A DREAM job with Addison Lilholt
In this interview with Addison Lilholt, we discuss Addison’s DREAM job, the importance of students having fun through meaningful learning experiences, lessons learned from remote teaching, the importance of mental breaks when learning/teaching, recommendations for getting started with CS, the intersections of CS and environmental sciences, creating an arcade cabinet to explore engineering and CS, being open about iterating on abilities as an educator, and so much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week of this podcast is either a
solo episode where i unpack some
scholarship in relation to computer
science education or an episode with a
guest or multiple guests in this week's
episode i'm interviewing addison lilholt
we discuss addison's dream job which is
an acronym the importance of students
having fun through meaningful learning
experiences lessons learned from remote
teaching the importance of mental breaks
when learning and teaching
recommendations for getting started with
computer science intersections of
computer science and environmental
science creating an arcade cabinet to
explore engineering and computer science
being open about iterating on abilities
as an educator and so much more as
always you can find a link to the show
notes in the app that you're listening
to this on or by visiting jaredaler.com
where there are hundreds if not
thousands of free computer science
education resources and speaking of this
podcast is powered by boot up which is
the non-profit that i work for where i
create 100 free elementary coding
curriculum and we also provide paid
professional development so check out
boot up pd.org if you're interested but
with all that being said we will now
begin with an introduction by addison my
name is addison littleholt
thanks for having me to the podcast
today i am the middle school dream lab
coordinator at the baldwin school in
pennsylvania as well as the chair of the
computer science department and
engineering department and those are my
passions those two things that i get to
teach every day so
so the audience likely understands what
means by coordinating like computer
science but what is the dream lab oh
great question dream's an acronym it
stands for
design robotics
engineering art and mathematics so it's
all of those things
it's an umbrella a catch-all and we've
decided to
dedicate a space well three spaces
actually one in the lower school one in
the middle school and one in our high
school where students can really pursue
each of those areas i think one of the
main
goals that we try to encourage in our
students is to
not fear making mistakes
in their work and
focusing as much on the process as in
the product
of what it is they're doing if not more
the process being the design process so
it's really a space for them to
experiment and learn about their own
ways of doing things in these fields the
way that some people use acronyms like
that whether it's dream or stem or steam
or whatever it tends to be siloed for
each one of the letters is it siloed
within this space or are they all
intersecting and interwoven together at
times they can be interwoven at other
times
if it's a robotics
unit we're talking about robotics
however
we've just introduced a new course that
operates within the dream lab in the
middle school so interdisciplinary
design is a course where we talk about
how any projects require
multiple disciplines in order to make it
happen so the dream lab is a space
where we can do that as well so yeah at
times things are interviewing and
sometimes we actually branch out now
more so than before in the past three
four years in the middle school at least
we've been bringing on board teachers
from outside of the cs and engineering
department teachers from the english
department and the languages department
and the music and art department they
are now sharing our spaces and we're
working together to build these well
truly interdisciplinary projects that
sounds like a dream job ah sorry i had
to say it
i might use it sometime do it
missed opportunity if you don't
no but in all seriousness like that
really does sound like an interesting
job that i would love to one participate
in as a student but then two to be able
to like facilitate those experiences the
explorations and then the collaborations
with other educators that sounds
wonderful if you have the time it's a
really neat experience to be able to
create projects
and then have
experts from those fields contributing
to those projects all simultaneously so
if there's an english component that's
actually truly important to that project
you have the english teacher there right
right at that point so yeah it makes for
the in the moment that works out really
well but then the end product typically
does end up turning out really great now
if somebody to walk into like that space
or
even if you wanted to think specifically
like an ideal computer science space
what would they experience or observe
they would experience
the students having fun that's ideal
ideal every day
students have fun and learning that's
number one but i think there needs to be
meaningful
interactions with whatever it is they're
learning about i think in the dream lab
with computer science
i'm really hoping that if somebody
walked in they saw students engaged with
this very broad class of computer
science the curriculum there's tons of
areas of computer science that we just
expose them to in seventh grade then
they can continue down that path in the
high school but in the seventh grade i
want to engage them with the things they
use all the time and have them take
ownership in their own creations in this
space right when people do come into my
space because this happens often we have
guests that come through and they do
come into my space and i think if i was
to walk into this space and i didn't
know about what it is i do i would be
very confused i would walk into the
space thinking i'm in a typical school
and i would seek what would appear to be
chaos
and that would make sense to most people
walking into my lab it does look like
somewhat chaotic but it is controlled
chaos what it is really is the
individual students or individual groups
of students taking ownership of the work
that they're doing and understanding
their own dynamics within their groups
or their own individual work styles so
they might be standing at the tables
they might be standing the white boards
they might be sitting on the floor they
might be talking to each other they
might be with their headphones on
everybody's doing what it is that they
need to do in order for them to be as
successful as they can be and i found
that during those moments of you know
hands-on work if the framework is set up
correctly you walk in it doesn't look
like your typical classroom but it's
very effective yeah it can be hard to
design for the many ways of like doing
being and experiencing in a classroom
like that and that's the harder part
facilitating that for me at least it was
easy because you're walking around
interacting one-on-one with groups like
that was the easy part so if somebody
would come in they'd be like oh jared's
not really doing much like not up there
lecturing like you're right sort of i'm
asking a lot of
guided questions because i'm trying to
help them get to where they want to go
but like what you're missing is the
hours of work that went into designing
this experience and especially designing
an experience that supports multiple
ways of experiencing whatever it is
we're exploring that is exactly right
we're currently doing some work and i
showed something about wicked the
musical and it kind of explored the
engineers who designed all of the
framework for the stage and all of the
contraptions and the air with the ropes
and all of this stuff they have this
huge head that has a mouth that opens up
and its eyes can move in different
directions and then they go around back
and the guy's conducting an interview
and he shows the mechanism it's a
handlebar like on a bike and it can pull
out and now the person in the backstage
has full control of this head i mean
this is a 10 foot head and this is
happening live on stage during these
wicked performances on broadway and i
show this to my students because i think
in the process of these projects there
is an audience often and they see that
project they see what's going on on
stage but to go backstage and to look at
it from all of these other points of
view all the people that had to become
part of
this end result which is whatever an
hour and a half of a performance they
begin to see that the process
is the backstage
of their projects and it's pivotal in
them having success and all of their
learning really is happening during that
process the design process in our case
so i think it was a good analogy to what
they do in our classroom and i mean
these engineers that put this show
together in any of these shows
the amount of thought that goes into it
and the multiple disciplines there was a
scientific aspect there were these
bubbles that were being blown out of the
mouth of this big head and they had to
design a specific solution that if it
would float and it would become a bubble
very quickly but then the property of it
when it landed and popped on the floor
it didn't leave any slick residue so
that the dancers wouldn't slip science
right so it's funny how so many
different disciplines come together to
make something that many people would
think oh they need music
and dance right those would be the first
two things and probably are those would
be the first three
major ones but there's a lot that goes
into it how would your answer compare
contrast if you were to
have been asked that question before
kovid happened like would it be the same
or would it differ that's a good
question because covet has happened i
don't think my approach would have
changed
with regards to
making sure that the students understood
the value of collaboration
we actually focus on collaboration as a
key benchmark in what we do it's
critical really we wouldn't have as much
success if the students didn't work
together when we went remote we had to
problem solve as teachers we
then took on the role that i often put
on my students solve this problem go
there do this this isn't easy figure it
out we don't have the answer i tell the
students to do this all the time now
we're thrown into this
crazy situation where okay you're never
going to see your students from the next
we don't know when so you don't even
have that answer number two yeah let's
try this new thing everybody's gonna be
on their computers for i don't know six
seven eight hours a day oh by the way uh
nobody's ever done this before nobody
knows how to do it for me
oh by the way you're gonna set this up
oh whoa okay so cool i don't really know
what i'm doing but if you're cool with
me trying stuff i'm fine with trying
stuff oh by the way our lms just broke
because there were too many users on it
oh cool so now we have to switch lms's
within two days of the switching over to
virtual
this all happened right and we were
problem solving in real time in the
moment and it was messy and i remember
not knowing how it was gonna end and you
know what if it wasn't for
thinking in the way that the students
think and being vulnerable in that
moment and just saying this could fail
but we gotta give it a shot we don't
have any other options really right we
would have been in a bad place but we
were able to write the ship we were able
to get online we were able to teach the
teachers how to teach in this way to
some degree i mean teaching remotely it
is not ideal if you've been teaching in
person and if the student has only had
an in-person experience from the teacher
teaching remotely it can be effective
and i think
we had found ways to make it more
effective but is it ideal i think
there's a lot of value in the in-person
interaction and then when it comes to
dream lab i mean we're hands-on so
there's definitely that piece but i
think with coven it gave us a real world
example of how people need to be able to
solve a problem given whatever it is you
have on hand without knowing the outcome
at all right code's thrown everything
out the window for me because teachers
plan teachers often come up with really
good plans they can and i do this too i
filled out these unit long plants right
and when coveted hit every single one of
those
was gone for the most part because of
the constraints i was given what i've
learned in covid is that not only myself
but people in general and my students
i've learned this about are very very
resilient and if they're given the
opportunity to be resilient they will
take it they'll often exceed
expectations when i started realizing
some of this while we were remote and i
was seeing a decline in my student
interest this was happening across the
board across the country across the
world everybody was zooming in and
tuning out i really started to come up
with new ways to do it all and i found
it to be successful and i wouldn't have
ever even dabbled in any of the things
that i did if it weren't for covet i
mean i turned my entire class for
computer science specifically into a tv
show it became a talk show called the cs
show and i was broadcasting live every
day to my audience and my students were
my audience the cs show is live i had
daily interviews that i would pre-record
and interview and cut and splice videos
and put it all together i would have
them come on stage i was air quoting
that they would join into the
conversation they wanted to be on camera
they wanted to even join the
conversation and oftentimes they would
give me ideas for the show for upcoming
shows there would be games in the shows
because why not let's have a game show
right and then i would gamify whatever
it was we were working on i mean it was
silly i had like a monologue at the
beginning of every class that was my
intro and like what are we doing to well
i just turned it into a monologue and we
were having fun and even though we were
all remote i had students giving me
weather reports from their rooms and
they would open the window shade and
they would say hey mr lawless it's
snowing today right here in so and so
pennsylvania and at one point that one
of my students was in the country they
were over in switzerland and i said oh
well we need to have a daily
international weather update
now this has nothing to do with computer
science
at all but i created a little intro for
them and it was like
so with today's international weather
and but they just didn't know what was
going to happen right in the next class
and to keep students on their feet i
think there's some real value in that
and if you can do that in a pandemic and
you can do that via some remote weird
situation i think i did okay and has
some of those approaches transferred
over into in-person experiences yeah
what worked i took back and brought it
with me back into person but some of it
i left back there in zoomtown because i
mean sitting behind a screen all day
that's tough so with computer science i
think one of the things we need to
remember is computer science isn't only
conducted on a computer there are times
where there's a lot of
necessary collaborative work that goes
into a project in fact today students
were working on whiteboards developing
flowcharts for their work i think that's
just as important as getting them back
onto a computer to code right some of it
i took back the weather thing because
we're all in the same room now
so we all know what the weather is
outside but i did do something what was
it it was something like that and i
think it was like the lunch update and
the students had like just come back
from lunch and i heard them talking
about lunch and i just go up to a
student i heard you talking about lunch
should we make an announcement about
this for everyone so i stopped the class
now they're in the middle of their work
take a break i say listen i've been
talking to so and so this is critically
important we all need to pay attention
for about the next 30 seconds public
service announcement the pizza today was
phenomenal and i have so-and-so here to
back me up tell us about the pizza and
doing that at the end of each semester
is a
student assessment of myself i ask about
all this stuff now they may just be
lying which is fine because it's
building my self-esteem but i think
they're telling the truth
and they find it to be a welcoming place
and they
find themselves because of the space we
create in these dream labs the students
aren't afraid they're not afraid to take
those risks in their projects where hey
you know what you put these next few
popsicle sticks on that thing there's a
great chance it's gonna completely fall
apart and you're not gonna have anything
at the end or
you're gonna complete the whole thing
and it's gonna look amazing and nobody's
ever done that they're not afraid to
take those risks they're not afraid to
have the risk completely fail on them
and i think that's really important
because in the end they learn whichever
conditional path they just went down
they learned something and it was
worthwhile so so
back when i used to teach drumline it
was very skill based so it's all about
like performing something and
playing very consistent with it so
you'd sit there and you'd rap stuff
sometimes for like an hour or two just
like the same thing over and over just
keep going through it refining as you go
along but i noticed that students
attention span would start to wander at
times because it's just it's hard it's
mentally draining to practice the same
thing over and over so it was good to
sometimes just like hey let's take a
fiver let's just get a water break let's
just like talk about your day let's it's
more personable and it allows them to
just kind of like press the refresh
button on their brain and then be able
to come back and
not be as mentally drained and make it
so that they're more focused when they
actually come back to it so i like that
idea of like hey sometimes it's good to
just take a break but i have seen some
administrators who would look at that
and be like
this has nothing to do with the content
like you mentioned that the number one
thing for you is having fun
but an administrator is going to look at
like the assessments and go i don't see
a standard for having fun like it's all
about learning these concepts and
practices have you had any pushback from
admin when you do these breaks or when
you focus on enjoyment in learning i
would imagine there are probably schools
where i would have that but not here so
it is a dream job
it is a and you know what this is the
phrase that i was trying to think of
earlier teamwork makes the dream work
it is a dream job but i gotta say i'm
pretty lucky there was some proving that
had to happen over the course of a few
years
also with parents and community but i
think at this point i've developed
enough of a rapport with everyone that
they know that i have the students best
interests in mind in every interaction i
have with them and in every plan i make
for them i feel confident that that's
why i'm able to do some of the things
that an administrator would have no
reason to say keep doing that except it
is yielding great results right so i'm
actually interested in that like your
journey so if you were to write a story
about your journey into education and
into cs education in particular what
would the chapter titles be and then
like what sparked your different
transitions between the different
chapters so many chapters chapter one
birth
i'm kidding we won't go back that far so
i'd say chapter one would be
undergraduate degree question mark
because i got a i got a degree in uh
food marketing so it wasn't even an
education through that though i got into
computer science i was doing work
with various different companies
throughout my college career with my
brother we had started a web design llc
it was a lot of fun and it was kind of
when the internet was starting to really
kind of get going chapter two i went
into the business world chapter three i
quit the business world chapter four i
went back to school for education
chapter five i graduated and became a
teacher in the field of science
specifically science so i didn't go
straight into cs and i was teaching a
lot of different sciences i was teaching
chemistry biology physics and
environmental science and i tried to tie
environmental science into everything i
did the first school i taught at was an
environmental based charter school so it
was my first experience in a public
school setting albeit it was a charter
so i started honing my
craft there i think one thing i always
look back on these weird life
experiences and you've been mentioning
the music side of this and i've played
instruments my whole life and i played
in band so i've been on stage
number a number of times throughout my
college career and then beyond and even
up until now and there's some carrier
that i've noticed and i remember
realizing that as an early teacher i was
like you know what i think i can use
this skill that i didn't learn in any of
my classes of getting up on a stage and
performing and use some of the tricks
that i've learned
over the course of the years that got
the audience engaged with the students
and so that's what i would do at the
beginning and i didn't realize kind of
what i was doing right away but then i
looked back on it and said ah that's
so chapter five kept teaching there for
a while and met my wife there she was a
kindergarten teacher so speed up the
chapter six
get married seven start at this school
and i've been here now for five years so
half a decade and and now i'm here now
i'm where i am and when i was at the
previous school
i had started going down this cs path
just because i started seeing so much
opportunity there it was a passion of
mine that was outside of school and i
started doing things like robotics clubs
and engineering programs and then i i
did develop their engineering and
computer science program at that school
and implemented that two years before i
left so they had then the curriculum and
that was driven by
standards within the state but also just
kind of how i saw it impacting
sciences and the environment and then
now i'm here still doing all the fun
stuff the stuff that i teach
they are the things that i do outside of
school as well just for fun i was
talking to my colleague and she said
yeah
pd for us professional development for
us is a little strange because for a
computer science teacher sometimes it's
just as important to sit in a session
listen to a presenter as it is to
stumble through
learning this new language or or trying
to program this new thing to do this
specific and she said i think i do a lot
of pd but it's not technically pd
per se you know that's an interesting
thing in computer science if somebody
wanted to jump into the cs but they were
unsure
where or how to start what might you
recommend for them if they're an
educator focus on your interests that
would be my first statement i often have
parents ask the same question like where
would be a good place for my student to
get started in cs i think it goes the
same for a teacher ask yourself why do
you want to get into cs what is cs going
to do for you why are you trying to get
into you know game design is that
something that's fun to you and you want
to add that to your curriculum and you
want to start you know creating games
and doing that do you want to teach a
specific type of coding language because
you see that as something that's
important for them to know just as
another foreign languages so i would ask
why and then i would say you know there
are so many resources out there right
now and there are so many ways to be a
self-starter in this field many of the
people that are in the field they're
either self-starters they started in
some classroom and they fell in love and
then they just kept going outside of the
classroom why not now though why not do
it explore it what's the worst that can
happen you can have some fun yeah that
answer definitely resonates that was the
approach that i took so it was largely
making music and art through computer
science programming etc that's what
really got me into it exploring those
questions and those interests and i've
had multiple guests mention similar
things i am curious so you mentioned how
you try to infuse environmental sciences
into what you're doing what about the
intersections of cs and environmental
sciences yeah
i gave you a little pause there we can
keep that in because
first of all cs is basically everywhere
but cs and environmental science there
is such a clear connection with what
computer science can do for the
environment it can predict things it can
use
sensors to show us what we can't see
in the environment these are exciting
things for me we had a pond and there
was a culvert that was underground that
ran from the top of the hill down to the
bottom and this water was kind of
recycled and
it was blocked it got blocked by debris
and the culvert couldn't run and luckily
it was the winter time so it wasn't
going to be running anyway because it
would have likely had frozen once we
needed it to start running again we
would have had a big problem with algae
if we hadn't got it back running so what
did we do well i posed this problem to
the students and i said well what could
we do we don't know where this
issue is we don't know what's happening
we just know that when we turn the pump
on none of the water is getting back
down where it should go they said well
mr oh we gotta find the smallest student
in the class and send them up that pipe
and i said although
that sounds like a fantastically safe
idea
can we find an alternative and they did
obviously they said well why don't we
build a robot stand it up there and
that's what we did and we took a ton of
river rocks from the pond brought them
into the classroom so we could set up
the testing site so we didn't have to go
all the way down there every single time
and we started programming robots to see
if we couldn't build a robot engineer
the the actual physical thing and get it
to move just in one direction they were
like well how can we see hook up a
camera to it oh okay so
you have a cell phone yeah throw that on
there so creative ideas finding
solutions and showing the students these
real world connections between cs a
problem that needs to be solved and
connecting it and making it very clear
the connection to these other
disciplines like environmental science
here is the connection just so you know
this literally is there and there are
people in their mid 40s
in this role working and getting paid
for this so making those connections for
the kids when i like your connection
with engineering as well one of the
projects that you mentioned before we
spoke was another csn engineering
connection that you made in is the
arcade cabinet could you elaborate on
that project the arcade cabinet was
an undertaking that
i was uncertain about there were two
arcade cabinets the first arcade cabinet
was built by my students in an
engineering class in the dream lab they
wanted to build a full-scale size arcade
cabinet using a raspberry pi zero a
display i had sitting around and then
they wanted to learn some power tools
and you know figured out the plans we
made a scale model out of cardboard
and then we really got into the weeds
and got this thing up right and they
thought this was really cool and you
could upload retropie to it and be able
to play any game from you know
playstation down then what ended up
spawning from this arcade cabinet was
the fact that my computer science
students were designing their own video
games
using a platform called make code arcade
which is by microsoft well turns out
they have a version of retropie for
their games so what you were able to do
is flash the image to be able to play
any of their games
so now the students started designing
their games they finished their games
they create their games we upload their
games to the arcade cabinet now there is
no retro pie on there there's only
student made games and a splash screen
that i put on
but it just shows like to be able to go
into an arcade and play a game it wasn't
just the person making the box and the
full upright it wasn't just the
programmers
a lot of people second one i made i
tweaked it and i love using this term
iteration with the students i said to
myself i don't want to use as much wood
and how can i do that so i wanted to be
able to do this without one sheet of
plywood i had a mini fridge so i used
that as the base built two sides and i
was able to fit the whole thing make it
out of one sheet of plywood and then i
brought that picture in to show the
students i continually want to show them
i'm doing this stuff too with you right
and we can partner on this stuff i mean
i assign teams all the time i say i'm
the team member of all and i'm happy to
help but i'm not doing all the work and
neither should one person in any of your
group so i'm curious like in both the
arcade project and then even the
project where you're clearing out like
some rocks and whatnot there's a breadth
of understanding that like concepts and
practices and standards that would go
across many different disciplines but
then there's also the depth of like
creating and diving really deep into
something for you like when you are
designing a project where do you like
land in terms of conceiving of the
breadth versus depth argument that often
occurs i'll start with cs because when
we were developing the curriculum as a
department for the middle school this
was a question we asked ourselves do we
want to go really deep into let's just
say one specific language or do we want
to expose the students to a whole bunch
of really neat really cool really real
world of applicable things happening in
cs right now and into the future well we
opted for that and that's our approach
right now to
cs so we do not just focus on one
language and we don't even focus on
solely languages i mean we get into
cyber security ai machine learning web
design of course but robotics game
design i mean there's a lot that we
touch on but then if i can spark the
interest
in those few classes we have together in
that one specific area now that's good
because if they're interested in it i
can give them additional resources this
is something i always do i always
at the end of a unit here's a whole
bunch more that this is not homework
absolutely not homework don't do this if
you don't want to do this but for
anybody that wants to go a little
further and keep playing and keep
tinkering and keep making check this
stuff out you're gonna have fun and then
the hope is so seventh to eighth grade
then they can keep dabbling in eighth
grade in interdisciplinary design where
they can if they're into the cs stuff
bring it in you'll be the cs people then
they can start to go deeper in when they
get into high school it's all
scaffolding so
it's growth over time we try to have a
growth mindset in the things we do
computer science it's just so broad so
if we just focused it on one aspect of
it personally i think it's a disservice
for them i'm curious if we're to zoom
out so what do you feel is holding back
educators or the field and then what's
something that we can do about that i
think what's holding us back
as educators working in the field i
think i'm privileged to have the
opportunity to honestly not feel held
back i'm given the chance to really
approach education in a different way
and my department as a whole i think we
all do the same thing more so from a
holistic view of what are the students
coming away with at the end of the day
there are a lot of life lessons that
occur in these years these formative
years i think to my own daughter and
think about all of the points that she
mentions from her day when i get home
and i think about that for all the
students when they go home and what
would hold me back from making that the
best experience time time holds us back
the opportunity to collaborate i think
if you give
people these these chances of
opportunity the results become greater
the ability to redefine
how assessment looks there are a lot of
different ways to look at success and
track success define
success i'm hopeful
that education on the whole is going to
be okay i'm hoping that cs becomes
as important in schools as it is in
everyday life and as ubiquitous in
schools as it is in everyday life yeah
who can predict with what's happened
over the last couple of years like my
magic eight ball has not been very great
lately
with what you're just saying you use the
word redefining and that stood out as
something that it sounds like you have
done several times when you're talking
about your different chapters in your
life like redefining what direction
you're heading in life how you're going
to explore etc being a musician i'm a
bit of a practice nerd i really nerd out
on practice techniques and how to do it
how to iterate on abilities i'm curious
how do you iterate on your abilities
either in computer science in your
understandings or as an educator there
are so many similarities with music and
computer science every time i'm doing
things in code or just in the field in
general i'm finding these connections
and i'm like oh my gosh loops i
continually seek to get better though
i'll find the way so it's kind of this
individual instinct to keep going keep
learning new things
i mean i make it a point every day once
my kids go to bed to learn something in
one of these
areas of interest and it's not like a
long amount of time it's like 15 minutes
or whatever read a book go online check
something out try something new on the
computer watch a youtube video do it all
and i've just gotten to this constant
rhythm of trying to learn new things and
how what i'll often end up doing and it
drives me crazy i'll learn something new
at night and i'll think about it and
then i'll you know go to bed and i'll be
thinking about it in my mind i'll fall
asleep eventually sometimes it keeps me
up sometimes i even have to take a note
about it because i'll come up with some
idea and the next day i'm like looking
forward to trying that thing that's
exciting it just keeps perpetuating the
fun and stuff we do here but as an
educator checking and seeing all the
other educators here that teach other
stuff but also in our department too the
more teachers you can watch the better
yeah good practice to do yeah because to
see
a good teacher in action there's
something to be said about those
teachers it's always impressive yeah i
really appreciate that answer i think
it's helpful for other people to hear
how
educators iterate on their abilities i
think it's good to be public about that
and it's something that i have struggled
with and
i actually have started streaming myself
practicing the drums
and intentionally playing things that
i've never done before and i'm really
bad at and like as somebody who's been
playing for 20 years
over 20 years like it is very
uncomfortable still to share something
that doesn't sound good because like
everything that i have been conditioned
to do
over the years is like you only share
the final take you share the best
recording etc and to go publicly and
share here's me trying something and i'm
gonna fail over this next hour
repeatedly and it's been an interesting
learning experience and it's getting me
even more comfortable with failure than
i was previously jared if you were in
middle school you would be a fantastic
student in a dreamland
because
what you just said it's exactly the
vulnerability that we look for and try
to demonstrate and emulate from a
day-to-day basis with the students and i
can imagine if you felt my palms right
now they're not dry because i can just
picture myself putting that type of
video up and putting it on public
display of me bombing basically and it's
just like wow that's gutsy but okay it's
up it's done now what you just learned
so much in that experience and now
you're getting even more comfortable
with it yeah that's huge because that
comfortability that confidence it's just
gonna it doesn't just stay in that place
it does transfer over over time into
other areas such a valuable thing
vulnerability yeah i had monday off and
so i did a stream and i was playing drum
kit which is not something that i'm like
super comfortable on and i
did terrible on it like there's so many
things that i just was completely
messing up on and i was just like
laughing it off like while going through
it but like the fact that i'm leaving
that up and still like gonna publish it
on my youtube channel as well later like
is night and day from where i was a year
ago where i would never have shared
something like that and now my plan is
to like revisit it
like a year from now and go back to that
recording and play the same thing and be
like look here's where i was and here's
where i am one year later after
consistent effort on this area and i
think it's beneficial for the musicians
that i'm trying to help with this to see
like look i've been playing
longer than most like people have been
alive like on the drums and to show like
i am still terrible at some things and
really good at other things and it's all
about the work that you put into it so i
think it's helpful to have these
conversations and be public about like
here's how you actually improve and
here's where i was and here's where i'm
going to be it's huge it brings you to
their level it shows that you can
empathize with them in those experiences
you have to be willing to be able to put
yourself out there though and i don't
know that everybody's there i don't know
that everybody is willing to do that
because it is uncomfortable it doesn't
feel good in that moment yeah
now the real question
is
are you going to leave the comment
section up or are you going to turn it
off oh i'll keep it up yeah like i
encourage people ask questions and i
mean if people want to comment on the
playing about how bad it was you're
right it was and yet i'm still an
accomplished musician like you can have
both those things in the same space see
there you go you can be good and you can
mess up sometimes
yeah as long as nobody gets hurt like in
my space there are times right like you
can't mess up on the table saw yeah
that's true but that's why we have
people there to show how to use it and
help and we demonstrate the
vulnerability of asking for help or
saying i don't know because if you're
not comfortable with being able to say
those things in those moments you're now
putting yourself in danger we can't have
that but that's specific to the
engineering world so i'm curious you
have
a lot of interest and appear to always
be learning about education and about
the content area and whatnot how do you
stave off that burnout that can come
with working in the field of education
and working what appears to be almost
non-stop luckily very luckily the
content that i focus on in my classroom
it's
continually changing because of what cs
is things like ai and machine learning
but i'm covering that i was covering
this a few years ago it's different now
and i've expanded that unit to include
things like unintended bias in
artificial intelligence and talking
about why why does that exist and i have
the students create their own biased
models by accident and then show them
how why they did that and then fix it
and they all fix it immediately they
know exactly how to do it they get
somebody else in take a new picture and
what i think keeps me from burning out
is seeing those moments of like whoa
aha moments beyond like
but
i
also really like the stuff that i teach
i'm really they always say like oh
passionate teacher i just find the
content that i cover to be fun it's fun
for me to do and same with music i love
playing music and i have fun playing
music i might be able to teach it to be
honest but i wouldn't keep doing it in
my off time if i didn't truly enjoy the
stuff that i do in the classroom so i
think that keeps me from burning out i'm
lucky there's no doubt about it i'm very
lucky to be able to say that in the
interview that i did with dan schneider
and then with jason bohr they talked
about how being able to switch between
different aspects help them to not get
burnt out just teaching the same thing
over and over so like being a
percussionist like if i got bored
playing snare drum cool i could learn
the marimba if i got bored playing
marimba cool i could learn the drum kit
i get bored with that like i could keep
switching to different things when i
started to get burned out in one area
it's still all learning the same
umbrella of whether it's like percussion
or computer science but you're learning
different aspects of it so i don't know
if that also resonates with you totally
sometimes if i know that i'm going to be
teaching the same content like basic
html fundamentals let's just say it's
that what i'll typically do is instead
of like just going through that whole
unit again for myself
i'll go over it but i'll go down that
path a little deeper into some other
area that i'm not even going to cover in
the class and it keeps me like oh yeah
this is kind of neat and it gives me
that edge like oh whoa i remember what
it was like to start learning this stuff
because now i'm learning this new part
of it right that seems to help me i like
that yeah like with cyber security i
love it because
man but that log 4j
thing came out recently i'm like oh my
gosh what is this this sounds really
terrible you know it's impacting so many
users so i start looking into it and i
start like experimenting with it on my
own virtual machine
and i
finally like get it set up in my own
environment and i do it i run it and
this is before i'm about to teach my
cyber security unit which i already had
planned no mention of vlog for jay that
day one of my students
asks me now about a zero day and she
says yeah my dad was talking about this
thing and i said wait a minute are you
talking about log for j which has been
in the news she's like yeah log4j i'm
like you won't believe this
but i have this running in the back she
goes oh my gosh i can't wait to go home
and tell my dad i was like well i could
show you what it is i was like okay
so i'm curious what that conversation
was like when she got home but it's just
one of those examples where
it got everybody excited and that really
had nothing to do with what we were
covering in that class that day but it
just so happened it worked out i'm
always happy when it does yeah that's
really interesting i just had like a
mini little reflection on what you're
just saying like
the teachers who were best at pulling in
current day topics and relating it to
the class were the government and social
studies teachers they'd have like every
wednesday was like current event day
where you talk about like what's going
on the news how does that relate to
social studies government etc we had
some of that in
a couple of the cs classes that i've
done online or like people like on
youtubers who will talk about that but
like very rarely would any of that occur
in the music education classes that i
take or the music performance classes
because like there's such a disconnect
between in-school music and
all of the music that is made outside of
school so that is an interesting idea of
like well why can't cs be more topical
and why couldn't we bring that into the
class more like i would bring in like
when assassin's creed unity came out
they had this like no face bug where
like it would not load the texture of
your skin so it's throw like the
eyeballs in the mouth moving without
like skin covering it and it was
hilarious and horrifying looking so like
i would pull that up for like the middle
schoolers and be like look here's what
this bug is doing and here's what that
would look like if you did that in
scratch and like what is going on with
that and so we talk about that but yeah
i don't know that's just me kind of
reflecting out loud how it would be nice
to be more topical when connecting
things with current events yeah i mean
either current events or student
interests in my situations because i had
another student just the other day who
said hey i didn't see at the beginning
of the year
a unit covering cryptocurrencies i said
that's because we don't have one
and i said but wait a minute are you
interested in cryptocurrencies and she
said yes i said okay well this sounds
exciting well what am i gonna do i'm
gonna go study some crypto so i ended up
building my own token on solana i had to
create like a whole cloud server and all
this stuff i was going back and forth
linux it was wild i didn't know if i was
going to be able to do it i had to buy
some soul
this is all like new stuff to me because
i was never dabbling around in this
crypto world and then i'm going down
this rabbit hole into the nft stuff and
it was so much fun and i don't know if i
would have done it if i didn't get that
question i don't even know if we're
gonna cover cryptocurrency still i'd
like to or at least like say
hey you know what let's have lunch we're
gonna talk crypto i'm gonna show you how
to do it it's funny how things kind of i
would probably fit it into some of the
command line stuff that i do currently a
lot of times what i'll have to do when i
get into these situations is okay so
where does cryptocurrency fit into
the big overarching picture of what i
want all the students that graduate from
seventh grade yes what are they walking
away with right so do they need to know
deeply about how cryptocurrencies are
exchanged and how to mint tokens in
blockchain and all this stuff what do
you wish there's more research on that
could inform
your own practices in in the classroom
i'd like to know effective
methods or
truly effective with data backing it
methods of getting minorities of
basically any minority into the field of
computer science through education
because there's this disparity and there
has been and it's changing in the grand
scheme of things now granted i'm in an
all-girls school so they're all getting
this but why
is there a lot of programs more boys
than girls going into these cs electives
not everywhere but in general and what
effective strategies are mitigating that
and then going deeper for black and
brown what is an effective strategy for
engaging that community the thing about
computer science and the biases that are
built into it it comes from this
non-diverse collective of people making
the stuff that's part of it it's just
one piece but if we had really great
strategies to bring everybody in i don't
know the most effective strategies and i
would love to because i would be
implementing them every day i don't know
if there's research out there do you
know there's some but not enough so
it's a question that's under explored at
the moment yeah i think it's a valuable
question to explore
yeah what's something that you're
working on that you need help with one
of the things i do often in my classes
is bring experts from the field into the
classroom either physically or resume
and i am always looking
for guest speakers in any of my classes
whether it's an expert in the field of
any area of engineering or any area of
cs and
being that it's an all-girls school to
have a female
presence as
that voice
is always great because it's such a
great method of representation for
everyone here and i always enjoy hearing
from them too because i'm always
learning when they're in the room with
me and then i get to ask the questions
it's a lot of fun but that would be the
one ask if anybody ever wants to partner
up or know somebody that might want to
see what it's like
talking to a bunch of youngsters
about what you do that would be great
cool at the end we'll make sure to share
your contact information like in the
show notes and whatnot so people can
reach out to you do you have any
questions for myself or for the field
well i am curious jared about the
chapters that led you to this podcast
yes so specifically to the podcast i've
have a bit of an obsessive nature in
that when i'm passionate about something
i will just
non-stop learn about it so i'm really
interested in different topics like
productivity or i'm interested in like
real estate as an investment
strategy so
i listen to a ton of podcasts on like
those topics so i dive deep into them
and listen to them at like three times
speed so i can get through more
information etc so i've really been
interested in podcasts for years and i
felt like there wasn't enough discussion
in computer science education on some
topics that i think we should discuss
like there's not enough conversation on
okay here's this research
but how do we actually
do it in practice what does this look
like in the classroom what are the
implications etc so that disconnect
between practitioner and scholar and the
fact that i felt like the field wasn't
discussing equity enough or like other
areas like interest-driven learning like
instead we were focusing on future jobs
as opposed to like well what are kids
interested in can't we explore that some
more so because i wasn't seeing enough
of those discussions in various
conferences and webinars there's like
wait i'm really interested in a podcast
i have like a good like set up to record
things and whatnot and i want to bridge
this gap between practitioner and
scholar and i am a practitioner and have
a phd so like i can merge all these
things together and then create the
podcast and so it was really my attempt
to help advance or shape the discourse
in cs education towards topics that i
felt like the field should be discussing
more but it's also been a way of like
holding myself accountable to staying up
on latest research like if i'm gonna be
releasing an episode that where i unpack
some scholarship then i need to know not
only like the seminal works from years
ago but also what's going on today and
that helps me with the research grants
that i work on but then conversations
like this allow me to learn from the
guests that i interview and it allows me
to make great connections so like
overall like i'm learning a ton through
the process but then it's also like
fulfilling my own interests and wanting
to do a podcast it's pretty neat and i'm
sure that you've gotten a lot out of
each one yeah but i think the best part
about it is you can share it with
everybody and then other people can get
the same amount of it yeah and the
connection snowball so like what i will
do after each interview and like after
we get the episode like ready to go is
all just like hey now that this is
scheduled for publication do you have
any recommendations of future guests and
then i'll get like one or two
introductions and then that leads to
more conversations with people i might
not have ever connected with had i not
had that initial introduction and so
snowballs to like meeting more people
and having interesting conversations so
it's a really good networking thing it's
a really good way of staying on top of
research but then as an introvert it's
also really good for me to get used to
being more public with my own thinking
and getting feedback on that in a much
faster way than i do with all the
publications i've done like some of them
had a publication come out a year ago
that i wrote three years prior like it
takes that long sometimes for like a
book to come out so wow i didn't realize
the publication process can take that
amount of time and i guess longer too at
times yeah so that one was for an edited
handbook and that publication it just
takes a long time when the editors are
trying to corral like 40 academics to
all write 40 different chapters around a
topic area like many academics are very
slow to respond or to fulfill their
obligations so like sometimes it just
takes forever because you send out your
first draft and then
several people will be late on those and
then that delays the reviews and the
reviewers are going to be late on those
reviews so then that delay is when you
can actually start working on your next
draft of it and like it just keeps
snowballing so some of those take
forever like the fastest journal article
i think i wrote was like published in
about a year but most of times it takes
longer than that at least it depends on
the field and the journal or publication
like a podcast episode i could record
today and have it out tomorrow if i
wanted to and get feedback on yeah yeah
yeah i typically do reflection just you
know after something or in my mind or if
i need to i'll write something now
that's a whole nother world when you're
saying it out loud if you're going out
and asking for others to join on a
podcast it's a very cathartic and
therapeutic experience
[Laughter]
yeah it's been a fun experience i
am curious like down the road at some
point when am i going to get some
backlash especially when i talk about
like equity and cs education there are
some people who think we should not talk
about that and because i am i'm still
waiting for that moment where somebody
tries to cancel me because i bring up
equity discussions the equity piece
needs to be discussed now because
it needs to become more equitable
because the longer it takes for it to
not be equitable the deeper the hull
we're digging right and that has some
really heavy
future ramifications down the line it's
worth talking about yeah which is why
i'm putting it out there so where might
people go to connect with you and the
organizations that you work with i
would be able to be connected most
easily via my email address which
is
a-l-i-l-h-o-l-t
baldwin school dot org you can also
reach me at my twitter handle at maker
underscore things so and with that that
concludes this week's episode of the
csk8 podcast i hope you enjoyed this
conversation with addison and i hope you
check out the show notes at
jaredlery.com where there's a bunch of
computer science coding gaming and even
drumming content on my website stay
tuned next week for another episode and
until then i hope you are staying safe
and are having a wonderful week
Guest Bio
Addison Lilholt is currently the Middle School DREAM Lab Coordinator, Chair of the Computer Science & Engineering department, and teacher of CS and Interdisciplinary Design at the Baldwin School. With a background in Project Based Learning and multiple disciplines, he's been teaching for 10+ years in public and private settings. When the pandemic led him to remote learning, he had the chance to re-think classroom structure and gained notoriety among students, parents, and colleagues regarding these new innovative approaches including the gamification of his classes. He turned his computer science class into "The CS Show" which made the screens more acceptable during this challenging time in education. In this podcast he shares the chapters that led him to the path he is on today and has fun discussing many topics around CS in his classroom and beyond.
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