    yeah exactly i'm not sure that we always

    have to have these types of struggles

    but i also understand that other people

    were raised differently than i was so

    you know they have their own experiences

    that they're coming from i don't always

    understand their perspective but

    i also feel like want change to happen

    quicker in many ways right if we were to

    zoom in on that topic and specifically

    think about it in relation to computer

    science what do you think as a field we

    are struggling with to discuss or

    explore or understand in what context so

    i guess like what are some of the

    debates in the field that we're having

    that we don't really have an

    understanding of whether it's in

    relation to equity or something else so

    like if we were to go the equity route

    we think of like the k-port centers

    report that they had on the

    national survey of cs teachers there's

    like 40 of cs educators don't think we

    should discuss equity in the cs

    classroom so like that might be

    a potential topic to zoom in on does

    that provide some context to what i was

    thinking yeah it does i think that the

    word

    equity

    scares some people when really all we're

    talking about is making sure that all

    kids no matter their background those

    kids that are in your classroom should

    be taught computer science in a way that

    is most effective for them and i think

    you know with a politically charged

    environment that we're in right now too

    that term equity just using that we just

    have to be careful with that i just had

    pushback on something that we produced

    for somebody a few weeks ago and i was

    surprised that they thought we focused

    too much on equity my question is

    why

    are you not focusing on equity because

    the students that you're trying to serve

    are very very diverse and if you're not

    considering that in all aspects of your

    curriculum development how you deliver

    it how it's received by the students and

    really considering how it's received by

    the students then that's a real problem

    yeah there's also this tendency

    whether it be in curricula or discourse

    for people to kind of essentialize and

    group and

    say oh well you are of a particular

    identity therefore you're going to like

    this particular aspect of cs education

    and so we create these like many flavors

    of it but it's like hey but there's the

    intersection of those and then there's

    also just because i am this identity

    doesn't mean i'm like somebody else who

    has that identity as well there's much

    more nuances than just that yeah and

    that's really interesting when you

    brought that up because i think about

    this often too which is more recently

    this idea of gender and what it means

    and you know i've been driven to look at

    gender because of the lack of women in

    tech

    and how it's impacted me in both

    industry and also in academia and i

    think that i'm very very glad that the

    k-12 students are more accepting and are

    being raised more environment where

    things aren't always just masculine or

    feminine you know traditionally

    masculine or feminine who belongs in

    those groups and i do wonder you know

    just thinking at more recently that

    maybe that's not the question we should

    be asking because what are we missing

    when

    quote unquote traditionally female or

    feminine values or ideas or likes and

    dislikes

    are incorporated into a curriculum or

    incorporated into tech because we know

    that traditionally you know a man may

    have some of those tendencies and vice

    versa so maybe the question isn't really

    about gender itself but really the

    personalities and the characteristics

    and the likes and dislikes of that

    individual person and leaving those

    labels yeah maybe right now in 2021

    they're still more grouped by gender but

    that's going to look like and if we

    don't really focus on the underlying

    personalities and characteristics and

    likes and dislikes of people of students

    then how are we going to know 10 years

    from now is going to be so much harder

    to disaggregate just based on gender

    right yeah and then myself being

    non-binary like within the capital t

    trans umbrella like there's so many

    different variants of it whether you're

    gender fluid gender queer or trans

    masculine trans feminine etc like when

    you throw that into the mix then that

    just really like

    disrupts everything else that has been

    talked about for many years in cs one of

    the problems with it is like even in the

    collection of data in the k12 space in

    particular is it's presented as this

    binary so then what happens about that

    one or two percent of people who

    identify outside of that and then what

    about like females who tend to do more

    masculine things and males who tend to

    do more feminine things but they

    identify as male or female etc like

    there's so many more nuances to it i

    wish we had a better system for actually

    getting into individual interests rather

    than just going with groups and saying

    oh well you are this identity therefore

    you're gonna feel this way or like this

    thing yeah definitely i agree i hope

    this is a turning point i hope i love

    the idea that people can express who

    they are

    not necessarily based on cultural

    expectations but based on who they are

    and i just think that as researchers we

    really need to start thinking about what

    does that mean for research if we're

    just classifying people a certain way

    yeah if we were to

    look at the k-12 space and you were to

    design like an ideal version of cs

    education specifically for people who

    wanted to eventually major in computer

    science what do you think that that

    would look like that pathway i think

    that that you know is a good

    segway from what we were just talking

    about as well i don't think that for me

    alone to design that i couldn't do that

    i think that especially as a white woman

    who was raised and grew up in more a in

    a different culture right i would need

    lots of voices at the table with me to

    actually design that in a way that would

    be effective for all sorts of different

    kids and i think the other thing with

    that is we have to be careful about

    shaping k through 12

    for just students to go in and be cs

    majors one because cs is going into

    every field it really won't matter it'll

    be like math and writing right even at

    the college level but also there's a

    whole other side of that which is to

    look beyond occupations for k-12

    learners and what do they really need to

    know about technology it's not just

    about programming and algorithms and how

    they work but the good things and what

    it can do and we also have to talk about

    the realistic aspect of that and what

    the harms are going to be to people as

    well yeah i really appreciate that

    answer my follow-up question was gonna

    be okay so how would that compare and

    contrast for like students who knew for

    a fact they weren't gonna go in to see

    us for a major and like didn't want to

    do that it's like one of the things i

    talk about frequently on here is i

    proposed my wife by modding the video

    game minecraft so i learned java and

    eclipse ide and i changed the game added

    in all sorts of stuff that i knew that

    she would love and then i proposed to

    her through the mod that i made like

    that was not at all related to a career

    yes i could have gone into a career in

    that but i just wanted to propose to my

    wife and like that's an example of like

    a fun thing that you can do just in your

    leisure and you don't have to

    necessarily head that direction for a

    career so i think it's important for cs

    educators to really consider this

    because we are the exception in that we

    went into this field because we

    obviously it resonated with us in some

    way and we can't necessarily expect that

    it's going to resonate with everybody in

    the same way absolutely yeah i

    definitely agree with that and i think

    the point that you're making too about

    something else drove you or helped you

    right realize that it was something that

    you're interested in that same concept

    can be used with children as well yeah

    so the last district that i was in was a

    k-8 district and the kids had like grade

    languages to choose from so they could

    have done swift and worked on either

    xcode or swift playgrounds they could

    have done ruby and sonic pi to code

    music they could have done javascript

    with khan academy to create like art and

    animation or they could have done

    scratch to create like games and stories

    and whatnot and one of the reasons why i

    almost every semester i kept like adding

    in new languages was because there were

    groups of students who were like hey i'm

    really interested in whatever it was but

    the current set of languages and

    platforms don't really allow me to do

    that i want to explore this more so i

    would expand the platforms to allow them

    to do that because there are some kids

    who are like i love making music but

    scratch is very limited on the kinds of

    music that you can make so it's like

    great let's do sonic pie that gives you

    some more opportunities and whatnot so i

    was trying to match the platform in the

    language to what the kids actually

    wanted to explore in the class i think

    it's a fantastic idea i think that you

    really have to consider what your

    students actually want and also then

    coupling with that the objectives that

    you want them to learn for that part of

    the day or curriculum so one of the

    things that i thought was really cool

    about your background is like you have

    experience with like game design

    computer science etc like those

    sometimes are two different things like

    you might get into like an after school

    club where like all i'm doing is

    designing games and you're like setting

    up parameters but not necessarily

    actually engaging in the cs side of

    things like you might be building a

    world you might be like animating the

    characters but you're not really diving

    into

    the programming behind it etc i'm

    curious what you wish more like cs

    educators kind of understood about

    teaching cs through game design so first

    of all i would say that it's really fun

    and engaging it's engaging for the kids

    this thing more engaging for the

    teachers

    it's definitely student centered not

    teacher centered well i guess it could

    be teacher centered as well depending on

    how you set up the parameters around

    what they're actually creating so it can

    take so many different forms and

    there's so many different aspects of

    learning that are incorporated into

    games especially if it's a

    collaboratively designed and developed

    game what about game design outside of

    games purely for entertainment so when i

    was looking at your background you had

    some really cool games that weren't

    necessarily games for the sake of

    playing a video game yeah that's a good

    question from teaching for so many years

    like seven or eight years in the game

    design area i definitely came to

    understood that all games are play and

    all games teach us something so even if

    it's quote unquote and entertaining

    versus quote-unquote a serious game

    which i really don't like that term but

    it's teaching us something so you know

    there's studies just on regular games

    where it's been shown to reduce anxiety

    of players or

    it provides an escape from reality for a

    little bit they're having you know

    difficulties in their life or something

    and it can shape our behavior just those

    games that we don't think that

    traditionally teach something but they

    actually are so i think if you look at

    that perspective that all games teach us

    something those things that are taught

    can be

    explicitly laid out or

    just in the background so if you

    explicitly start to lay things out you

    need to incorporate those things somehow

    in the game mechanics but that shouldn't

    take away from the play it shouldn't

    take away from the fun factor because

    ultimately games light up something in

    our brain we keep going back to them

    because they light up something in our

    brain this is why animals play as well

    right you can see

    an animal we were just talking about

    dogs right so our dogs will pick up a

    ball and they'll play or they'll flip

    something around or they'll chase each

    other around the table or whatever the

    case is and they're playing because it

    lights up something in their brain so

    the same aspects are true for game

    design and development that you're still

    trying to get that piece of brain to

    light up and then you're just putting in

    oh by the way this character has

    diabetes and he or she or

    they start to eat more of the junk food

    bad things happens to little coco the

    monkey in our case so

    you know it's teaching in a subtle way

    but very very fun way that's the

    behaviors that we want the player to

    adapt are actually coming out through

    the play yeah i really appreciate that

    my wife is also a gamer and she's a

    therapist and one of the things that she

    has looked into is some like scholarship

    on

    games that are intentionally designed to

    improve mental and physical health and

    whatnot and it's fascinating research

    the things that people are exploring

    there's a lot out there you know that's

    kind of why i shy away from the term

    serious games because it's just really

    games that teach something else other

    than just you know teaching us a it's

    teaching us b c and d for example if we

    were to use like video games as like a

    model or as a metaphor how has it kind

    of informed your own approach to either

    curriculum or like experience design

    like lesson or like a class

    and i asked this because like some

    people have gone like the gamification

    route others have gotten like more of a

    metaphor for like exploring a world or

    exploring a domain etc so i have an

    interesting story to tell about this

    because i

    actually took one of my theory classes

    in our game design curriculum and made

    it a game there was no syllabus it was a

    game handbook there were many different

    things that

    the players the students could choose so

    all that was written in the aspect of

    play and as an experiment i ran this i

    think two semesters before i actually

    left that department but there was

    pushback from students

    and

    one of the things that you know

    something students really excelled

    because it was very open even though you

    had to do certain things right you had

    to go a certain path and to get to place

    x right do your exploratory work you

    would have to do these certain things so

    many of these things didn't have

    deadlines they were when you wanted to

    do them and some of them did so it was a

    combination but basically you had to

    rack up i think 27 000 points out of

    thirty three thousand to

    get an a if you will and i was really

    surprised that

    some students just were so uncomfortable

    with that and uh what i observed and

    also talked to them about that the k

    k-12 experience in the u.s has set them

    up for certain

    paradigm for learning and when they get

    into

    college then to break that paradigm is a

    little bit

    mind-blowing for them

    and it was really a shame right because

    even though they were all into games and

    they loved playing games and they loved

    making games here this was learning

    opportunity was presented in a game and

    they're like no we don't we don't want

    this so it was very very eye opening for

    me to put this in perspective of how we

    actually train students to behave in

    classrooms and in education and then

    shifting that is just not really

    feasible to do at the undergraduate

    level yeah that's a really important

    point it sounds a lot like an interview

    that i did with john stapleton so he

    loves playing tabletop role-playing

    games and so like dungeons and dragons

    the idea of being a guild master a

    dungeon master and having it so that you

    are co-developing the world with

    students as they explore and you are

    kind of like creating some rules and

    parameters to work through but they

    ultimately choose their own path and

    whatnot you might have some different

    landmarks that people can see and they

    might go to it or they might explore

    different uncharted territory etc and

    the kind of support that you have to

    provide even in the k-12 space with

    students like this it's really

    interesting like what i was saying with

    my class being able to pick different

    languages if there were 30 kids in the

    class there would be 30 different

    projects because it could go in any

    direction they wanted to and for some

    students that was very uncomfortable

    even the younger kids like in the

    primary grades because they weren't used

    to that they were taught for years

    here's the thing i needed get an a and i

    would sometimes have like the middle

    school kids in particular be like hey

    what do i have to do to get an a in this

    class and i'm like well one i hope you

    never ask that question again because

    like

    the thing you got to do is just like

    explore what you're interested in and

    i'll help you along the way etc but it

    was

    born to them at that level and it's

    honestly with my experience not until

    doctoral studies when i was finally

    asked what do you want to study and what

    i didn't understand is why it took like

    decades to get to the point where i

    finally was asked okay how do you want

    to develop your own expertise and i

    think that's something that should be

    done from pre-k all the way up rather

    than waiting until the very end yeah

    yeah exactly and that's why when i

    answered that question too i used

    undergraduate because

    right post-undergraduate

    you may be

    in a position where you're doing your

    master's or phd where you can actually

    choose that path of learning yeah so

    i understand the reason for the patterns

    that are being developed in k212 but i

    also understand that maybe it's time to

    revisit those a little bit too if you

    were to wave a magic wand what's one

    kind of change that you might make in

    that area i haven't thought about this

    as much because i've been focusing on

    different things you know when i went

    through this process and had this

    experience with the students it really

    taught me something about these patterns

    that they've been locked into for so

    many years i think that there's always a

    balance between

    making sure that you teach them what

    needs to be taught and also providing

    them a way to do that that is

    interesting for them i'm not quite sure

    you know what may work well in one

    setting may not work in another setting

    so i think it's all individual to that

    particular classroom so yeah that's

    something that i yeah i haven't really

    spent too much time on it's definitely

    an interesting problem though to think

    about

    yeah i like to think of like broad

    hypotheticals but also actionable things

    there's a tendency to

    focus on too much of the vision without

    action behind the vision especially in

    relation to equity we talk a lot but we

    don't necessarily get much done in that

    area in my opinion yeah yeah definitely

    so

    thinking about your

    journey and where you are now with

    focusing on research i'm curious if

    somebody had never heard of

    csedresearch.org how would you describe

    it to them like what is

    cssresearch.org so csnresearch.org is a

    us and our mission is to improve k-12

    education for all children by enabling

    and disseminating exemplary

    evidence-driven research that supports

    all learners so that's part of our

    mission statement and what that really

    means is that we look at ways in which

    we can produce high quality equity

    focused education research for k-12 cs

    education that will enable teachers

    to actually put into practice ways in

    which are most effective for their

    particular students to learn but we're

    also focused on

    enabling the researchers to do the same

    so all the more novice fields we have

    new researchers coming into the fields

    there are 55 million children in the us

    alone who will eventually likely have cs

    education starting in kindergarten but

    there's so much we don't know and

    there's just so much research that needs

    to be done that

    as a novice field we're starting to grow

    but the need is going to be great for

    education research in the future so one

    thing i want to add is that

    cssearch.org actually originated from

    an nsf grant it's a long way to this

    where we are today but i had an nsf

    grant with my partner research partner

    adrian decker and we received that grant

    in 2016

    and what it was supposed to be was more

    focused on informal education but as

    people

    may know that in 2016 that's when the

    obama administration came out and said

    basically cs for everybody and that was

    a path that they were going to start to

    work towards so that changed a little

    bit the trajectory of our research we

    started looking at

    k through formal curriculum as well and

    as part of that we

    took what we were investigating and put

    it on the website so

    the survey instruments to actually

    measure whether or not classroom

    practices were effective and then the

    actual research articles that had been

    written on k12cs education so we've

    decided to share that with everybody in

    the form of our website and we named the

    website csnresearch.org so then when i

    decided to leave academia and focus

    solely on research i just went ahead and

    kept that name for the organization as

    well yeah i

    looked at a lot of the resources over

    the summer and there were like

    frameworks or heuristics to kind of

    think through hey if you're going to be

    studying cs education like if you're

    going to start an rpp or something

    here's some things to think through or

    some questions to consider i think if

    anyone hasn't checked it out and they're

    interested in cs education research they

    definitely should visit it what about

    four k-12 educators the educators we're

    working on a few things one of the

    things that we're working on right now

    actually is and when i say we we have

    three full-time staff members right now

    and one part-time person so we're small

    but we're definitely growing and we are

    working on a project that looks at

    problems of practice that teachers

    experience or work with michelle friend

    at university of nebraska omaha and

    we're looking at putting those problems

    of practice on our website so we have

    this compendium of over 400 responses

    from across the world mostly in the us

    though we're going to share those with

    everybody and then teachers can come and

    upvote or downvote the problems of

    practice that they're experiencing so

    we're trying to fill that gap between

    practice and research by sharing with

    researchers what practitioners want

    mostly want answered and then likewise

    we're looking at ways in which we can

    bring the research more closely to

    teachers and we've had other projects

    where this was with the computer science

    teachers association where we worked

    with just a very small set of teachers

    and we brought researchers in and they

    discussed research and they developed

    teacher practice briefs for other

    teachers based on certain topics that

    were equity focused and that was really

    a cool experience as well so we're

    hoping to scale that up in the future

    but that's kind of that space where

    we're trying to

    make sure that the research is useful to

    practitioners as much as possible and

    the practitioners have a voice in their

    research as well yeah i really

    appreciate that one of the

    reasons why i tend to alternate between

    like an interview with a guest or

    multiple guests and then like a solo

    episode where i unpack scholarship is

    because there is that disconnect where

    like academics talk to academics k-12

    practitioners talk to k-12 practitioners

    and they don't really share well here's

    what i'm struggling with or here's what

    we understand based on research etc so i

    like to

    kind of bridge that gap with those

    episodes but then there's also the

    question that i'd like to ask guests

    that i'll just go ahead and ask you

    right now is like what do you wish there

    was more research on that could inform

    your own practices i need more time

    really

    i'm not going to get that but i wish i

    had more time to actually read more

    about what other people are writing and

    what are the research that they're

    conducting as well as ways in which to

    conduct the research like the whole open

    research movement pre-registration of

    studies all that is

    very very interesting to me but i often

    don't have the time to actually take a

    deep dive into it like i would like to

    so i'm not sure beyond that yeah it'd be

    interesting if more

    researchers actually like shared

    podcasts of themselves talking about a

    publication yeah so i'll just bank off

    of that too so that is true and i think

    that there are many ways that we think

    traditionally sharing research in

    publication venues like conferences and

    journals helps get the word out to other

    researchers it sure would be nice if all

    of them required a like key takeaway

    section yeah that could be boxed out

    that people could go directly to who

    need that information so not just

    teachers but practitioners in general

    and k-12 so whether it's you know

    superintendents at the state level or

    curriculum designers at the district

    level that they could quickly

    thumb through it

    and get those key takeaways i know we

    have lots of limitations around stuff

    but that would be use really useful i

    think more meta analysis is useful as

    well so that instead of having 40 papers

    that someone has to read that may not

    read it for example curriculum designer

    at the k-12 level they could actually go

    to one paper that summarizes you know 40

    or 50 papers and

    that i think would be

    very meaningful

    and it is meaningful i've seen them out

    there so as we grow as a field as our

    quality of research improves i'm hoping

    that there are going to be more high

    quality meta studies as well that help

    us pinpoint what those best practices or

    at least most promising practices are

    for teachers yeah i like that my mention

    of the podcast is like i had a

    publication come out in a handbook

    earlier this year and i wrote it three

    years ago so like it took that long

    between like first copy submission to

    actual print copy in hand like it

    shouldn't take that long but then even

    just like you what you're saying it's

    hard to stay up to date on everything

    but it's easier to listen to podcasts

    while you're like driving to and from a

    location like if people were to actually

    just share here's a little summary of

    this particular article that i wrote and

    if it's an audio form that makes it a

    whole lot easier to digest yeah we have

    to bring the research to where the

    people are not force the people to come

    where the research is so i think

    podcasts are good social media is good

    even tick tock i think that exploring

    that lots of teachers are out on tick

    tock right so how do we get them that

    information that they need in in tiny

    tiny chunks that they'll learn from and

    hopefully adapt as class and practices

    yeah especially considering that a lot

    of research is behind a paywall like

    that could help democratize things and

    make it easier to access yes absolutely

    generally speaking how do you practice

    or iterate on your own abilities like

    whether it's in research or in education

    or cs um well i'm not teaching anymore

    so i've been focusing mainly on research

    and then also growing the organization

    which requires a different set of skill

    sets so

    some of my time has been learning more

    about nonprofit organizations and how

    they run and

    the other part is often conducting the

    research so i try to build into the

    research my time to actually look at

    other people's research and other best

    practices that are going on for research

    so that i can make sure that my research

    and our team's research is

    where it needs to be yeah i really like

    that that's something that i have kind

    of forced myself to do with the podcast

    by like doing those unpacking

    scholarship episodes where i look at

    other scholarship it's forcing me to

    think through and read other people's

    material so that can inform the research

    that i am doing so that definitely

    resonates with me i think that this also

    brings up the idea of doing interesting

    qualitative studies because you can

    actually talk to people and really learn

    what's going on with them right

    not just a number but actually behind

    the numbers and see what they're

    interested in learning what they need to

    know for their jobs and teaching their

    kids what kind of kids that they have

    all those situations that we don't

    really know as well because we're not in

    the k-12 classroom and some of us have

    never been in the k-12 classroom so you

    know as researchers how do we really

    start to understand

    what is happening on the ground i think

    that's a really important thing to

    really focus on how do you prevent the

    burnout that can come with

    being a researcher in

    education space because there's always

    more to explore especially when you're

    investigating equity related stuff and

    that can get pretty heavy pretty quick

    depending on what you're looking into so

    like how do you prevent that burnout

    that can come with it well for me

    personally because i had just left

    academia so for me doing the research

    and the teaching in my mind being more

    focused on the research i feel like and

    some academics may understand this but

    i left academia right because i was

    working all the time interestingly

    enough i was in a meeting this weekend a

    virtual meeting and there were

    physicians in the meeting and one

    physician was like i was explaining how

    someone on elsewhere works and he said

    that this person works like an academic

    because they're working all weekend

    we're getting emails on the weekend

    we're getting emails in the evening and

    there's just no stopping and you know

    they wanted to care for this person to

    make sure this person was taking time

    off and recouping and restoring

    themselves so

    for me leaving academia has been

    good for me personally and it's allowing

    me the opportunity to do research and

    i'm trying very hard to have times that

    i work in times that i don't work and if

    i do work odd hours i'm you know

    scheduling messages so they go out at

    normal work time so somebody else

    doesn't have to feel like they have to

    respond at eight o'clock at night or on

    the weekend there's a lot to do

    and i try to focus on this

    aspect that we're just one tiny spoke in

    a wheel a very very very huge wheel and

    you know if i can help other people on

    that same wheel do the work that they're

    trying to do and make that high quality

    then you know hopefully it's about

    sharing the opportunity to

    make things better for this next

    generation that's coming up yeah i

    appreciate that answer having gone to

    school with and been the kind of person

    who never stops working like i have

    learned the value of setting aside a

    time to rest and

    that i had to learn the hard way so for

    anyone else who is also that kind of

    individual i do recommend taking a break

    like even if it's like at 5 p.m i set an

    alarm and that's when i just shut my

    brain down from working on this thing

    and focus on family or whatever it makes

    life a lot better yeah exactly so we've

    also taken up hiking during the pandemic

    one of the ways that we've been trying

    to my husband and i have been trying to

    get exercise while also not being able

    to go to the gym anymore is

    not going to gym i guess it is open now

    but just to go out and enjoy nature and

    go hiking take the dogs all that good

    stuff yeah being in phoenix we actually

    have quite a bit of hiking opportunities

    around it's it's pretty nice so if

    anyone has mountains nearby or hills i

    highly recommend hiking as well

    yeah definitely what about

    recommendations for

    like

    overall improving equity and inclusion

    in cs i think you know we touched on it

    earlier but i think we need to really

    define and redefine who is included and

    who isn't thus based on

    maybe

    gender race and ethnicity but actually

    taking into account the many different

    factors that influence whether or not a

    student wants to pursue computer science

    further along the line and whatever it

    is you know in high school or in college

    or other alternatives to college as well

    i think that would be probably one of

    the things that i would

    like to promote at that redefinition and

    then you know looking at the research to

    really understand

    how that impacts those students those

    particular students as individuals not

    necessarily

    all those other labels that we need to

    put on we also have to recognize that

    our tech industry is there is a dearth

    of still women

    and

    people of various races and ethnicities

    disabilities all of the things that have

    left them to be excluded from that field

    so you know it's kind of a fine line but

    there's also you know opportunity to

    grow think about things a little bit

    differently because in a white male

    oriented industry for 10 or 15 percent

    of people to come in they're going to

    adapt that culture that's already there

    they're not going to be able to make the

    change so

    you know if we even look at the white

    males that are excluded from the tech

    industry and what characteristics they

    have or personalities or likes and

    dislikes they may be a welcome addition

    into the tech industry in helping shape

    that culture as well a different way to

    think of things but i keep thinking

    about where we are and where we need to

    go and how little is changing right now

    still and it's just a very very slow

    change as we discussed earlier as well

    that

    maybe it is an opportunity for us to

    think about things a little bit

    differently yeah i like the way you

    frame that especially if i think of like

    video game culture in particular which

    is like a more narrow subset of like the

    broader cs culture like it's very much

    like a bro mentality and you from what i

    understand of people who go into the

    industry is like you have to assimilate

    into that dominant culture you're not as

    somebody who might be underrepresented

    within that space if you go in they're

    not all of a sudden gonna bend to

    what would be best for you and other

    people like you and who are outside of

    that dominant culture so that's

    interesting to think through yeah

    exactly what's one thing that you're

    working on that you could use help with

    from a listener the one thing we're

    trying to do is to build this resource

    center on our website that is actually

    meaningful to other education

    researchers so if anyone has thoughts or

    ideas about how we can improve that if

    other researchers have certain needs

    that would help improve their own

    research then we are definitely all ears

    and you can either email us directly or

    use our contact us form on the website

    we actually do get that i do get that

    and we'd be happy to include that in our

    future plans for the site as well what

    questions do you have for myself for for

    the field i'm curious where you think

    we'll be going in the next five to ten

    years as a research field one of the

    things that i

    am very hopeful for is that we start

    focusing in on the micro rather than

    just the macro whether that be like this

    very local school here are their

    perspectives of cs implementation

    whether it be creating a curriculum that

    matches specifically for them or

    looking into more case studies of

    students going into it there are some

    people who are exploring it but not

    enough in my opinion i'm also thinking

    like you were mentioning we're going to

    start broadening beyond just like race

    gender ethnicity like socioeconomic

    status i think the next big area that we

    will hopefully focus on is disability

    and what does that mean whether it's

    like physical impairment or cognitive or

    neurological etc like there are many

    different avenues to explore with that

    and i've talked about this in some other

    episodes that i'll include some links to

    in the show notes but i'm hoping

    that as a field we don't just talk about

    cs across the nation and like the

    broader

    umbrella of what cs ed looks like but we

    start talking about what variant or

    flavor are you going to use in your

    classroom in the community that you work

    in and how is that going to be different

    from elsewhere there's this tendency to

    take this like homogeneous approach

    rather than a multi-perspective

    multi-perspectivalist approach with cs

    education where it's like oh well i a

    teacher in rural utah i'm going to teach

    the exact same thing as somebody in

    miami florida like uh maybe but maybe

    you shouldn't it depends on the

    community and what they're interested in

    etc so i'm hoping

    five years from now as a research field

    we are focusing more on those the micro

    i guess instead of just the macro yeah i

    would definitely concur with all of that

    if i were to flip that question onto you

    would you have a similar or different

    answer and it's definitely in line with

    what i'm thinking as well i know that

    one single study can answer all the

    questions but again you know with that

    spoke are we covering everything that we

    need to be covering disability is a huge

    area for growth i think in our data set

    of 900 and some papers maybe

    three to four percent actually

    even just ask or include as part of

    their demographics of their students

    whether or not any students have

    disabilities so we're doing all these

    nice research studies but without even

    capturing that information which okay

    you know there's some issues around that

    as well but without even trying to

    capture that information then how do we

    know what's really working in classrooms

    where you know 10 15 of the students

    might have an iep plan which in the us

    is an individualized plan often for

    students who

    have a disability or other behavioral

    issues yeah i'm definitely right in the

    same frame that you are and the nice

    thing is there are people who are

    studying it like richard ladner andrea

    steffek there's my israel todd lash like

    and they are supervising

    more graduate students who are then

    going to start supervising so it's going

    to have that ripple effect of more

    people investigating it so i'm hopeful

    five years from now would be much more

    commonplace when describing participants

    you actually discuss like disabilities

    among your participants and and whatnot

    yeah and the other area that's often

    overlooked too is emergent language

    learners so those students who you know

    are picking up a second third language

    and that language is english how is this

    impacting them because there's some

    great tools out there for

    actually reaching students and

    there's not enough but there are some

    that are out there that a lot of

    teachers i know are struggling with as

    you know immigrants come into their more

    rural communities

    traditionally they may not have it any

    and before and all of a sudden they're

    having a number of them yep and how do

    we make sure those students are also

    able to learn computer science yeah so i

    did an interview with sarah vogel it's

    not out at the time of this recording

    but we discussed that more like

    bilingualism in relation to cs education

    and some of the deficit language that's

    framed around it and like some of the

    even policies like here in arizona there

    was there might still be a policy that

    it was illegal to speak any language

    other than english unless you were

    teaching a foreign language class so i

    had classes with like 35 kindergarteners

    where none of them spoke english as

    their primary language and it was

    illegal for myself or their kindergarten

    teacher to speak spanish to them so it's

    just like we're trying to help these

    kids and you're putting these policies

    in place

    likely well-intentioned but they are

    really problematic for a variety of

    reasons are there any questions or

    topics that you'd like to discuss that i

    haven't brought up i think one that we

    haven't really talked about too much is

    the

    concept of all students needing to learn

    not just for fulfilling jobs in industry

    which is important or for the government

    for example for cyber security in the

    area of cyber security which is

    definitely important we definitely need

    people in those fields to protect all of

    us is the concept of the flip side of

    technology right so going back to neil

    postman who i really enjoy reading his

    work where you know whenever

    technology's brought into a society

    people are going to benefit from it and

    other people are going to be harmed from

    it

    of course there may not be any impact on

    people but

    technology itself really isn't neutral

    and you know i think introducing play is

    great for students especially in the

    early grades but somehow in the later

    grades we really need to shift to a

    point where we're actually talking about

    the harms of technology and what that

    means to society and you know that

    individual student but also the

    communities that they live in and

    society in general so i think that over

    the last few years we're seeing more and

    more of the harms come out and

    industries kind to try to downplay that

    because they're

    in an uber capitalistic society right

    now and so what do they want they don't

    want those problems we just want to make

    money and i don't want to address that i

    think those issues are going to be

    really really critical over the next 10

    years especially as we look at in a

    politically charged environment who's

    starting to gain control of the media

    outlets who has understanding algorithms

    and how to tweak those to make them

    benefit their own ideas it is very

    worrying and you know i know i'm not the

    only one there are a lot of people who

    are concerned about that however much is

    going to impact us as adults is going to

    impact the kids even more yeah i really

    appreciate that response i think we are

    starting to talk about that more in the

    k-12 space like the bias that happens in

    ai or in programming or whatever but i

    hope we also start to think more broadly

    in terms of okay well what is the

    potential impact of this on the

    environment what is the potential impact

    of if i were to create this thing a

    device how it's manufactured what are

    the working conditions of the people who

    manufacture this what about the working

    conditions of the people who mine the

    precious metals that are then used to

    create the parts that are then assembled

    etc like looking more broadly at than

    just how algorithms are biased but also

    thinking of okay the physical devices

    etc like we'll see if that's more of

    part of the discussion ten years from

    now or not i sure hope so i'm very

    concerned i mean i think this is an area

    where if change doesn't happen

    faster than change in other regards then

    and not having the change is going to

    benefit a lot of people right

    not having that change and there's going

    to be a struggle to make sure that

    change happens it's definitely very

    worrying yeah and this is where it's

    like it's if you want to leave out

    politics in education that's going to

    have really bad impact down the road if

    we don't talk about these things because

    we need to start solving these problems

    now and especially addressing this with

    the future leaders because no offense to

    anyone in congress and whatnot but our

    current leaders aren't really discussing

    it enough so we need to do something

    more long-term yeah well we don't have a

    lot v group for fairness and ai well

    maybe there is but it's not as

    predominant as the industry lobbying

    groups and at least here in the us i

    don't know elsewhere but

    you know when it gets to the point where

    whether or not we're going to be a

    democracy and whether any longer right

    then i think that there's a huge

    time to really step back and think about

    how we got here and what technology

    contributed to that but also and i

    include myself in this failures

    educators particularly at the

    post-secondary level who have not talked

    about these implications of

    what we're teaching our students in the

    classroom yeah many snaps to that answer

    so where might people go to connect with

    you and the organizations that you work

    with so a couple places one is you can

    go to our website like i mentioned

    earlier you can go to the contact form

    and reach out to us that's probably the

    easiest you can also reach me directly

    at monica csidresearch.org

    with your thoughts or if you have ideas

    that you want to share with us or

    potential projects that you would like

    us to offer advice on or help out on and

    we're also hopefully going to be start

    going to more in-person events so you

    can always catch us at uh we'll be we're

    trying to get to sexy all three of our

    full-time staff will hopefully be at 60

    so you can reach out to us there as well

    and with that that concludes this week's

    episode of the cska podcast again the

    show notes at jaredoleary.com include

    links to various resources mentioned

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    educators and scholars speaking of if

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    much for listening stay tuned next week

    for another episode and until then i

    hope you're all staying safe and are

    having a wonderful week

Guest Bio

Monica McGill, Ed.D. is the Founder, President, and CEO of the CSEdResearch.org, a 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on improving K-12 CS education for all children by enabling and disseminating exemplary, evidence-driven research. Monica is passionate about K-12 computing education research, which has led her to lead the organization to receive multiple grants from various federal and local organizations, including the National Science Foundation, Google, and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). She blends her experience as a computer scientist in government and industry and as a tenured professor of computer science and game design with her experience conducting equity-focused education research. She serves as an Associate Editor for ACM Transactions on Computing Education, was the Inaugural Chair of the ACM-W North America Committee (2019-2021) and is a current Board Member for the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) and the Sjögren’s Foundation.


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