Teaching AI in Elementary School with Charlotte Dungan

In this interview with Charlotte Dungan, we discuss Charlotte’s holistic approach to education, remotely teaching CS to rural communities, why Charlotte believes teaching is harder than working in industry, teaching AI in elementary school, the influence of money on research and practice, the future of work, and 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 interview with a

    guest or multiple guests in this week's

    episode i'm speaking with charlotte

    dungan where we discuss charlotte's

    holistic approach to education remotely

    teaching computer science to rural

    communities before covet and after why

    charlotte believes teaching is harder

    than working in industry teaching ai in

    elementary school the influence of money

    on research and practice the future of

    work and so much more if you want to

    find podcasts similar to this one or

    some resources that were mentioned like

    some of the websites that charlotte

    mentioned make sure you check out the

    show notes at jaredoliri.com or by

    clicking the link in the app that you're

    listening to this on on my website

    you'll find a ton of computer science

    education resources as well as a link to

    boot up pd.org which is the nonprofit

    that powers this podcast and the

    nonprofit that i work for you'll also

    find a bunch of gaming and drumming

    content cause i'm a nerd and i like to

    stream and create content in my leisure

    not just for my day job but with all

    that being said we will now begin with

    an introduction by charlotte hi i'm

    charlotte dungan i am currently director

    of implementation at aiedu that's the ai

    education project we are interested

    in ensuring that everyone has access to

    ai education and prior to working at ai

    edu i have worked all the way through

    from pre-k all the way to adult

    education and i have been very fortunate

    to both be a computer programmer and

    teach computer science throughout the

    grade span and i went to harvard

    university for a degree in learning and

    teaching and i've been really fortunate

    to have learned some great theory and

    constructionism through karen brennan

    and she has done work with mit

    and all the scratch that you've seen is

    through them too so i feel like i blend

    a great amount of theory and practice

    and the actual real world of coding

    having been a database developer and web

    developer for about 10 years and so here

    i am now talking to you about ai

    education in the k-8 space so can you

    tell me the story of how you went from

    being a developer to

    working in computer science education

    sure so i really liked what i did

    actually i loved developing databases in

    particular making sure they were secure

    and i then i had a baby and then i had

    another baby and as i was looking around

    with these three and one year old i was

    like i don't actually see a school that

    i'm really excited to send them to and

    why is that i wanted them to have a

    really

    hands-on

    child-led

    adult-guided approach to education i

    wanted them to have opportunities to

    explore at their own pace whether that

    be faster or slower than what is the

    average and so i went back and i got a

    teaching degree i actually have

    concentrations in english and history in

    k-12 and i taught at a small alternative

    elementary school in ohio called the

    antioch school i was just a teaching

    assistant when i started and i worked in

    the pre-k classroom and i learned there

    how to observe children and really delve

    deeply into how they learn and they

    learn by play and i was really grateful

    to have started my education as an adult

    learner there and then from there i just

    expanded out you know but it was really

    wanting something different for my own

    kids and then building it how did you

    know that that approach was what you

    preferred and i asked this because like

    most of my experience in education was

    not that but the few times that i

    actually had that hands-on like

    interest-driven approach it just worked

    so well but it was like the minority of

    my experiences so how did you know that

    that would work great for your kids when

    the pervasive approach is not that i

    think i was very influenced having grown

    up in an inner city context with a

    single parent

    my mom

    worked at a grocery store she was a

    bagger she was disabled so she had very

    limited opportunities i had a series of

    step-dads and the one that i consider

    dad he didn't know how to read and so

    although i was occasionally labeled

    gifted i was also like bounced through

    the system up and down extra

    opportunities no opportunities and i

    really wanted to

    make sure that my best experiences the

    ones where i had a summer camp where i

    got to delve into math and actually

    build something that was related to math

    or like those really inspiring teachers

    that i had i wanted them to not bounce

    around i wanted my own kids to not

    bounce around but i also knew that the

    way that people learn best is actually

    by doing and i don't see schools having

    the resources always to do that i think

    there are lots of really good people who

    want to do what they can for kids but

    they have a lot of constraints and so i

    was looking for how i could you know

    paddle a different kind of boat and i

    feel like public education in america is

    a very big cruise ship and i had one

    tiny tiny ore and so i wanted to figure

    out how i could maybe make a smaller

    boat in a better direction and also not

    forgetting that there are kids who don't

    have access to all kinds of resources

    right like i knew that i didn't have

    opportunities and options as a kid but i

    wanted that to be true for more kids

    that they would have more opportunities

    and options whether or not they came

    from a family that had ability to

    provide those the things i've been

    fascinated with when interviewing

    different guests is kind of hearing

    how

    what they thought when they started with

    education might differ from what they

    view right now so when the things that i

    believed and i understood when i first

    went and started teaching like my senior

    year of high school it's very different

    than i believe now so i'm curious for

    you like what's something that you

    believe when you first began working in

    education that you no longer believe the

    first

    week that i started teaching high school

    computer science i had a teacher tell me

    because i will only teach these students

    one semester there's no way

    that you can change your life like

    that's far too aspirational you may be

    able to impart some knowledge but don't

    aim for that great thing of changing

    someone's life and that teacher was

    wrong you have great power and

    responsibility to mentor the students

    that you encounter and the ones who are

    changed forever they may not be the ones

    that you expect when they walk in the

    door but you do have that power in one

    semester in one computer science class

    to fundamentally alter what kids believe

    is possible for themselves i'm glad that

    that's shifted for me that i

    didn't listen to that teacher and then i

    held on to that idealism because i think

    it's still true i wonder what the

    catalyst was for them to believe that

    just me kind of thinking out loud

    because i am here today i am alive today

    because of good educators i've had in my

    life having been

    suicidal and chronic depression and

    whatnot like music and the music

    educators in my lives is literally the

    reason why i'm alive today so that's

    something that has obviously had a

    profound impact on myself so it's

    something that i've been aware of as

    well like sometimes you don't even

    realize how much of an impact you're

    having on students and then a few years

    down the road when you've no longer

    worked with them they'll come back and

    be like hey you had a profound impact on

    my life you might not even realize it in

    the moment yeah that's really cool it's

    one of the best reasons to work in

    education it's to be that for someone

    else when they were that for you yeah so

    one really interesting things that we

    had talked about previously prior to

    recording this was you talked about how

    you kind of worked with

    a variety of different schools and rural

    contexts and whatnot so i'm curious like

    could you explain what that is like how

    you're able to provide cs education to

    so many different rural schools sure so

    i am in north carolina and north

    carolina has a school called the north

    carolina school of science and

    mathematics it is a public residential

    high school that also has an online

    program where students in 11th and 12th

    grade apply to attend and they are

    typically

    the highest performing students in their

    region so if you're from a great

    metropolis you're not competing from

    with someone who's in the farm

    area they are divided up by

    congressional district and they try to

    keep it really fair everybody gets an

    equal number of slots so in addition to

    the application process ncssm the school

    offers a program that they call open

    enrollment and that is where

    a school can identify a student who is

    not joining the 11th and 12th grade

    program to have enrichment courses and

    those are taught by ncssm faculty so i

    was hired not only to teach computer

    science which i did but to create a

    program called stem scholars and that

    was to better prepare students in ninth

    and tenth grade to have computer science

    and other high-level courses so they

    always took computer science and then

    they were offered other higher level

    might be a math enrichment or a science

    enrichment course so that they had more

    opportunities to shine prior to applying

    to ncssm so these were schools that were

    targeted specifically for being very

    rural title one often they were really

    small like the whole 10th grade might

    have 35 or 40 students

    and sometimes they were larger but the

    factor was always that they either

    didn't have the expertise to teach

    higher level courses electives they

    always had great core subject teachers

    but they didn't either have someone who

    could do that or maybe they only had one

    or two students who actually

    would enroll in a course that was

    outside of the norm and so when you

    aggregate those kids and you put them in

    we had a tv studio think of it like zoom

    before zoom was a thing like they would

    sign in to a system that had high speed

    internet in their school even if it

    wasn't available in their community and

    they were able to access a teacher like

    me or there were many others who could

    provide an experience that they wouldn't

    otherwise have and in addition to

    teaching remotely once per semester we

    had the great opportunity to visit and

    that was really the magic to see where

    they're from their context and it's very

    different at the coast in the mountains

    whether or not they're farmers or you

    know in a manufacturing area and so i

    really got to know my state very well

    and the opportunities and challenges

    that differ across the regions not only

    did i teach them for a semester but i

    continued to mentor most of those kids

    throughout high school that was like the

    best part was to bring them cs but also

    bring them many more opportunities where

    we had an opportunity to do a cyber

    security club and they were able to

    participate remotely and we helped some

    of them to do the congressional app

    challenge and that was all done remotely

    because we already had the connection so

    we just continued that informally in

    many cases yeah it's really interesting

    that you were doing that before

    remote learning was mandated for

    because of coveted and whatnot can i

    talk about that just a minute because

    i did teach also through the pandemic

    and it was such

    a different and disheartening experience

    i feel like we have perhaps missed the

    boat on what remote learning could be

    because we did it in a crisis and now

    everyone has an impression of the

    negatives of it for example teaching my

    remote students in rural areas at home

    they didn't have the bandwidth to turn

    on their camera they might not have a

    device that was as robust as they might

    have at school and often they were

    watching their siblings yep when we

    tried to develop projects for the

    communities that they had limitations

    like i only stay at home i'm literally

    not leaving so i hope that people who

    are listening who may have had a

    negative online experience or virtual

    experience come to understand that the

    emergency situation is not the reality

    of what that experience can be yeah i

    have very mixed feelings about remote

    instruction and whatnot i feel like we

    have been presented an opportunity to

    rethink and kind of reset some things in

    education and i don't necessarily feel

    like we have taken advantage of that

    opportunity to go hey why are we doing

    some of the things that we're doing that

    might not be best for students in the

    long run because a lot of teachers are

    back in the classroom and it's just

    let's go back to business as usual what

    it was before the pandemic as opposed to

    thinking of what worked well with remote

    learning what didn't work well and then

    before the pandemic what did and did not

    work well in the classroom what should

    we change yeah and what tools were

    really effective to reach different

    types of kids and being able to

    differentiate use multiple tools to

    teach the same content i love multiple

    access points for the same idea you

    catch more kids that way yeah because

    for some people the remote learning was

    better than in person and then vice

    versa

    so we got to figure out like why and how

    could we

    have those different access points for

    different students yeah and previous to

    covid when they were learning with me

    they were learning remotely in their

    school so all of the social benefits

    were still there they were supported

    often by either someone in their media

    center or an instructor in a classroom

    and that's quite different than an

    online class where they're still very

    much being self-driven i was teaching

    them in person every day one of the

    things that you mentioned in a prior

    conversation was you have a holistic

    approach to education and i'm curious

    like could you describe what that is and

    then how that informs your approach with

    working with students every

    student every person is a unique

    individual who wants to succeed who has

    their own unique goals and interests and

    strengths and weaknesses and if we can

    create content that allows them to use

    those strengths to tap into those areas

    of interest i want to talk about desi's

    self-determination theory and how

    important it is i think is in the

    classroom it has three parts autonomy

    competence and connection

    and those three things are really

    important whether or not you have a kid

    who might be like interested in your

    subject or forced to take your subject

    when you can give people autonomy and

    they feel some control of their own

    experience and their own projects for

    example that

    makes them feel more connected

    to the

    course material or to the you as the

    instructor and that they want to feel

    competent so as they gain mastery i

    teach them how to fail actually like

    iteration isn't something like we talk

    about that even if they make something

    great the first time or they come in

    very well prepared because in computer

    science i'll get kids who have been

    doing camps for five years you know with

    their very well-resourced parents and

    then like someone who's never even heard

    of coding and they've signed up to be

    brave and so we actually start with a

    activity where students who are very

    successful are expected to add to their

    skill set and students who have never

    touched a computer before

    the competence is actually the trying

    like just by trying you pass that first

    assignment just by being vulnerable and

    so by reaching people with a level where

    they can feel competent at the start

    that gives them a feeling of that they

    can master tasks and then they take on

    additional challenges especially when

    the price of failure is almost none when

    you're actually required to push your

    limits and then finally like the

    connection or relatedness piece is how

    students feel like they belong in a

    class that they have peers who are

    perhaps like them in some way and that

    they have a relationship that's positive

    with the instructor i think

    self-determination theory and also

    constructionism are probably the two

    theories that i use most because they

    leave agency to the individual and then

    constructionism is where they actually

    build their own learning so as much as i

    can possible i do project-based learning

    by doing that i know we're going back to

    the whole child like we're thinking

    about them as individuals and so they

    have freedom to create projects that are

    relevant and interesting and important

    to them as long as they meet some

    specific objectives and they get very

    very creative and that creativity is

    also like extremely motivating so the

    whole child is that you don't forget

    their context you don't forget their

    culture you don't forget the fact that

    they have other classes like one of the

    nicest projects a student ever did for

    me he almost didn't do it all and he

    came to me and said i just have another

    project that i have to do for a class

    and i said well we'll just move your

    presentation in next monday and he said

    you'd do that for me well of course we

    would because that'll get your best work

    right and so there we go the whole child

    how did you

    cultivate

    the connectedness of relatedness even in

    remote context i bring in visitors that

    are relevant to them and i do it a lot

    so i have a colleague at scad the south

    carolina design school and we created

    this class called connected computing

    and it was with a partnership with the

    north carolina zoo and the concept is

    the san diego zoo global initiative

    was looking at how empathy is actually

    really important for

    people to

    make a change environmentally you

    actually have to care about the animals

    you can't just like abstractly visit the

    animals or like hope that the

    environment stays better you actually

    have to like care that kangaroos or

    giraffes or

    lizards are impacted by your behavior

    and so

    thinking about some of the technologies

    that they built like butterfly wings

    where you can feel the magnetic pull of

    the earth we built these same types of

    projects the students built like robotic

    turtles that you could drive and one boy

    built an earpiece that you put over your

    ears in north carolina we have red

    wolves that are endangered and you might

    think that their best sense is smell but

    it's actually hearing they can hear up

    to six miles and so at the zoo you could

    like navigate with your sense of hearing

    using his app as you wore the earphones

    and so when i was in this one particular

    school it was hard for those students to

    connect to like what all this technology

    has to do with where they live and like

    they like hunting and fishing right and

    so why would we want to save the turtles

    when we want to catch the turtles and so

    this professor from scad came and he

    does vr experiences that are related to

    nature and he talked to them about

    growing up and hunting turtles and how

    great it was that when he went to

    college he didn't have to give up his

    culture he actually integrated it in

    some of the other experiences and he was

    a better person and richer for having

    had the experiences that he did growing

    up and so

    that's it to me is like i connected all

    those things that seem quite disparate

    like you got zoo and computer science

    and like technology and this media guy

    and these kids and you just look for

    those connections and it's different for

    each kid but you find the connection

    whatever it may be yeah i appreciate

    that last point far too often an

    approach that's used is usually aiming

    for the median or the average in a

    classroom and let's just teach to a

    collective rather than to a collection

    of individuals who have unique

    individualized needs interests goals

    passions etc and i fully recognize how

    hard that is having worked with

    thousands of students over the years but

    that's like the

    thing that we should really strive for

    but i mean i guess speaking of that like

    one of the things that you had mentioned

    in a prior conversation was that you

    felt like education was harder than

    working as a programmer i'm curious what

    makes you say that being an educator is

    harder than being a programmer because

    if you solve a problem it just works

    right but people don't work that way and

    to me education is people so we can't

    always solve the problems that we see in

    kids lives we can only just do one small

    piece there's some great examples of

    people who are doing good work to

    support kids where they are and i want

    to share this story about an educator

    who is in a community where for

    generations the families have lived in

    the same place so it's not expected that

    you would leave it's not expected that

    you would try to go to college for

    example and so

    she created a college pathway where

    students are able to gain all the

    credits that they need to be successful

    in going to college with a career

    certificate program so while students

    are receiving a credential that they

    could use to have a job in their

    community they're also if they choose to

    ready to go out into the work world

    that's a lot harder to dream up than to

    like figure out a database right yeah

    and when you're a teacher when you're

    invested in those kids you're constantly

    problem solving every day that's what

    you do so of course it's easier why is

    education so important to you like to

    shift careers to work in education when

    you're probably making significantly

    less than you were as a developer like

    that for many people is a hard shift to

    make it is a very difficult field but

    why is education important for you first

    like to acknowledge that i had the

    opportunity to switch because i had

    privilege

    with a partner who was stable with a

    good job so

    when i did take that financial hit it

    was because i had a partner who could

    support me and not everyone can choose

    to make a switch like i did so

    acknowledging that privilege it's so

    critical for what i hope to see in the

    world i worked with non-profits as a

    computer programmer i developed good

    programs that helped people indirectly

    through programming but it's so

    satisfying to

    actually invest in people it's such a

    part of me that i don't know how to get

    away with it it just fills my bucket in

    a way that just being a computer science

    developer

    didn't or couldn't does that relate to

    your understanding of education as being

    an equalizer yes i don't think the only

    path to success is college i think it's

    a great

    path to success for many people but i do

    know that love of learning is the most

    critical thing that we can give to kids

    if they know that they can learn

    something themselves that they're

    empowered

    to

    embrace learning challenges equity is a

    funny thing like it does mean that you

    give some people more or that you have

    to invest in some people more to get a

    similar outcome so my work now in ai

    education is to think about that equity

    gap of who's getting computer science

    who's getting advanced technologies like

    cyber security artificial intelligence

    data science and it's often kids who opt

    in or kids who have been encouraged by

    their families and so the work that i'm

    doing at aiedu is to make sure that we

    reach the communities that would

    otherwise not stumble into those

    opportunities so it's quite intentional

    my work in education is equity driven

    and it's often with partners partner

    schools partner districts partner

    organizations informally also like

    museums and boys and girls club for

    example i've been a long time girl scout

    leader and i'm really excited about some

    of the opportunities they have and like

    the reason those organizations are so

    important is because otherwise you're

    not reaching

    every community every kid and every kid

    deserves computer science especially if

    they're not identified as gifted you

    know if they're identified in other ways

    they still deserve to know how

    technology is impacting their life

    because it does so you mentioned ai i'm

    curious if we could like double click on

    that topic in particular so when i think

    of ai or hear people talking about it

    it's usually talking about at the high

    school or collegiate level

    but when you speak about ai you've also

    done it in like the k5 setting so i'm

    curious could you describe what that

    might look like like if somebody would

    walk into you teaching an ai class or

    lesson like what might people be

    learning or doing in that kind of class

    sure i'm going to start with ai4k12.org

    they are an organization with multiple

    university partners and teachers k to 12

    who came together to work on national

    guidelines for ai education ai meaning

    artificial intelligence and artificial

    intelligence is a set of technologies

    you don't think just robot although

    there may be ain robots is it's like a a

    way for a computer system to learn using

    data and sensory input to perform a task

    that a human has specified so robots

    aren't alive they're not coming to get

    you

    they're only as good or as bad as the

    people who program them and decide what

    they should do so we can improve them

    and these technologies are all around us

    and so this organization ai4k12 came

    together and i was on the working group

    first at the cater 2 grade band and then

    at the six to eight grade band to think

    about what students should

    know and be able to do in ai education

    and

    it's such a cool topic so we broke it

    down into five big ideas and the first

    is sensors and perception sensors are

    things like microphones and cameras that

    allow machines to perceive the world

    like people do like a camera can see a

    microphone can hear but they can also do

    things that we can't do like

    look out into the sky

    using a telescope or look down into

    something smaller than our eyes can see

    with a microscope and gather information

    that we can use they can also hear at

    frequencies that we can't hear for

    example so sensors gather data

    perception

    allows us to

    understand that data and we can use a

    computer program usually to see that

    information in a way that works for our

    eyes for example then we have

    representation and reasoning the second

    big idea representation is how we

    represent that information in some

    meaningful way and how we can perform

    reasoning on it so for example

    we can look at galaxies i guess we're

    going on a space theme today and we can

    identify using a computer program what a

    galaxy looks like maybe it has a spiral

    shape and that spiral shape is

    represented by some pixels on a screen

    that we can see with our eyes and a

    computer program can recognize too and

    we can perform reasoning on that to

    identify whether the spiral goes left or

    it goes right and this is actually an

    activity that you can do with nasa for

    free you can see the images that come

    back from the telescopes and you can

    identify galaxy shapes and then you can

    actually help a computer learn to

    identify them so that when we take

    billions and billions of pictures with

    the james webb space telescope ai can

    help us sort all that data so we have

    sensors in perception then we perform

    representation and reasoning and then we

    have natural interaction and this is how

    we interact with our ai computer systems

    maybe that's with a screen maybe it's

    with a microphone but it's how our

    technologies blend seamlessly into our

    lives and so this is becoming more and

    more a thing as you know google home or

    alexa or siri become a part of our lives

    natural interaction is how translation

    works like if we say something in

    english and we want it to say out loud

    to someone else in spanish translation

    we want that to be as natural as

    possible and we want that technology to

    work for as many people as possible so

    if you have a five-year-old voice maybe

    you don't say all of your letters

    consonant sounds exactly right can the

    device still understand you or if you

    have had a stroke for example does your

    technology still work for you can all

    people interact naturally with the

    technology this only happens when

    computer systems learn from data and

    we're talking about enormous amounts of

    data lots and lots and lots of

    information the more information we give

    the better the computer system can do

    at giving us the results that we expect

    so

    if we only have

    adults speak to computer systems they

    probably won't work very well for

    children but if we get a lot of children

    to talk to those devices also and we can

    improve over time then the computer

    systems do a better job this is also

    true for issues that you may have heard

    of regarding bias in computer systems or

    problems perhaps ethical concerns about

    ai but the reality is that ai can be

    both positive and negative and the

    ethical impacts they can be just as good

    as people want them to be so for example

    a positive impact of ai is that we may

    not have a single person making a

    decision that could be

    biased or racist and also like we can

    actually process many more images for

    breast cancer detection for example by

    using a computer algorithm

    to save the resources of the researcher

    who's looking at each individual slide

    if we can definitely eliminate

    some of those cells that look completely

    normal then we can save the human

    resources for those maybe questionable

    or potentially cancerous identifications

    there's positives there's negatives

    negatives could be wow we didn't train

    our algorithm to look for wedding photos

    except for american wedding photos and

    so when we google the word wedding and

    we're from another culture it may not

    identify

    weddings correctly and so sometimes

    there's gender bias or racial bias but

    one thing that makes me hopeful about ai

    is that because those biases are

    external we can evaluate them externally

    we're not judging me as the programmer

    we're making a decision we're just able

    to improve data and measure it over time

    and so i think ai although there is

    possibility of problems or bias could be

    a really positive thing for society so

    getting back to how do you teach all

    that to a five-year-old there's a great

    program called teachable machine and

    with this program without any reading

    or writing at all you can record

    yourself and you can identify a marker

    with one

    set of images and you can identify a

    lego

    figure with another set of images and

    you can train the machine to learn the

    difference even if you turn the lego

    upside down or zoom it way far out or

    way far in and so we can teach kids

    really early about these five ideas

    giving some of the examples i just gave

    you what recommendations do you have for

    an educator who's like hey this sounds

    awesome i'm definitely going to go to

    afrk12.org but i also want to learn more

    about ai in the k5 or even older grade

    levels yeah well k-5 i recommend cs is

    elementary i'm the teacher for ai but

    they have other classes too they have

    cyber security and beginning programming

    but the great thing about them is you

    don't have to know anything at all

    except how to play a video to your class

    and students can follow along and do the

    work and you can learn right alongside

    them so if you do

    the free program you can learn all about

    ai education you've got about two weeks

    of content ten days you can learn it too

    though and then you can teach it however

    you want you can modify it which is

    really great and then right now i work

    on

    curriculum and resources for eighth to

    twelfth grade at ai edu we also have

    free curriculum with all the supports

    that a teacher might need

    including we have help sessions and

    training for teachers who would like to

    get support in diving in so don't feel

    too intimidated it's really exciting to

    bring ai to your classroom how do you

    respond to people who see like more

    frameworks or

    standards or subject areas being added

    to the plate and fearing that it's

    diluting everything that's already also

    there or like hey 10 years from now

    we're going to have even more that keeps

    adding then this is going to dilute what

    we're currently adding i hope that we

    see

    transformation over time in the way we

    teach our core subjects i think reading

    for a long long time is going to remain

    reading but math in particular

    computerbasedmaths.org

    is from the founder of mathematica

    conrad wolfram and he's really

    interested in acknowledging that every

    person who perhaps isn't limited by

    someone telling them they can't have a

    device has a computer they have a phone

    they have a computer they have a tablet

    they have these at school and yet we

    often take them out of the math

    classroom

    and so it's exciting to me to think

    about how instead of further

    differentiating and separating out our

    subjects we actually begin integrating

    and overlapping technologies that better

    prepare students for the future of work

    so group work and assignments that cross

    domains

    i think data science is another place

    where we're seeing that in the science

    classroom it's like really really

    exciting to see

    integration of technology and so i think

    of ai as part of a larger cs umbrella

    where i hope to see more and more for

    one example i know a teacher who teaches

    english language arts in high school and

    she teaches shakespeare like many

    teachers do and she has students instead

    of blocking the play traditionally they

    use robots that she controls remotely so

    they don't have to have a robot for

    every student they use little bird

    robots finch robots

    she's using coding as a way to think

    about plays in the 21st century so what

    do you feel is holding back educators of

    the field and what's something we can do

    about that in certain states there are

    no structures for teaching computer

    science or those structures are not

    adequate to actually get a class with

    every student included to have a

    computer science experience i think also

    there's a lot of fear for teachers who

    have obligations to meet certain testing

    or standards requirements and they don't

    necessarily feel like this extra thing

    is worth the risk i think it's a fear

    issue almost like teachers truly have to

    take a risk

    and sometimes learn alongside their

    students i hope that if you're listening

    to this that you'll be brave and think

    of yourself less as a

    sage on the stage and more of a guide on

    the side where you can explore things

    together and kids naturally love

    technology anyway so it's a great way to

    delve in so if somebody

    is brand new to cs maybe they've been

    teaching for a while and they are

    interested in diving in and learning

    alongside kids but they also want to

    improve upon their abilities over time

    so it's not just

    like constantly going well i don't know

    let's figure it out i'm curious if you

    could share like how you practice and

    iterate on your own abilities either in

    computer science or in education maybe

    your response would help somebody else

    who's interested in doing something

    similar sure i think in terms of

    computer science specifically it is

    worthwhile to join csta find your local

    chapter

    meet with other educators who are also

    implementing cs and try to go to the

    national conference if you can find

    somebody who'll fund you to go so that

    you can have the opportunity to learn a

    lot all at once remain curious go ahead

    and just get on scratch

    and make a silly game it's really

    scary

    to do that but use the tutorials that

    are built for children i'm going gonna

    confess something here i often learn a

    new skill any new skill cooking weaving

    or whatever i go to the youth section of

    the library and i pick out a book that's

    designed for fifth graders and it hits

    me where where i'm at i'm not going to

    learn to knit from an adult book but i

    am going to learn to knit from a book

    written for fifth graders that's my

    superpower i often just pull up youtube

    how do i figure out how to do this thing

    just type the question into youtube all

    right let's watch a few videos that's

    true and coding train i have to give a

    shout out to codingtrain they do such a

    good job of breaking down even ai videos

    but any kind of python you want to do

    you know get on the coding train because

    they're going to show you exactly how to

    do it how do you prevent the burnout

    that can come with constantly iterating

    and improving things and just working in

    the field of education which is known

    for having a high dropout rate it's hard

    if you're at that point right now

    you might look around and think it's not

    worth it and it's okay if it isn't it's

    okay to protect yourself to take care of

    yourself i think it's really important

    to take time and break in the summer to

    actually recharge and not do

    every pd offered every you know summer

    camp available to you it's not worth a

    little bit of money to take on that

    second job if you can't come back

    restored and refreshed i think we need

    to do a better job as a society in

    supporting educators and recognizing

    what enormously hard work they have been

    doing over the last several years and

    how many people are leaving the field

    especially really thoughtful

    dedicated educators who just can't do it

    anymore and we can't continue to ask

    teachers to give up their planning

    periods to cover for other teachers

    teaching is the only field i know where

    you have to bring your own whiteboard

    markers to the classroom to teach a

    class and so unless we fix things

    systemically we're not going to see

    the best educators you know that they

    may choose to leave because it's too

    hard and i don't think that's wrong

    but if you want to say

    the best way to do it is

    to continue to fall in love with your

    students and your subject seek out a

    great administration it's okay to go to

    the district next door and take care of

    yourself maybe that isn't the answer i

    was supposed to say but that's what i

    feel is true is like until we as a

    society take care of educators we're

    going to continue to see turnover yeah

    are there systems that you put into

    place to try and help yourself like i

    really appreciate and that last point

    resonates with me like i was in a

    district where it wasn't great and then

    i moved to a different district and it

    was awesome so like just having a change

    of admin and environments can have a

    profound impact on like my own personal

    well-being and whatnot oh yeah i do

    think it's important to continue

    learning independently i think in the

    classroom though we can also set the bar

    a little bit lower i think formative

    assessment is really useful as a tool to

    take the pressure off for you personally

    as a teacher to have like a quick

    reflection piece where you can see where

    they're at but you don't have to grade

    every darn thing

    i think using some tools like peer

    assessment in assessment of projects and

    having like really clear rubrics that

    students can self-evaluate and having

    like clear

    end points where a project is showcased

    for example and if you meet all the

    requirements of the showcase well then

    you know what your grade is and taking

    some of that pressure off yourself it's

    also okay to set some really clear

    boundaries like i don't work on sundays

    i don't grade i don't i go mountain

    biking that's what i do and

    having those boundaries does not make

    you a bad teacher even if it means you

    didn't finish a certain thing that you

    were supposed to get done so focusing on

    what matters i have the like two by two

    in my brain of like make four squares

    important and urgent and really you only

    need to do the things that are important

    and urgent

    and other things can wait and that as

    long as your students are in the

    important plus urgent bucket the fact

    that you graded something or didn't this

    weekend probably doesn't matter i really

    appreciate that response i have heard

    similar things than some sessions before

    and people have said that they felt like

    they needed the permission to do that

    they needed to hear that from somebody

    so hopefully there's a listener out

    there who listened to that and said yes

    this just resonated really well with

    them try to remain in the work it's what

    you're doing is really important you

    matter to kids you know you're giving

    them opportunities they might not

    otherwise have but you don't have to

    sacrifice yourself snaps to that

    what do you wish there is more research

    on that could inform your own practices

    i wish that researchers who come into

    classrooms we're thinking about the

    students and the teachers first not

    their phd project not the outcomes of a

    survey but the actual experience that

    students have with your activity if

    you're starting with a pre-survey and

    you end with a post survey what did the

    student gain from that survey i'm

    guessing nothing so why don't you

    redesign that survey to

    be a formative assessment that students

    can reflect on their own work and you

    can evaluate the responses of that to

    get at the data that you need and

    otherwise pay your teacher to

    spend the time that they have with you

    and ensure that the lesson that you're

    building that you're testing in their

    classroom is aligned to the other work

    that they're doing and i see

    often a disrespect from researchers who

    work with teachers that the primary goal

    is the research and it's not it's the

    student experience yeah i had a meeting

    a couple hours before recording this

    episode that was talking about future

    grant proposals with some other

    researchers and whatnot and part of the

    meaning was like hey let's pull up the

    request and let's see what the verbage

    says and a lot of the verbiage in there

    is it's talking about like effective

    teaching practices it's not necessarily

    trying to improve but rather just prove

    what works so

    the grants that fund a lot of this

    research that will give hundreds of

    thousands if not millions of dollars

    often has a huge influence on the kinds

    of questions that researchers ask so

    i think if we were to do that which i

    agree with we have to also look the step

    above the researchers at like what's

    what's funding that research i probably

    have a bias there because

    i am pretty familiar with ai grants

    right now it's a lot of money going into

    how we might best do artificial

    intelligence education and those are not

    only centered on teaching students or

    teaching teachers to teach ai but also

    on what tools we might empower teachers

    with

    so that they can use ai and apply it to

    their classrooms like how could we

    better personalize education so

    as all of that rolls out just keeping in

    mind always the experience of the

    teacher and the student respecting the

    teacher as the expert in the room is

    really important there's always going to

    be those other polls i think there's

    better partnerships to be had in those

    spaces yeah rpp work research

    practitioner partnerships tend to

    elevate the role of educators within

    that research space but i

    definitely see this like hierarchy where

    the research and the research question

    and the person who's evaluating that is

    often

    positioned above the teachers as having

    more power and sway and whatnot so it is

    interesting seeing the shift where

    they're trying to have teachers have a

    voice and have a say in like

    the questions that are being asked and

    how it's being implemented and whatnot

    but there's still not enough of that

    yeah i think probably i'm influenced by

    how i learned in my very first school

    which was i didn't come in as the expert

    i came in as the learner hope

    researchers

    come in with an eye to surprise

    what might come out of this with just a

    little bit of open mind it's exciting

    yeah i like that a lot of the

    researchers that i'll interview i'll ask

    a question like what has surprised you

    about your own research and it's always

    interesting to hear their different

    responses i love those responses because

    when we're open to wonder cool things

    happen yeah what's something that you're

    working on that you could use some help

    with okay i'm gonna tell you my dream

    here it is i think we need artificial

    intelligence badges for girl scouts

    because they have a wide reach not only

    to girls but into rural areas that don't

    have computer science education across

    the united states i've worked with girl

    scouts national to develop that badge

    series it's in their plan i've worked

    with my local council we've got pilot

    you know groups ready to test those

    badges in k-12 i need funding for those

    badges and i really think they could

    make a huge difference for girls in

    learning about ai so i don't only need

    money i would also like thought partners

    to do that work the best and well i'm a

    lifetime girl scout and that's where my

    heart is so if you have any connections

    with ai and scouting and you want to

    talk i'm interested in working with boy

    scouts too but i don't have as many

    contacts there so do you have any

    questions for myself for for the field

    i'd love to know

    what learning theories or psychological

    theories might be beneficial

    in applying to cs education broadly not

    just ai and how we might best do that i

    hope we could have a conversation about

    that about ways that we can best educate

    i think we don't really know yet all the

    best ways that we can employ technology

    in classrooms and it'd be fun to talk

    about it with people who are interested

    in that my hunch is we could get there

    if people read more outside of the field

    there's a tendency in the cs education

    space to kind of put some blinders on

    and

    think of cs as oh it's this relatively

    new field and so therefore we kind of

    have to have come up with approaches

    that are going to work well for us so

    it's starting from within and then kind

    of working its way out as opposed to

    looking at well what have they done in

    social studies or what have they done in

    science education or in the arts like

    and seeing the different frameworks and

    heuristics and theories that have

    informed educational philosophies

    elsewhere and then trying to figure out

    okay well how might we actually apply

    that in our space so i've tried to do

    that with some of the podcast episodes

    like the unpacking scholarship ones or

    i'll point to like well here's what

    they're talking about in a different

    field but i wish there was more of that

    in our space i'm glad you're bringing

    that attempting

    are there any questions that i haven't

    asked that you'd like to discuss i think

    i'd like to talk about the future of

    work if you don't mind yeah so if you

    remember in 2000 maybe you're old enough

    to remember two thousand we didn't have

    cell phones they just we didn't have

    them if you had one it may be flipped

    open or was the size of a brick

    and you were likely using it after 10 pm

    so that you could have free minutes and

    if you texted you pressed the number two

    an awful lot so if you think about the

    shift that's happened in 20 years we

    went from having computers at work to

    having computers in college to finally

    having computers that really did

    something at home for the majority of

    people then we had a revolution where we

    added phones that are actually like star

    trek communicators they can do literally

    everything and you have the whole of

    human knowledge like at your fingertips

    and

    ai is a similar revolution it is however

    invisible so people are less aware of it

    as when phones came in our pockets and

    the whole landscape of

    the types of jobs that are available are

    shifting as a result of ai and so it's

    really important that we don't simply

    teach students to code that's not really

    the goal

    but that we think about the shifts in

    the future of work and that we cannot

    predict them and so we need to empower

    students to reflect thoughtfully on the

    impacts of our technologies

    and the ways that we can regulate

    technologies to benefit humanity and

    also to be prepared with skills like

    creativity and problem solving and

    lifelong learning that will allow them

    to be prepared for whatever job doesn't

    exist yet while other

    roles that have traditionally been

    available are being automated just for

    one simple example many of us started

    our careers at the local grocery store

    and where there used to be 10 cashiers

    hired now there's only one manning the

    self-checkout and where we used to work

    at a fast food restaurant many of those

    restaurants are having computers pour

    the drinks or process the orders and

    schedule very flexibly when people might

    work and so i hope that the conversation

    will continue where we think about how

    we might best prepare students for the

    future of work i do think that includes

    ai education but i think it more

    generally

    requires us to stop thinking about math

    and science and social studies in

    english language arts and requires us to

    become more holistic and our whole

    approach to how we consider the

    individuals who come into our schools

    every day yeah i really appreciate that

    response i'm curious for you are there

    any jobs where you really hope ai

    doesn't take it over like being an

    educator working in education or like a

    therapist or a masseuse like do any

    stand out as no this should not ever be

    replaced by ai well i sure hope that my

    role as a mother i'm not replaced by a

    robot anytime soon

    [Laughter]

    [Music]

    you know i hope that we replace jobs

    that are dangerous and difficult

    with technologies that make those jobs

    safer i think we have to also really

    thoughtfully consider jobs that are at

    high risk of automation like a truck

    driver not only that our roads will be

    safer which is often what you hear with

    ai that the roads will be safer with

    self-driving cars i do think that's true

    but there are a lot of people who love

    their jobs as truck drivers they have a

    culture and it should be honored and

    that they are losing something by losing

    their jobs and that we not only need to

    find them new employment but meaningful

    employment so i hope that we continue to

    have conversations holistically about

    all people as users of technology i

    forget where it was but i had read

    something a few years back where they

    were shutting down like a coal mining

    plant and

    what they ended up doing was providing

    cs education boot camps to anyone who is

    working there who is interested in it so

    hey this job is no longer going to be

    available but we are going to provide

    the education so that way you can learn

    and take on another job that might be of

    interest to you was a really interesting

    approach that i think provided some

    support but that is a really important

    part about the culture because like i am

    inherently an educator like whether it's

    playing magic the gathering with friends

    like i'll teach them oh here's some

    strategies you can use or like here's

    what mana is and why you need to know

    what that concept is and

    whatever like my wife will sometimes

    joke about how my education background

    just kind of shows in moments like those

    in my leisure and whatnot so if all of a

    sudden it was like well this ai that we

    programmed is going to do a better job

    of teaching than you ever could in a

    million years well then that would

    definitely have a profound impact on me

    if i wasn't allowed to do something i

    was very passionate about agreed i also

    want to acknowledge that your example of

    being an educator is like a choice but a

    lot of caregiving roles are

    not chosen they're almost assumed so

    when we have elder care for example it's

    often placed on the daughter of the

    family to do that elder care and even if

    she's wanting to do that elder care it

    may be a real strain for her career for

    her family yeah and if we can create

    technologies that mitigate some of the

    downsides and allow us to be our best

    selves in caregiving for example or in

    travel

    and leave some of the harder parts to

    the technologies that to me would be the

    best possible outcome now i don't think

    our caregiving robots are potentially

    like coming right tomorrow but i do

    think there's a need

    for

    ensuring that people are able to

    live their end of life with dignity and

    perhaps there's a way for technology to

    help with that from my understanding

    japan's actually pretty

    forward on that they have a lot of

    caregiving robots and whatnot and it's

    fascinating the things that i have seen

    so it'll be interesting to see if that

    makes its way over to the states in

    terms of like people wanting that i hope

    so but i also think japan has a culture

    that believes in the life force in all

    things and so there's less of a you know

    a hesitancy perhaps to

    embrace a robotic companion that's

    shaped like a seal or something like

    that yeah that's a good point i'm

    curious are there any other topics that

    you'd like to discuss as well one more

    thing which is if you're worried about

    self-driving cars i know a lot of people

    are and that the worst stories end up on

    the news

    occasionally but robotic vehicles are

    far safer than humans they don't get

    tired they don't drink they don't get

    distracted because there's a baby in the

    backseat in thoughtful application

    self-driving cars will save hundreds of

    thousands of lives a year in america so

    if you've been hesitant trust that that

    technology is going to save a lot of

    lives so where might people go to

    connect with you and the organizations

    that you work with if you're doing k5

    talk with john pierce's css elementary

    if you're doing middle school or high

    school and you want to chat with me at

    ai ebu i'm charlotte

    aiedu.org i would love to continue a

    conversation with anyone who wants to

    chat more about cs or ai in general and

    with that that concludes this week's

    episode of the csk8 podcast thank you so

    much for listening to this particular

    interview would be so kind just ask that

    you share it with somebody else because

    charlotte had some awesome things to say

    stay tuned next week for another episode

    and until then i hope you're all staying

    safe and are having a wonderful week

Guest Bio

Charlotte Dungan is Chief Operating Officer of AIEDU. She was a computer programmer for 10 years and earned her BA from Antioch University with concentrations in English and History. Charlotte has an Ed.M. in Learning and Teaching from Harvard University. She developed AIforTeachers.org including AI PD for educators, standards aligned K-12 curricula with integrated AI, in person training opportunities, and a space for a supportive online peer community. She is a member of #IAmCS, the AI4K12 working group, and is a co-facilitator of the 2022 AI Institute at the National Humanities Center. You may have seen her as the face of AI in CS is Elementary videos! Her vision is to change the fundamental understanding of Artificial Intelligence in society.


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