Accessibility and Inclusion in CS Education with Maya Israel

In this interview with Maya Israel, we discuss Maya’s shift from special education into CS education, the importance of universal design for learning (UDL) in CS classes, understanding the spectrum of accessibility for students with a diverse set of needs, the current status of accessibility and inclusion within the field of CS education, problematize deficit framings of students with disabilities, 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 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 having a conversation with

    maya israel and we discussed my shift

    from special education into computer

    science education the importance of

    universal design for learning udl in cs

    classes we also discuss understanding

    the spectrum of accessibility for

    students with a diverse set of needs the

    current status of accessibility and

    inclusion within the field of cs

    education we problematize deficit

    framings of students with disabilities

    and so much more the show notes include

    links to other podcasts that are related

    to this as well as many other resources

    so i recommend checking those out by

    clicking the link in the app that you're

    listening to this on or by going to

    jaredoleary.com on my website you'll

    find a ton of resources related to

    computer science education including a

    link to bootup pd.org which is the

    non-profit that i work for as well as a

    bunch of drumming and gaming content

    because i like to drum and i like the

    game but with all that being said we

    will now begin with an introduction by

    maya i'm maya israel i'm an associate

    professor of educational technology and

    computer science education at the

    university of florida i'm also part of

    an institute called the institute for

    advanced learning technologies and i

    have a lab called the creative

    technologies research lab can you tell

    me the story of how you got into

    computer science education i actually

    started as a special education teacher

    so if you had asked me back in the way

    back i would never say that i was in

    computer science education i ended up

    getting my doctorate in special

    education and i was a faculty of special

    education really interested in

    technology to support kids with

    disabilities and so that's really been

    my passion and my research and one of

    our projects that we were working on we

    were developing educational technologies

    and video games for kids to help them

    understand science standards

    and we wanted to use a participatory

    design approach and so we went into a

    bunch of classrooms and this was like

    way back when ipads were new

    yeah i know i'm aging myself but in any

    case we had copies of like the interface

    of one of the old ipads and we wanted

    kids to

    draw the design of how they would want

    to interact with an app around

    learning science standards and we were

    analyzing those to help inform our

    process long story short i started

    looking at these app designs these just

    you know paper prototypes and they were

    amazing and i had this aha moment which

    is really about why am i designing tech

    for kids if they're so amazing

    at knowing what they want and designing

    for themselves and it really shifted the

    way i was thinking about computer

    science

    and computer science education and so up

    until then i was working with app

    developers and like let's design this

    amazing thing for kids and test it with

    kids and then i shifted towards

    what do kids really need to know and be

    able to do

    in order to design technologies for

    themselves that was around 2011 and it

    just completely shifted my career

    because not only did i have to then

    learn about computer science in general

    i had to learn about how to teach

    computer science and

    because of the population of kids that

    i'm working with how do you teach

    computer science to kids who often

    struggle with learning and so that took

    me down a completely different

    trajectory that i never would have

    imagined back in the way back yeah that

    definitely resonates with me like i took

    a single class in high school and then

    nothing until

    my last semester of my doctorate when

    taking coursework and then i was just

    like it was this class where you would

    code music apps and i was like when is

    this music when is this coding and when

    are they inseparable and

    i

    was looking for a job in the area and

    saw this like random k-8 technology

    position and i went in and was like hey

    instead of teaching like microsoft

    office how about you teach like art

    space coding etc and that like one-off

    little exchange and that little

    suggestion on my behalf led to a

    completely different trajectory in my

    career and that i've been

    in here for eight years now something

    like that so it's funny how like things

    can be a catalyst for change like that

    in careers yeah i think so and i also

    feel like all those previous experiences

    they add up yeah to what it is that you

    do right so the work that i did around

    special education

    instructional strategies and app

    development and gaming and all of that

    is coming into this work just not in the

    way i would imagine it's like you have a

    puzzle

    and you don't know what the puzzle is

    going to look like

    the pieces start to shift right as you

    start to figure out make sense of the

    world with all this new information

    that's coming at you right i'm curious

    if you could elaborate on like how did

    you learn about cs and like how would

    you recommend others learn about cs if

    they are new to the content so i learned

    about cs

    with and from faculty at the university

    of illinois so i connected with folks

    like george reese and then with k-12

    practitioners like todd lash who at the

    time was an elementary school teacher

    doing coding in his school

    and it really was about talking to them

    going into their classroom seeing what

    they were doing and for me that was

    the way in i don't necessarily think as

    a teacher that's the way in because i

    was already a faculty member at the time

    i think right now there's so many

    different entry points into computer

    science education so you think about how

    do you dip your toe and like learn in a

    way and at a pace that makes sense for

    you whether it's with the hour of code

    or whether your school has some kind of

    program or folks that are already doing

    the work i would suggest connecting with

    people that's really the way to do it so

    i made connections but it wasn't as a

    teacher as a teacher i would find the

    people in my school in my district who

    are doing the work and frankly there's

    so many resources through csta and

    online through twitter chats that there

    are ways to do it i think it's

    intimidating when you're just starting

    out especially if you don't have the

    infrastructure so i always say that

    start slow try it out have time for

    yourself to tinker so that you can gain

    the comfort and that's really what i had

    to do because i mean i didn't know

    computer science i had this imposter

    syndrome that many people have in the

    room with folks that knew a lot more

    than i did and it took sitting and

    playing and asking for help and having

    that resilience

    and then also saying okay whatever i'm

    struggling with are the things that my

    students are going to struggle with so

    this experience is really valid and

    really valuable because it's showing me

    where the pain points are yeah i still

    get the imposter syndrome to today

    because it's like well i don't have any

    degrees in this like am i qualified it's

    like wait i've done so many things yes

    i'm qualified like yes there's still

    things to learn but

    doesn't discredit it

    exactly i'm curious with disabilities

    and disability studies it's a very broad

    umbrella term that can mean many things

    like some people when they hear that

    they might think oh you're working with

    people who are like blind like maybe

    doing like some of the stuff with andrea

    steffek what he's doing or maybe it's oh

    i work with children who have autism or

    maybe it's more like a critical

    discourse like type of work where it's

    unpacking ableism and problematizing etc

    like in what way did you specialize

    within disabilities research when i

    started off

    the only options were when i was getting

    my degrees was to get a degree in like

    learning disabilities or behavior

    disorders or you know at the time what

    they called mr which we would never use

    anymore we use intellectual disabilities

    and it's really the wrong approach right

    so

    rather than focusing on instructional

    strategies focused on a group of kids

    what i realized that i was doing even

    though we weren't really talking about

    it at the time is thinking about what

    are the functional needs of kids

    regardless of the labels because i'm

    really not a fan of those labels but

    there are some students who struggle

    with reading there are some students who

    struggle with executive function there

    are some students who have low vision

    but those aren't categories right so the

    strategies that i focus on are like

    addressing those particular functional

    needs regardless

    of disability if that makes sense but

    the main focus

    was on the strategies because i was a

    classroom teacher so i was always

    focused on what is it that i can do to

    support this child feel successful and

    included it intersects a lot with a

    disability's

    advocacy piece so really thinking about

    not problematizing disability really

    looking at the whole child

    understanding that a child comes into a

    classroom with a lot of strengths and

    some challenges and so that's the other

    piece so it's kind of balancing the

    understanding of the pedagogical

    approaches but also advocating for

    inclusion and to not have teachers see

    children as a problem but to see their

    you know full humanity right yeah i

    appreciate that there's

    in some disabilities research it's

    sometimes referred to as like tiny

    timing where you like view somebody from

    a deficit framework and assuming oh

    because you have this disability

    therefore you are lesser than and you

    will never achieve etc but then there's

    also the inverse sometimes called

    supercrip where it's like oh look at you

    you accomplished this thing and despite

    all odds etc so like it's interesting

    looking at the discourse how it

    privatizes both ends of those different

    perspectives it's also interesting

    hearing you say that that makes a lot of

    sense like i read one of your articles

    on universal design for learning that

    was talking about like how you could use

    that in the cs space i'm curious could

    you quickly explain what is universal

    design for learning and then like why

    might that be useful for cs educators to

    know more about so universal design for

    learning is an approach to thinking

    proactively about how to include all

    learners in a classroom environment so

    rather than say here's my lesson plan

    and i'm going to do this other thing i'm

    going to have all these accommodations

    and modifications

    and adaptations to this lesson plan for

    that one kid which tends to otherwise

    those children the idea of udl is at the

    very beginning as i'm starting to plan i

    think about what i want my students to

    know and then i think okay what are

    going to be some of the barriers for

    some of my students what are going to be

    some of the preferences that my students

    are going to want to have and can i

    build an instructional

    lesson or unit that is flexible enough

    to include everybody so in order to do

    that from a udl perspective there are

    these three principles around you know

    how to instill flexibility so for

    example one of the principles is

    multiple means of engagement so knowing

    that your kids are coming into a

    classroom with different motivations

    right and then okay so how am i going to

    engage them and multiple means of

    representation means that students will

    want to access information in different

    ways depending on the content so making

    sure that there are ways for them to

    hear the information and see the

    information and engage with the

    information and then multiple means of

    action and expression which is can we

    think about assessing student learning

    in a way that leverages their strengths

    and doesn't just highlight their areas

    of challenge and so using those three

    principles udl allows us to think more

    broadly and in terms of computer science

    education i think it fits really well

    because we talk a lot about providing

    kids choice and voice and having them

    express themselves and so i think that

    it naturally fits in on the other hand

    it doesn't just happen naturally a lot

    of the features of udl teachers do

    really well but then there are some gaps

    for example in thinking about okay if

    i'm going to

    keep a student engaged i also have to

    help them maintain persistence and for

    some kids that's really hard so how do i

    help them with that and so there are

    strategies for that so i think it's a

    really useful holistic system to think

    about all kids in a cs classroom and it

    doesn't mean that you don't need to

    individualize for certain children under

    certain situations it means that you

    have to do less of it if you're already

    doing that so for example if everybody

    has access to text to speech then you

    don't have to have that as an

    accommodation for one or two kids like

    why wouldn't that be open to everybody

    or if everybody has access

    to

    different metacognitive strategies that

    you're teaching kids about debugging

    then you don't have to explicitly call

    out a certain child who might really

    need that whereas others might also need

    it but not needed as much or not benefit

    from it as much yeah i like that so what

    does

    an accessible and inclusive cs learning

    experience look like for you so the

    first thing

    would go back to what we talked about

    with universal design for learning was

    it designed for all the kids in the

    classroom from a pedagogical perspective

    the second would be are the tools

    accessible and this is a major major

    issue because

    accessibility is not a clear-cut thing

    some tools that are accessible for some

    kids are inaccessible for others and the

    other way around too so there's not this

    like checklist that works for every kid

    but the tools have to be accessible to

    the students in the classroom earlier

    you mentioned steffik and some of his

    work around accessibility and he has the

    quorum programming language and that's a

    fantastic tool for students who are low

    vision i mean he's done some work around

    students with learning disabilities with

    that too and for those students many of

    the programming languages are

    inaccessible especially block-based

    programming environments which you can't

    use any kind of text to speech at all in

    right but for other students the fact

    that the

    scratch blocks for example have

    the color coding that they have and they

    have the organization that they have are

    exactly what they need in order to

    access coding because it helps them

    really think about the organization of

    code and they're also not stuck in the

    syntax of some students with print-based

    disabilities where the syntax would just

    really be a challenge for them so you

    have to think about who your students

    are and then think about accessibility

    for those students in particular so kind

    of this idea of what makes an inclusive

    accessible learning environment is that

    combination of like universal design

    accessibility and then the third piece

    of it

    is that whatever individualized

    needs the student has beyond assistive

    technology accessibility those are in

    place and so for students many of the

    students we work with have

    accommodations have iep goals and so the

    idea of thinking about those needs is

    also a piece of it and then kind of

    surrounding all of it is the fact that

    the students feel like they belong in

    the computer science classroom so that

    sense of belongingness is more than

    inclusion inclusion to me means you're

    in the classroom

    you're accessing the material in the way

    that you're able to but belongingness

    means that you feel like you're part of

    the classroom community and that the

    people in that classroom community see

    you as part of that community as well so

    when i used to teach like pre-service

    and in-service educators one of the

    things that we would frequently talk

    about is like the multi-perspective list

    nature of how you can't address any

    group of students the same way there are

    many approaches that you need to use for

    each individual many pedagogies projects

    ways of differentiating based on tools

    etc but that can be difficult to

    teach sometimes to

    other educators i'm curious if you have

    any strategies or suggestions for how to

    help educators work with a variety of

    students and consider

    while this tool might be very accessible

    for one student it is completely

    inaccessible for another and vice versa

    for other tools yeah that's a good

    question advice for other teachers i

    think what i would say

    is to start with

    some mindsets

    before we get into the pedagogies to me

    the idea that you have to really believe

    and commit

    to

    including all kids for many teachers we

    have this internal dialogue about you

    know this kid is successful this kid's

    doing great this kid's gonna go

    someplace and this kid is not and we may

    not say it out loud and so but it

    informs the way that we interact with

    kids and so this mindset of

    all kids belong here and have a right to

    be here and kind of questioning our

    assumptions

    about that when we're looking across the

    classroom and say you know i don't know

    that this kid really belongs in my

    classroom and unpacking that i think is

    the first step those mindsets are a

    place to start the second piece of that

    which is also a mindset is assuming

    competence before we can do anything we

    need to like know that our kids are able

    and capable and a lot of the mistakes

    that i see teachers make is that they

    want their students with disabilities to

    be successful so

    they over support they over scaffold

    they over teach and it doesn't give

    students the flexibility and the

    permission to fail and to create and to

    engage in computing in ways that other

    kids do because we're trying so hard to

    protect them and so this idea of

    assuming competence allows

    a teacher to say all right let's just

    see where this kid is and let's use the

    kid inform me in terms of what he or she

    needs before i you know do anything and

    then kind of the next step is to think

    about udl and assistive technology and

    to think about who are the people around

    that can help so as a computer science

    teacher or a general education teacher

    who's teaching computing there are other

    people in the school building that can

    be really helpful so bringing in the

    special education teachers bringing in

    the assistive technology coaches is a

    step to not have to know everything

    because there typically are if you look

    resources for teachers to go to and then

    you know you take your time you talk to

    the students you talk to the students

    families and you work it out together so

    the idea is you don't have to have all

    the answers you just have to have the

    curiosity and the commitment to help and

    to support a child excellent answer i

    hope people go back and listen to those

    different ideas that were given like

    especially the first part you're talking

    about with unpacking the mindsets and

    the biases that we might have i think it

    was both dweck and duckworth who

    mentioned their studies that would have

    pre-assigned labels on the students as

    like this kid is going to excel or this

    kid is going to be a future leader and

    then like vice versa and they would just

    randomly assign those labels to people

    and the teacher would like find that

    confirmation bias of oh yes that person

    is going to fail in life or oh yes that

    person is going to succeed regardless of

    if that was just an arbitrary random

    assignment or whatnot so it's really

    interesting how those preconceived

    notions have a huge impact on like how

    we help kids and what teachers think

    about them and we all have it right so

    the idea is is to acknowledge that you

    know we come into a classroom with our

    own backgrounds and our own biases and

    our own previous experiences that inform

    the way we interact with kids and so we

    have to question those assumptions

    constantly and i have to do the same

    thing you know in terms of i walk into a

    classroom and because i do a lot of

    research studies in these areas i know a

    lot about the kids that i'm about to

    interact with and many times that's not

    always a good thing and so making sure

    that i'm able to check myself and really

    see this child and let the child inform

    what happens is important yeah and

    especially with assuming competence in

    anything related to technology there's

    often this like assumption from a lot of

    educators where it's like oh well kids

    are always on tick tock and playing

    video games et cetera like so therefore

    they understand computer science it's

    like well there's a difference between

    using a device and you know being able

    to program a device like those are two

    different sets of skills and

    understandings exactly but there's also

    like what you mentioned with the over

    supporting though especially when any

    kind of disability label is applied

    there's this like fear of well i want to

    make sure i help them and so there is

    that tendency to over support as opposed

    to under supporting like it's that weird

    hard balance to provide once that label

    is slapped onto it so there's a term in

    special education called least to most

    prompting and i find it useful even

    though i'm not using it in exactly the

    correct context but the idea of least to

    most prompting is that you start with

    the least amount of intervention that a

    child needs in order to be successful

    it's almost like a dial that you turn up

    as a child needs the support and then

    you can turn the dial down a child like

    gains more competence and becomes more

    expert in their own learning and so i

    like that analogy of the dial and i like

    the idea of least to most because it

    does assume competency we don't want to

    over support if we don't need it right

    if we go to the doctor and we've got a

    headache you know we don't automatically

    go to the most intensive intervention we

    see if there's something we can do you

    know sometimes deep breathing will do it

    for us right because i've got anxiety

    and the anxiety is going to give me a

    headache i don't automatically need to

    go to like a very

    you know major kind of drug intervention

    unless it's needed so you're saying i

    shouldn't have gotten a lobotomy for my

    headache

    it depends on the week i guess

    there's some weeks

    [Laughter]

    so if we think broadly and

    kind of generalize here where do you

    think that cs educators

    as a field are doing really well and

    then where is their room to grow when it

    comes to

    accessibility and inclusivity i feel

    like we are

    much further ahead now than we were five

    years ago in our conversation around the

    inclusion of kids with disabilities

    when we were starting this work back in

    students with disabilities was just not

    part of the computer science education

    cs for all conversation and so i feel

    like we are in a much better place as a

    community around the discourse related

    to

    inclusion of kids with disabilities i

    feel like

    we also have a lot of resources that

    were developed outside of computer

    science education that teachers are

    using in applying in computer science

    education and universal design for

    learning is an example of that it wasn't

    developed for cs education but teachers

    are using it in the context of cs

    education so we have a lot of literature

    and research studies and practice based

    approaches that we can use in computer

    science and that's a good thing where i

    think we have a long way to go is in

    like how do we

    take these strategies and really show

    teachers how to apply them in the

    context of cs education so those

    teachers right now who know those

    strategies really well they can adapt

    them to computer science fairly

    painlessly but if you're new to those

    inclusive practices there's not a lot

    out there to help you

    apply those in computer science

    education so i think we've got a long

    way to go there so we're doing some of

    that work but we need a

    more people who are doing this work to

    do it together to be able to build this

    knowledge base and the resources for

    teachers so what does a udl basis lesson

    plan look like for example or how do we

    think about scaffolding or teaching

    debugging in a more explicit way

    those are things that we still have a

    ways to go but we're getting there i

    feel like we are now compared to five

    six seven years ago is fantastic so i

    think that folks should feel really

    encouraged about it the other place i

    think we're doing really well is in

    almost every conversation i have with

    school districts and teachers they are

    committed to inclusion they really want

    to do the right thing for students and

    so

    they're coming to professional

    development and they're coming to

    learning with many of the mindsets we've

    already talked about because they're in

    they just want to be able to have the

    knowledge and skills to help them meet

    the needs of all kids so that to me is a

    major accomplishment and a good thing

    for us to remember so you mentioned that

    overall we're better on discourse but

    but do you feel like there's action

    funding and policy that supports that

    discourse because often with like i

    think of dei work in particular the

    conversation might be more than it was

    previously but the action and the

    funding and the policies that support

    what's actually being talked about

    might be where it was previously and i'm

    not sure if that's the same with

    disability research and whatnot the

    funding is definitely

    starting to emerge

    and not only that but both the national

    science foundation and the department of

    education ies have put out calls and

    have sent the messaging that they want

    research

    related to students with disabilities in

    computer science education so there are

    been a couple of dear colleague letters

    where they say you know please please

    consider

    submitting proposals here are some

    funding priorities related to disability

    and it's not that there is like one pot

    of money that's a disability pot it's

    actually the idea is within all of these

    funding competitions at the nsf drk 12 i

    test

    cs for all there are priorities specific

    to students with disabilities and there

    are folks there who are program officers

    who are committed to

    shepherding in good proposals that will

    lead to strong research us and that's

    been going on for several years i'm

    feeling pretty positive about at least

    at the nsf and the ies that there is a

    commitment to funding these kinds of

    studies we definitely need some

    additional advocacy if we think about

    like philanthropic gift or corporate

    donations or any foundation funds where

    it would be really nice to advocate for

    those kinds of funds as well so a lot of

    the programs that are being developed

    and are using some of these funds there

    isn't as much of a focus on

    accessibility and inclusion so it would

    be wonderful if some of those rfas or

    some of those priorities it's a yes

    we'll fund you here's all this money

    because you're going to create these

    amazing resources to be used in schools

    but you have to consider accessibility

    and inclusion that to me would be a

    major step forward too because a lot of

    the curricula and tools that are

    available in classrooms in cs education

    aren't being developed just with nsf

    funds or other funding sources that that

    is not a priority for and even within

    nsf you can

    apply

    and build something where accessibility

    is not a priority so even though the

    funds are available to look at students

    with disabilities it's certainly not a

    requirement when it comes to developing

    tools and resources for classrooms it's

    good that they're

    matching action with word at least from

    a national level i am curious if there

    are

    whether it be like a cse researcher or

    just a cs educator in a k-12 context

    there might be

    the imposter syndrome that comes with it

    with like okay but i don't have degrees

    in special education

    i'm an advocate i want to help i want to

    do research i want to make sure when i

    say cs4 i really do mean cs4 but where

    would you recommend people go to learn

    more whether it's like books or

    organizations or articles or whatever so

    the first thing i would say is partner

    with people around you so

    that is important if you're going to do

    this kind of work it's helpful to not

    just look it up and read about it but

    actually connect with people some of the

    most impactful that work that happens in

    our field is because people talk to each

    other and they work together and they

    bring in their shared understanding that

    would be the first place i would go to

    cast ass.org i'll send you

    some things that you can add in the show

    notes or whatever but cast will have a

    lot of resources around universal design

    for learning our lab website will have a

    lot of resources around udl and computer

    science education

    there have been some articles and some

    book chapters that have been written in

    this area so there is a place to find it

    thankfully because it's such a new field

    there's not a ton so you probably won't

    feel overwhelmed by looking at the

    material but what i'd say is i mean more

    than anything it's about those

    partnerships i think i worry

    when i see researchers do this kind of

    work where they don't have somebody who

    understands disability on their teams

    just like when i see cs ed work and i

    see computer scientists that don't have

    education background in general i get a

    little bit worried as well because it's

    important for us to put a team together

    that really has that expertise otherwise

    you end up making bias and other things

    into your work without even knowing it

    what are some of the biases or

    misconceptions that people often have

    when working with students with

    disabilities so one of my pet peeves

    that i hear a lot is if only they

    weren't so low they could x

    and so this idea i know it like i hear

    it a lot and it's shocking because

    people will talk to me knowing the fact

    that i do this work and they're trying

    to explain to me why a child isn't doing

    well in their class and so the

    misconception is the child isn't

    performing well in the classroom because

    of something that's internal and

    inherent to themselves

    rather than something that is designed

    into instruction usually when a child

    isn't succeeding in the classroom the

    first thing i do i think okay what's not

    working here what's not working in the

    environment in the way i'm teaching in

    the materials

    and so i don't think well this kit it's

    just too low to get it but that often is

    where folks will go

    when a child is not succeeding in the

    classroom we have to really shift the

    way we think about how to evaluate

    success and whether

    a child performing well is because of

    something inherent within them or

    whether they are within the right

    conditions to be able to show that they

    understand what they know i just had a

    lot of flashbacks to when i used to

    teach

    music and drumline and whatnot i would

    have parents come up to me and be like

    well the previous music teacher said my

    child would never be good at music

    because they didn't have an innate

    ability and i was like i'm gonna prove

    them wrong with that statement that is

    not true i was terrible when i started

    and it took a lot of effort and i got

    better but like to just label somebody

    as basically incapable of doing

    something right off the bat is just

    highly inappropriate so yeah sorry

    having flashbacks yeah and to attribute

    that to something that's internal to the

    child rather than the conditions right

    because there are a lot of things that

    we can do i was working in one classroom

    and there was this young boy there who

    by the way loved playing computer games

    so i knew he was like he played these

    math games all the time but he was also

    non-verbal and so he couldn't

    communicate what he wanted to do and

    we were doing some coding and he was

    completely disengaged from the coding

    activity and there was a para educator

    sitting with them really well-meaning

    person who was trying to help him out

    and essentially took over the computer

    and was telling him what she was doing

    and

    he just was like completely uninterested

    in listening to this adult play on the

    computer and one of the only things we

    did is we asked her to keep our hands

    off the computer and to just talk to him

    you know about what to do and just the

    simple intervention of like hands off

    the computer he starts to you know get

    more engaged in the activity so the idea

    is you know here's a child who couldn't

    communicate what he wanted to do an

    adult who was very well meaning who was

    like well let me help you and what the

    adult did made the situation worse

    because like why would any kid want to

    watch a grown up on scratch

    i just can't imagine

    you know

    the idea of this child isn't disengaged

    because of the disability the child was

    disengaged because he just wasn't

    interested in what the adult was doing

    and the activity as it was designed and

    so we had to change the way we were

    doing things and then you know it wasn't

    the only thing we could do but it was

    certainly a piece of it yeah and the way

    that you just frame that can be applied

    to anyone with or without disabilities

    like i've seen so many instances where

    kids were not engaged at all and then

    you simply reframe the context apply it

    in a way that's of interest to them and

    suddenly they can't stop doing whatever

    that is right and that's the whole idea

    of udl right you're doing something

    because you want to increase the range

    of kids that you're getting and in the

    meantime it's not just good for students

    with disabilities it's really a good

    framework for all the students because

    we want to engage all the kids and we

    can't assume that they're going to be

    engaged by one way of learning that is

    the way that we like to learn right what

    do you wish more people understood about

    your own research many people look at my

    research and rightfully think that i

    focus on students with disabilities

    but the idea is that it's really focused

    on designing instruction for all kids so

    the idea of inclusive instruction and

    that udl isn't just about students with

    disabilities but it's a certainly a step

    towards inclusion of kids with

    disabilities in computer science

    education so i think that's one thing i

    wish people knew the other thing i would

    say is that even though i use

    udl because it seems to be catchy and

    people know about udl that there are a

    lot of other instructional strategies

    that i'm working on and that come from

    other areas so for example we do a lot

    of work on something called high

    leverage practices and so these are like

    strategies that we know are impactful

    for kids with disabilities and so and

    high leverage practices is something

    that is a well-known area in special

    education but isn't as well known in

    computer science education so that

    there's more to inclusion than just

    universal design for learning yeah i

    appreciate the nuance in that answer i

    did a podcast episode where i unpacked a

    chapter by thomas rogelski and he refers

    to a concept of methodology which is an

    idea basically where you put on these

    blinders you buy into a method at the

    all cost of not looking at anything else

    and so there is a tendency for some

    people to look at something like udl and

    go okay this is it i don't need to look

    at anything else and it's like well it

    depends on the context and there's

    always more to learn and different

    approaches and like udl 10 years from

    now is going to look different because

    we're going to learn more etc so it's

    helpful to keep looking for expanding

    upon what you can currently do yeah

    exactly what has surprised you about

    your own research what surprised me is

    that people are so open to it that was

    maybe it was overly cynical coming into

    this community and my own assumptions

    about computer science education feeling

    like an outsider when i first came in

    just feeling like i'm just a special ed

    person like they're using that word just

    again like you know in this space i felt

    like a real outsider and thinking about

    inclusion of kids with disabilities what

    surprised me is that folks that i speak

    with get it and they're like we're in

    this is great absolutely cs4 all means

    all and what can we do that to me has

    been really surprising in terms of just

    the acceptance of this work in the

    computer science education field it

    shouldn't have surprised me but it did

    and within schools there's been a lot of

    acceptance because there's such a

    critical need and so teachers get it but

    i was really pleasantly surprised that

    the research community has been so in to

    this work as well have you experienced

    any pushback on anything that you've

    recommended yeah so the pushback is all

    about implementation right so yes we get

    it inclusion it's important but it's

    going to take time it's going to take

    resources and oh this tool is not

    accessible and designers don't want to

    do the work to make it accessible and i

    won't put anybody under the bus

    there but that's where the pushback

    comes is like kind of in the

    implementation because it's easy to say

    yes we're committed to inclusion but

    what does it actually take to make that

    happen

    does the professional development that's

    offered to all kids actually prepare

    them to meet the needs of all students

    are the tools and curricula being

    evaluated based on accessibility is

    there

    time for teachers to work together and

    to collaborate around inclusion like in

    co-teaching and co-planning and so those

    are kind of systemic challenges that are

    difficult so i understand that

    and so i completely understand the

    pushback but it's there we're working on

    it now if you were handed a magic wand

    that'd allow you to change something

    about cs education what change would you

    make and why

    a couple of well there are many things i

    would do

    the first is i would bring cs into

    pre-service in a much more active way so

    thinking about what it takes for a

    computer science teacher to be

    successful in the classroom we're often

    doing a lot of professional development

    because computer science teachers are

    new to computer science but what if they

    actually came to computer science with

    some background so even if you don't

    have a lot of computer science at least

    having that exposure and what if

    those pre-service programs teach cs from

    a udl and accessibility perspective so

    we're putting out computer science

    teachers or teachers who understand

    computing who already have these

    mindsets in place and understand

    universal design for learning to me that

    would go a long way so that then the

    professional development and the

    mentoring and induction that happens in

    schools doesn't have to start at 101

    right and then at the same time it would

    be really wonderful if all the fabulous

    pd that's happening around the country

    really considered inclusion and

    accessibility from the get-go rather

    than as an add-on or like one session

    but if you think about pd

    you really want to talk about inclusion

    it's got to be baked in just like udl is

    proactively baked into every lesson

    right having that baked into the pd so

    that it's not an add-on would go a

    really long way yeah i am curious to see

    how organizations like the non-profit i

    work at is going to change 10 years from

    now when like we have teachers coming

    into the workforce who actually have

    prior experience programming whether it

    be in their k-12 tenure or in university

    level like it's going to

    completely change the way that

    organizations like us approach things

    because right now the general assumption

    for most districts is there's very

    limited prior experience if any yeah

    exactly and that's changing so

    cs4all has cs for ed right now the

    andalizers group and that's they're

    advocating for

    funding for pre-service teacher

    preparation and university of florida

    we've been really lucky to get one of

    these programs funded from the griffin

    foundation so we're bringing computer

    science into pre-service teacher

    preparation and really thinking about

    udl from the very beginning and so for

    me it's a start but we need all these

    universities to jump on board too so i'm

    really hoping that part of the work that

    we're going to get to do with the

    griffin initiative is to be able to

    develop some resources that we can share

    with other pre-service programs as well

    in this area because there is such a

    need but yeah it will be interesting

    five years from now having this

    conversation and seeing how pd is

    shifting if we can do a really good job

    at the pre-service level with this

    yeah how do you practice or iterate on

    your own abilities whether it's like in

    education or as a researcher or in

    computer science well there's not nearly

    enough time to do kind of the

    self-reflection and the self-learning

    that i need to do but generally

    a lot of the advice that i've given

    teachers is the advice that i try to

    take which is connect with people learn

    from the people around me and read as

    much as i possibly can and so

    conversations that i have with folks in

    other areas are informing the way that i

    conduct my research studies and so for

    example you know coming into this work i

    didn't have a lot of background in data

    analytics it just wasn't part of my

    training in university it wasn't part of

    my initial research studies but doing

    the csed research and being able to have

    access to things like log files allows

    me to really dig deep into kind of the

    behaviors and the problem solving that

    students engage in and so it requires me

    to work with people who have that

    expertise

    and to extend my own understanding of

    you know different sequence mining

    approaches that i'm not familiar with

    and so i'm reading a lot of papers

    in areas that are new to me that are

    super exciting but also i'm like oh man

    i've got to learn this whole new area

    and that's okay because i don't have to

    know it all i don't have to know it

    immediately i have people i can go to i

    can read and i can ask questions and so

    it really is that same advice that we

    were just talking about like you don't

    have to have all the answers you just

    have to find collaborators who will work

    with you and teach you and you can

    hopefully teach them something too yeah

    i like that whenever we'd have like a

    new cohort of doc students come into the

    program we would often have like a just

    of informal lunch conversations and a

    question would always arise of like what

    advice would you recommend and from my

    perspective the advice that i always

    gave was read outside of the field it's

    great that you can cite like the seminal

    papers within music education but it is

    so beneficial to read outside of the

    field like to get these different

    perspectives and bring it in like that

    is beneficial for you as an individual

    but it's also beneficial for the field

    so being a professor

    is difficult in terms of like the

    workload that you have to do as a

    scholar as an educator etc but then also

    being a professor who's exploring

    multiple domains and areas of study it

    can be very draining and just education

    in general is a hard field to work in so

    i'm curious how do you take care of

    yourself and try and prevent the burnout

    that can come working in a field like

    this i'll start by saying i feel like

    this is privileged work to be able to

    work in academia and ask the questions

    that i think are really important and

    engage with folks who also find those

    questions important to me it just feels

    like a privilege to get to do this kind

    of work at the same time like you said

    it's a whole lot of privileged work so

    it's a lot of work and so i feel like

    you have to

    protect your time

    and you have to say no sometimes which

    is difficult to do especially in

    education when you're committed to

    systems change and students with

    disabilities and so i don't know that i

    have a great answer for it except for

    that i try to balance

    and i don't always do a very good job of

    it but you know there are a few things

    i'm learning from my colleagues like i

    try really hard to not have meetings on

    wednesdays even though we're speaking on

    a wednesday

    you know i was able to spend this

    morning just doing work and not having a

    ton of meetings and so i was able to

    actually like sit in the work and

    sometimes what ends up happening is that

    we're so busy that we don't actually get

    to do the work or just running from

    meeting to meeting and so carving out

    those times

    and protecting those times is really

    important at the same time also

    recognizing that there is life outside

    of work is also really important and so

    what i try to do is you know make sure

    that my entire identity isn't tied to

    being a researcher faculty member so

    i read a lot of fiction things that have

    nothing to do with computer science

    you know i try to get outside you know

    all of those things that we know we have

    to do to kind of maintain that balance

    it depends on the day and the week how

    well i do with it yeah i also have like

    a deep work practice in that i try and

    schedule about two hours at the start of

    the day before i have meetings before i

    check email where i'm just engaged and

    work on something whatever it is that's

    like a big upcoming project and that has

    been very helpful the idea of like

    having an identity outside of work is

    something that i've had to work through

    with a therapist like try and reconcile

    that and like now

    i'm like sharing my

    music and video game identities much

    more publicly and i've never done that

    before and that is like part of

    a process for me for like reconciling

    all these identities and just being more

    open and be like hey i don't just do

    computer science i also do these other

    things and they're part of what

    makes me who i am yeah there's like an

    entire

    space on instagram that is filled with

    people who are bookish people and so

    it's like an amazing thing to connect

    with people on something that has

    nothing to do with computer science and

    it's like completely nerdy bookish

    conversations where you're like i just

    read this amazing book who else has read

    it and they're like this is great and

    what a gorgeous book cover and so i

    think it's really healthy to do that and

    it's also good to model that for

    our students too who are coming in and

    they're you know part of the grind and

    they're trying to get through their

    qualifying exams and to publish all the

    papers and to get their cvs ready so

    that they can be competitive and so it's

    really important to recognize that

    that's not the only part of your life

    when you look back on your life nobody

    says i don't think i wish i'd worked

    more

    right so the work's important the work

    is privileged but it's not the only

    thing that makes up your life yeah my

    first therapist had experience working

    in hospice and that was one of the

    things that she had said to me and it

    did not really connect with me

    when i heard it at the time this was

    during undergrad and when i was like

    really getting started with career etc

    and i was so driven but now i'm like oh

    i get what she was saying many years ago

    yeah and those people are amazing folks

    who do that work talk about difficult

    but necessary and absolutely critical

    work for people and their families so

    yeah i could see they definitely need to

    disengage from that because it's the

    emotional toll of that is something yeah

    and i don't know if you've been to it

    but i have a colleague who recommends

    goodreads it's a website that is oh yeah

    okay so you're on it i'm all in for

    goodreads oh yeah i'm on you can find me

    what recommendations do you have for

    improving equity and inclusion in cs

    education so one of the things i would

    do is look for the csta standards for cs

    teachers and their advocacy

    and equity standards

    i think that's a really good place for

    us to go to and thinking about how to

    improve our own professional learning

    when it comes to access and inclusion

    those standards were written to support

    teachers along the trajectory from like

    being a brand new teacher all the way

    through you know teachers who've been

    doing this for a while but the idea of

    using those standards and reflecting on

    those standards in your own practice

    like are we minimizing threats to

    inclusion for example

    are we you know looking at accessible

    materials so i think that that's a

    really good place to go to if you're

    trying to improve your practice and then

    you can pull out the resources that are

    available and then you know be more

    strategic in terms of how you're

    addressing that within your own practice

    yeah and i'll make sure to include a

    link to those in the show notes what do

    you wish there's more research on that

    can inform your own practices i wish

    there were more longitudinal studies so

    the way that research is currently

    funded

    doesn't really allow for that so if we

    do

    work with kids at the elementary level

    and we see their learning and engagement

    increase what does that look like for

    that student as they move from

    elementary to middle to high school to

    post high school career decisions to me

    is critical because knowing where those

    points are those pain points

    is important but we really don't know

    and so i can tell you a snapshot in time

    what's working and not working for a

    child or a teacher in a classroom but i

    really cannot tell you anything about

    the long-term outcomes of that to me

    that's critical and we have these in

    disciplines that have been around longer

    in terms of mathematics education there

    are some of these more longitudinal

    studies but even in those fields those

    are difficult to do to me that's an area

    that

    i really wish we had it would inform my

    practice a whole lot the other thing i

    wish i had is very fine-grained data

    around the participation of students

    with disabilities in different programs

    so it's very difficult to get that

    because of obviously we have to protect

    the confidentiality of students and it's

    really important to do that but knowing

    for example who's in computer science

    not just by gender which we have

    or socioeconomics or race ethnicity but

    also by disability status would be

    really helpful and we're getting some of

    that in school districts where we have

    some data agreements but having wide

    scale data and not just disability but

    let's just say learning disability

    versus autism versus behavior disorder

    and then intersectional data if you

    happen to be a girl

    with a behavior disorder who is from a

    rural environment right those are

    intersections that make a difference

    because disability doesn't live in

    isolation and humans aren't like one

    thing we're like these complex

    intersectional beings i really wish we

    had that data because if i knew what

    that data was i would be able to look at

    systems change in a more proactive way

    we're doing some of that like i said

    right now as part of the udl for cs

    project but it's really tedious slow

    work because this data is not readily

    available yeah that would be nice we're

    in some of the upcoming grants i'm doing

    we're trying to get more dialed in more

    fine-tuned with that data but it's like

    even nces data doesn't like

    differentiate outside of the binary of

    male and female for gender so like we're

    not even there yet let alone getting

    into different types of disabilities and

    whatnot so much to improve there yeah we

    have a long way to go right it would

    make a huge difference though having

    that kind of data because i mean it was

    so helpful with the ap data so thinking

    about barb erickson's work for example

    it's great to be able to have that

    metric that she has for apcs courses and

    to be able to look at that over time and

    then to see change in that as we do more

    to include more girls to include more

    people from different backgrounds right

    we just aren't there yet with disability

    and we may not be because of the

    protections that are in place yeah well

    and then with the longitudinal side of

    things like you're mentioning funding

    doesn't support it but also the tenure

    process doesn't necessarily support

    longitudinal it supports quantity of

    publication and so people tend to go

    with short studies or surveys rather

    than something longitudinal absolutely

    so i'm like i said very privileged to

    already have tenure so i have the time

    luckily but those early studies you know

    those first kind of hustle years you

    definitely can't take the time to do

    long-term studies because you have to

    get as many out and i mean obviously

    they have to be quality studies but you

    can't actually it's very chancy to do

    longitudinal work when you have to

    produce a lot of research studies right

    what's something that you're working on

    that you could use help with from a

    listener if there are listeners out

    there who are doing work with students

    with disabilities in computer science

    education i'd love to hear about that

    because one of the things i want to be

    able to do is highlight stories so

    thinking about you know what are

    strategies and you know knowing the

    barriers that we've talked about what

    are some ways that teachers or schools

    or school districts are overcoming some

    of those barriers that others

    can learn from to me that would be

    amazing because collecting those stories

    and highlighting that work to me would

    be really impactful i think that would

    be fantastic i'd love to highlight and

    elevate those stories what questions do

    you have for myself for for the field i

    think questions for the field are like

    what do folks need in order to

    help them include students with

    disabilities

    so there are some things that

    i know but i like we talked about

    earlier the things we know are the

    things that we see in front of us right

    and so being able to say you know for

    folks who are really committed to this

    what are the pain points and what are

    the barriers that they're facing would

    be really helpful it also would be

    important or helpful to know in

    situations that are working well this

    kind of goes back to the last thing what

    is it that they're doing that's working

    really well because we want to learn

    from that as well to me that's as

    important as understanding what the

    barriers are because there's good work

    happening and we want to learn from that

    as well and then what would it take for

    them to be able to include kids with

    disabilities so is it that they need

    more pd

    is it that they need advocacy at the

    state level or you know whatever it is

    that folks feel like they need that

    they're not getting those are things

    that would be helpful for me to know so

    right now i have this cs4all research

    practice partnership with several large

    school districts where we're trying to

    understand what those barriers are and

    trying to understand what some of those

    pathways are as well and so any of those

    types of that kind of knowledge would be

    really helpful to gather as part of this

    work cool so where might people go to

    connect with you and the organizations

    that you work with yep so you can find

    me at the creative technology research

    lab at the university of florida i'm

    also on twitter at m israel09 but

    generally if you look me up at the

    university of florida you'll be able to

    find my work there and with that that

    concludes this week's episode of the

    cska podcast i really hope you enjoyed

    listening to this interview and i hope

    you consider sharing with somebody else

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    the show notes at jared o'leary.com as

    well as a bunch of other resources

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