Teaching Over One Million Students with CS50's Carter Zenke

In this interview with Carter Zenke, we discuss Carter’s pedagogical approach that centers playfulness, creativity, and purpose; lessons learned teaching CS50 to over one million students; balancing free exploration with learning content; designing opportunities for getting into CS; the benefits of watching recordings of your own teaching; helping educators find their “why”; and so much more.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    each week of this podcast is either an

    interview with a guest or multiple

    guests or a solo episode where i unpack

    some scholarship in relation to computer

    science education in this week's episode

    i'm speaking with carter zenki and we

    discuss carter's pedagogical approach

    that centers playfulness creativity and

    purpose lessons learned teaching

    harvard's cs50 course to over 1 million

    students balancing free exploration with

    learning content designing opportunities

    for getting into cs the benefits of

    watching recordings of your own teaching

    helping educators find their why and so

    much more you can find relevant links

    and resources in the show notes at

    jaredoliri.com or by clicking the link

    in the app that you're listening to this

    on you'll also notice in the description

    this podcast is powered by bootup which

    is the non-profit that i work for you

    can check out our free curriculum and

    learn more about our professional

    development at budape.org but with all

    that being said we will now begin with

    an introduction by carter hi everyone my

    name is carter i use he and his pronouns

    i am a preceptor in computer science

    here at harvard which means that i help

    teach computer science 50 or cs50 with

    david j maylin here computer science 50

    like to say is our introduction to the

    intel enterprise computer science and

    the art of programming it's a course

    taught at harvard college graduate

    schools around here as well as online of

    a few million people taking the class

    online and my role is to help train

    undergrad teaching staff to design

    materials curriculum and so on i do

    things both on campus and all nice few

    million people taking one course that's

    impressive a few people who've

    registered

    okay we know with online courses not all

    of them finish it but we do have some

    pretty good retention for what i've seen

    so how do you do the grading on that

    though like or is it just like they're

    able to take it see the content but not

    necessarily submit anything yeah so we

    do

    auto grading for the online courses okay

    so it's the exact same material we teach

    at harvard but the difference in grading

    is that college students will get sort

    of maybe qualitative feedback on design

    and style like how other code works does

    it look pretty and readable whereas

    people take it online just because it's

    your number of them they get greeted for

    correctness like does their code work

    does it do what we expected to do okay

    yeah that makes sense because when we

    were talking before we started recording

    we were talking about like the different

    type of grading you're doing i was like

    wow how do you do that with that many

    people like

    you can't

    so can you tell me the story of how you

    got into computer science education yeah

    i think i have to go back quite a few

    years so when i was growing up my dad

    worked in i.t in cyber security and

    was really good at bringing me to work

    sometimes or to bring me home like

    computer parts just like inviting me

    into this world of computers and so from

    a really young age i think i was lucky

    to get to see everything computers could

    do and i got to see them in ways that

    they helped me do things i want to do

    like express myself or like play games

    and like be with friends i think

    remember playing minecraft and building

    my own server for friends to play with

    like learning about networking through

    that or writing music and learning about

    like audio processing through that and

    so i saw a lot of ways computers could

    be used for all these really creative

    purposes and when i got to school like

    particularly middle school and high

    school i would take computer science

    classes like quote unquote which really

    like let's use microtalk publisher or

    let's use like excel which were

    interesting but also didn't really match

    what i knew computers could do or what i

    wanted them to do right so when i went

    to college i had this in my mind of like

    i don't want to have a computer science

    and i did and even there i saw some

    classes i liked like i took computer

    science 201 at duke with african i was a

    great class and i took some that i

    didn't like or more on the theory side

    of things and i realized that i wanted

    to do something that would help more

    people see what computer science could

    be and i got involved with a few

    education communities on campus a few

    classes really that showed me

    maybe my role is less to work in

    computer science and more to like help

    other people hopefully see what computer

    science can be so how have you done that

    since then so i think

    a lot of that has been trying to think

    of when i was undergraduate it was an

    undergraduate and a lot of what that

    looked like was getting involved with

    research or

    designing curriculum and going to

    informal learning spaces and teaching it

    so we formed a lot of partnerships with

    elementary schools around where duke is

    located and i got to really work with

    teachers there and learn from them about

    what works in their classroom what

    doesn't and also how can we bring

    computer science into classrooms and so

    i got to build some relationships there

    as undergraduate and afterwards i went

    on a path of wanting to be a teacher and

    did my master's in education at harvard

    and then later on just took this job

    teaching cs50. so your approach to cs

    education

    is very different than what tends to

    occur in like the k-12 space like in any

    kind of subject area so when i was

    looking at your website you kind of

    forefront playfulness creativity and

    purposeful yeah i'm curious like for you

    what do each of those mean to you and

    then i got some follow-up questions

    about them sure i think at the time that

    i was making that website i was reading

    a lot of mitch resnick's work and he has

    you know the project passion peers in

    play yep that really resonated with me

    and i was thinking about that in the

    context of my own

    experience with computer science when i

    was younger and i think i particularly

    resonated with the idea of like

    playfulness and when i was working with

    computers really when i was younger i

    didn't have like a problem i was trying

    to solve i was just using them to build

    something like to make something happen

    whether it was music or a server for

    friends to play on and that for me is

    sort of exemplifies what it might mean

    for things to be playful and creative

    like just tinkering on things and trying

    to make something actual like people to

    play with too and then purposefulness

    came in i think particularly as i got

    more involved with education communities

    i think and thinking about the ways that

    well one education sort of reflects the

    inequities in society and justice is

    there and so one like how can we show

    people computer science can be used to

    help address things and to take action

    and really make things better in the

    world and more recently even thinking

    about people who are in different

    disciplines and maybe won't do computer

    science how can we show them the

    computer science of purpose in their own

    discipline too so a few things are

    purposeful but playfulness and

    creativity mostly came from mitch

    resnick honestly and think about my own

    experiences too yeah and if anyone

    hasn't listened to the interview that i

    did with him i'll include a link to it

    in the show notes but yeah that

    definitely makes a lot of sense like i

    was in a session with mitch yesterday

    where he was talking about things and so

    like just like hearing him talk about it

    yesterday and then hearing you talk

    about it now i'm like okay yeah i can i

    can see that alignment yeah you've had a

    variety of experiences both as a student

    both as an educator like in formalized

    informal and kind of like a mix between

    the two in terms of spaces i'm curious

    that this is a broad question like if

    you're designing an ideal learning

    environment that can be anywhere like

    what would you do to center those three

    words within that space i think i have

    seen and i've heard a lot about this

    idea of a studio and i love the idea of

    a studio and for me i think a studio is

    a place where people can

    be united under one kind of common

    purpose for their learning that's kind

    of purposefully vague but they get to

    bring their own experiences and own kind

    of flavors to what it means to approach

    that mission and they tinker on their

    own things they talk to each other they

    build community together and i think we

    often associate studios with spaces so

    like for example here on campus we have

    a brand new building for computer

    science it has a lot of quote-unquote

    studios there where we have tables and

    chairs and like state-of-the-art tech

    and everything and that's nice as a

    studio but i've also seen like teachers

    in dc public schools who are teaching

    computer science and are using their

    classroom as a studio where people can

    come in during lunch after class before

    class and just work on things together

    so i love that idea how does that

    compare contrast with maker spaces i

    think it's pretty similar from what i've

    seen in maker's faces like i think yeah

    very similar ideas there cool yeah

    because when you're describing it it's

    kind of reminding me of it but like with

    a maker space like there's so many

    different variants or flavors of it that

    it's like when somebody says it it's

    like well let's see what it looks like

    and how does that compare to some other

    ones like the makerspace that was in my

    school was different than in other

    schools yeah i like the

    idea that there's like a lot of

    diversity in maker spaces and a lot of

    diversity studio can be and you can

    really tailor it to people who are

    actually showing up there and doing what

    they want to do yeah i think that is

    extremely important but is often

    not found in formalized spaces like

    whether it's k-12 or in higher education

    classes that i've worked in or with or

    been a part of like most of them it's

    like we're all going to create the same

    thing and have the same outcomes as

    everybody else even though we all have

    different interests needs desires etc

    yeah so teaching cs50 this spring we

    have a little bit of that which is that

    the course is divided into different

    problem sets where everyone's going to

    make the same problem set essentially

    going to solve the same problems we try

    to have some differentiation there we

    have problems for people who are more

    comfortable and people who are less

    comfortable and sort of give them like

    some differentiation there but i think

    one thing that i want to think about is

    how we can provide more diversity in our

    problem sets for students in a given

    week so they're not all working on the

    same thing at once yeah that's hard

    though at the scale that you're at

    let's say let's cut it down a bit even

    if you had 100 000 students that you're

    working with like to be able to come up

    with something that is going to be auto

    graded that students can also create

    something that's meaningful to them i

    don't know that's that's hard it is and

    at a certain level i think we also want

    to make sure people get through a

    certain amount of content right and i

    love the idea of the studio in the maker

    space i think they can be designed in a

    way that we make sure people get through

    a certain set of content especially

    interestingly that at the scale like you

    were saying and and so on it's like

    we got to make a few trade-offs in some

    cases so yeah especially for like a

    degree like where you have x number of

    credits that you have to earn and

    usually within a given number of years

    or semesters of time like there's a lot

    of constraints that kind of impact what

    might be the ideal environment versus

    what you can actually do yeah totally

    what caused those concepts the playful

    creative and purposeful to resonate with

    you i think a lot of it just went back

    to my own first experiences with cs i

    don't think at the time when i was you

    know a kid playing on computers that i

    was like oh i'm doing this because it is

    purposeful and playful and creative but

    i think later on as i've gotten to see

    some of the frameworks in cs education

    like metresnicks or like other ones too

    i think i've seen those like really show

    up in my own experiences it's been like

    this weird affirmation of wow i can see

    myself in some of these theories that

    i've learned about as i've gone into

    education right why do you think more

    educators don't actually engage in these

    concepts or like mitch's i think to some

    extent it's

    about their own context and so in some

    cases in cs50 i don't think we're

    foregrounding like creativity and

    playfulness i think in some cases

    we're trying to foreground a learning

    experience that are still really good

    but that is pretty focused on content

    right and so for example a new python

    a course on programming language and

    python and so

    what we'll do is we'll design some very

    short exercises for students to do and a

    lot of the course is going to a lecture

    that's pre-recorded and then doing some

    exercises later on and i think that's

    great for the kind of context in which

    an online learner is maybe doing things

    but it feels a little tougher to make a

    studio in an online classroom so i think

    context kind of matters a lot for those

    things yeah that balance between

    the freedom to explore and to express

    and create and then the need or desire

    to learn

    content

    is sometimes difficult when even they're

    interconnected or separate into like hey

    we're gonna have like a couple of

    classes that are very content focused

    and then we'll lead to like an

    open-ended studio where you create

    whatever you want but yeah i don't know

    just kind of me thinking out loud i

    don't think we would still be talking

    about creativity and playfulness if they

    didn't help people learn i think they do

    like they're great for content right but

    i think there are certain contexts like

    the online one in which you're trying to

    serve hundreds of thousands of learners

    and it is sometimes maybe easier and

    maybe better to have something that's a

    little more on a track of content yeah

    so let's double click on that to just

    kind of highlight it a bit one of the

    things i like to do is think of

    something that i'm like very passionate

    about and strongly agree with but think

    of when i would not do that thing in

    education like a pedagogical approach or

    whatever so for like these three

    concepts when would you not use them or

    focus on them i mean i don't want to

    sort of

    repeat the same content answer but i'm

    trying to think of like what seems to be

    unique in the online context that makes

    me feel like those things are less

    possible there and i wonder if it's

    because people are coming into cs50 for

    example online and they're often

    individuals and they're taking the class

    on their own there are also people if

    you can follow my train of thought here

    also people who are taking cs50 who are

    building their own community while

    they're doing it and they're like taking

    it in their own local group of people

    who are doing the class and that i feel

    like there is some space for those

    things to happen but for people who are

    taking the class online just looking at

    the website just doing the problem sets

    it feels like those things are harder to

    do and i honestly don't even know if

    what we would do to emphasize those in

    some cases that's like a question i

    would have yeah so some of the

    programming languages that i've learned

    i've learned informally by just like

    watching a lot of videos on youtube to

    see other people talking through using x

    language in whatever ide and it has been

    useful for me to get the content but

    ultimately i was learning that content

    so i could do something to express

    myself and be creative down the road but

    in that process it was just more of one

    direction i was consuming information

    and so i think there's like a time and a

    place for that right and i think there

    are some different principles that might

    really make that kind of more

    unidirectional content delivery really

    like better and worthwhile as a learning

    experience and i know cs50 in particular

    places a lot of value on the production

    quality of lectures when i first joined

    the team here i learned we had four or

    five full-time staff whose job it is to

    record lectures to edit them to make

    them like beautiful when they're an end

    result and so that

    was a new way for me to think about what

    it means to deliver content and make

    that a compelling experience for people

    yeah that's cool that's high production

    here i am editing all of my videos by

    myself

    i'm curious how do you design

    experiences or opportunities for people

    to get into computer science or computer

    science education one thing that's been

    new to me since i joined the cs50 team

    has been kind of the importance of these

    metaphors that we have so in the very

    first lecture people who have not seen

    it spoiler is that david takes a phone

    book and tears it in half and tears in

    half again in order to illustrate binary

    search like trying to find somebody in a

    phone book you just hear it in half and

    half again and it's a very kind of

    dramatic example because he's on stage

    like literally ripping this huge phone

    book in half but it's also kind of this

    thing that people are a little familiar

    with at least hopefully if they've like

    seen a phone book before and later on to

    teach kind of search we'll do looking

    behind maybe eight closed doors or eight

    lockers and literally manually opening

    them one by one by one so trying to sort

    of showcase these metaphors that are

    grounded in something concrete and that

    also illustrates something really

    powerful about computer science what i

    can help you do and i've noticed that's

    been pretty useful in this content

    delivery kind of teaching style there's

    a book i haven't read yet but i've heard

    recommended i think it's called

    metaphors we live by have you heard of

    that i think i've heard that one okay i

    don't know if that informed like the

    design of using metaphors and whatnot or

    not but i haven't read it so maybe i

    should

    no and to be honest i'm not sure i'm

    also pretty new to things and so i'm

    also learning as i go yeah aren't we all

    aren't we all

    yeah i mean if i ever feel like i've

    gotten to a point where i don't need to

    learn more then i should probably leave

    the field because it's just so much to

    learn i'd agree with that yeah when we

    spoke before today's conversation you

    talked about how you helped undergrads

    find their why in education so i'm

    curious could you expand upon that sure

    so

    in my

    on-campus role where i'm leading this

    course a lot of what i do is help our 80

    undergraduate staff and some graduates

    to teach you to do well how can they be

    good teachers and part of what i think

    goes into that job is helping them find

    out why they're there teaching cs50 i

    think when they first join they do it

    because they want to be with their peers

    they want to just try it out like they

    have a lot of variety of reasons for

    being there and my goal is hopefully

    that each one of them takes something

    away from have that teaching experience

    and says i could do

    something in education later whether i'm

    going to be a full-time teacher whether

    i'm going to like help people on the

    side like i could do something there and

    i think to do that we focus a lot on

    community building so just bringing

    everyone together doing activities we

    had our spring kickoff recently where we

    talked about basically why we're there

    and what fears we have what excitements

    we have and things like that so try and

    sort of embed that in a great community

    undergraduate staff and then also trying

    to find time to meet with them

    individually and talk about why are you

    here what do you want to get out of

    being on staff yeah it was interesting

    when you mentioned like find a way to

    teach it part-time or something that is

    an interesting challenge for cs

    education because in this field you

    could make double triple quadruple the

    amount than you would as an educator if

    you were to just go and apply what you

    know in computer science and industry so

    my degree is in music education it's

    like the opposite like it's

    most musicians that are great musicians

    aren't going to be able to sustain

    themselves just making music so

    education is like the way to make monies

    it's weird having my feet in both worlds

    and see like how different that is in

    terms of incentives for being or not

    being an educator yeah

    recently i've been getting to watch some

    like industry

    talks by people who are in the computer

    science industry and are sharing

    technologies they've built or things

    they've learned and i'm like you're

    teaching right now you're working at a

    company you're not full-time teaching

    but you are sharing a technology with

    somebody else you are in some ways if

    you were to gear this towards newcomers

    like helping them into the field in some

    ways my goal is not for everyone on the

    staff to not go into tech industry but i

    think if they were to do so to consider

    what they could do while they're there

    to invite more people into it through

    teaching in some way yeah that's an

    excellent point like you could teach by

    creating a youtube channel like there's

    a guy that i watch his youtube channel

    is called the new boston and he's got a

    bunch of playlists on like how to use

    whatever language and whatever ide and

    it was great for like refreshing on well

    c plus plus like what's the syntax for

    that or like oh i want to learn swift

    let me watch those tutorials etc but

    then like even this podcast is a way to

    also

    help be in education without necessarily

    being in education like there's many

    different ways that you can do that yeah

    totally i would certainly hope that some

    of them go on to

    really consider teaching as a full-time

    professional and really like spend more

    of their time on that but i also

    recognize there's a lot of ways to do it

    and i'd love to help them do any of

    those how has your experiences working

    in like informal learning informed your

    approach for formalized learning i was

    thinking about this and i think going

    back to the cs50s dichotomy between

    being an on-campus course and kind of

    this online course

    i've noticed that it's often people who

    are taking the course online informally

    who catch the things that i would not

    have caught in in problem sets or in the

    code we write to help check problems we

    get emails from a lot of people who are

    saying well did you consider this about

    this problem set or i tried it this way

    and i don't know if you all considered

    that i would do it that way you're like

    you're right we didn't consider that and

    so it's interesting for me because i

    feel like i learn a lot from the people

    who are doing the class not at harvard

    and students who are taking the class

    just online informally is that just

    because it's a larger sample size some

    more eyes on it and they're able to give

    more feedback i think yes i wouldn't be

    surprised if it's a function of sample

    size one thing i wonder about too is

    whether i think people take the class

    into such different contexts i think we

    have people who are taking it at like

    in another country and there's no

    possible way for us to know every single

    person is going to take to class or

    engage with the problem sets and when

    they do it's like oh it's always

    surprising i

    worked in a district where previously

    every year it was the same lesson the

    same curriculum you just pulled out to

    your lesson okay what am i teaching on

    this day and the district gave it to you

    and it very rarely changed however when

    i went and did my residency i

    interned did a teaching assistantship

    with a professor multiple semesters in a

    row and it was fascinating to see how he

    changed it to meet the like what are we

    learning

    now what's more relevant today etc and

    so

    i took that idea and when i went back

    into the classroom into a k-8 school i

    was just constantly changing stuff every

    week was something different it was very

    different so i'm curious for you how do

    you iterate on your curricula or

    coursework we're constantly doing that

    we'll even change things probably

    through semester if we need to part of

    it starts with just getting good data

    and for us

    we're actually kind of lucky because we

    have a pretty big sample size of

    students who can give us feedback so

    with that we get a lot of input on what

    worked well what didn't work well and at

    least for the on-campus course which is

    still quite large about 700 students we

    asked them after every problem set what

    did you learn and like ask them to

    reflect on that and we can kind of by

    looking through that figure okay here's

    what they actually learned here's what

    we thought they would learn and see

    differences between those things

    and then with that data we will go off

    usually in the summer and try to make

    some pretty big changes either to

    problem sets or the structure of the

    course and we'll all come together as a

    staff to talk about those and then even

    during the fall when it comes up we will

    in a given week sort of treated like

    this unfurling of the semester where we

    can go ahead and just change things a

    week before we're going to introduce

    them in some cases are there archives of

    prior classes available yeah so we keep

    all of the course materials kind of in

    their own website and a different url

    will take you to those past classes so

    if you do

    you do 2020 slash volusia 229 so you can

    see

    the past iterations and what i've

    learned is we've even had a whole

    cdn that is full of past materials and

    past resources from 2008 onwards like

    the course has a history to it that i've

    only been here for one year of but it's

    really interesting to see how

    everything's changed over time that

    would be interesting to study or even to

    have like anyone involved with the

    iterations kind of narrate over like

    here's what we changed and why we

    decided to do that like being a

    curriculum nerd that would be

    fascinating

    yeah i think there might be some videos

    up there of

    david and my colleague doug who was in

    this role before i was and they were

    talking together about just why they

    made some changes one year which is

    fascinating i think i watched a few of

    them i should watch more of them too but

    they're out there if you're interested

    yeah i'll have to check that out i'm

    curious if we were to zoom in on

    yourself how do you iterate on your own

    abilities whether it's like as an

    educator or just in computer science one

    thing i've been trying to have the nerve

    to do is to watch my teaching recorded

    so

    my classes are recorded for people who

    can't come in a given day i need to

    watch it later which is great and it's

    also a great feedback tool it's also

    painful to watch yourself in some ways

    it's really useful like i know after

    we'll give a lecture which david does

    we'll debrief afterwards and then in the

    coming year we'll watch those lectures

    again and talk about what we want to do

    differently in the fall so it's very

    helpful and for me i'm trying to do it

    just on my own it's like oh it's

    sometimes painful but also useful

    where are the pain points if you don't

    mind me asking i think i get a little

    bit of like a secondhand embarrassment

    like just seeing myself teaching in some

    ways i think part of that is just

    psychological and nothing's like yeah

    just anyone i think would feel that way

    at least i hope so yes

    and i think other parts of it is like

    looking at it and being both critical

    and kind of optimistic for the future

    like oh i could have done that better

    and i think i will do it better next

    time by planning ahead for that yeah

    i've engaged in

    recording practices since i started

    teaching and this was like before i even

    finished my undergrad like i would

    record myself like working with

    drumlines and like watch it and whatnot

    and when i was a university supervisor

    would see like pre-service and

    in-service educators like go over the

    recordings with them and like walk

    through like hey what did you think of

    this etc and hands down like almost

    everybody is like they feel

    uncomfortable watching themselves doing

    that so that's not unique to you so it's

    very weird watching yourself but it's so

    informative like i

    have done it so many times now that i

    actually feel comfortable doing it and

    this is like coming from somebody who is

    like an introvert who like would have a

    panic attack like initially like

    watching that kind of stuff because it's

    like oh i could have said this

    differently or could have done this

    differently but totally you learn so

    much from the process and just thinking

    of like subtle ways to refine things and

    whatnot and it was really informative

    for when i was teaching the same content

    or lesson to multiple different classes

    and i can iterate on each one of those

    and like try something different for

    each one of the classes and then go back

    and watch each one of the recordings to

    figure out okay which one worked really

    well which one did not so like kind of

    having that a b test with the classes

    that i was working with was really

    helpful for myself yeah i got to do

    something like that this semester where

    i taught a class on tuesday afternoons

    and the same class than the following

    morning on wednesday and only the

    tuesday one was recorded but it was a

    very different kind of classroom

    environment between like tuesday at 3

    p.m and wednesday at 9 a.m

    yeah

    and i would have loved to have a

    recording of the wednesday class like it

    would have been really fascinating to

    see the differences there yeah well and

    having the different classes at

    different times and teaching the same

    content is also helpful for realizing

    when some things are out of your control

    because like i would sometimes have like

    three third grade classes come in back

    to back and each class would be

    drastically different and it might be

    because of their home room teacher is

    like really awesome at what they do or

    maybe their homeroom teacher like gave

    this entire class like a bunch of cake

    or something before you that came into

    your room and then like they just be

    bouncing off the walls so it's like good

    to have that like to realize oh not

    everything that goes wrong is my fault

    sure that's a really good point yeah you

    want to keep in mind what has surprised

    you about your work and when i say work

    like think broadly it doesn't

    necessarily have to be with this

    particular course but just like overall

    i'm surprised by this most times which

    is people with sort of inherent

    curiosity and wanting to learn and the

    extent to which they'll go to learn for

    example when i was

    in more of an informal space like

    working with educators and seeing the

    ways that the students would ask

    questions and really just be constantly

    curious was always really surprising in

    a good way to me and now recently

    working with this course is both in

    person and online seeing people who show

    up to our zooms at again like 3 a.m in

    the morning to be with cs50 and like to

    learn content that's freely available

    like that is surprising to me in like a

    really hopeful way so i've been i think

    inspires me to like try to live up more

    to their expectations and to do better

    for those students who are doing that

    yeah that's great it's nice to have

    happy and pleasant surprises like that

    yeah totally

    curiosity is something that i wish we

    focused on more or assessed more in the

    classroom it's one of those things that

    like inquiry-based learning is like yeah

    this is great but like do we actually

    assess whether or not students are

    curious in the classroom and i'd argue

    that we kind of as a field tend to pay

    lip service to it at times but don't

    necessarily follow up and say this is

    important and here's why and really

    strongly encourage it yeah i don't know

    one question i would have is how would

    we define curiosity and would look

    different for different fields different

    classrooms for us we've been thinking

    about as we do like assessment how do we

    define for example like good design for

    code like what does that look like and

    that's a challenge yep and similarly for

    curiosity i wonder what that would look

    like yeah i mean the different types of

    projects that you could create or the

    different concepts that you can bring

    into your

    projects like there's many different

    ways that you could explore it and then

    depending on the context like there's

    many different foci that you could

    engage in yeah we've offered different

    versions of problem sets like people are

    less comfortable and more comfortable i

    wonder if something is like well does

    the student at least maybe try the more

    comfortable problem set but i think

    there are other things that are involved

    in that like audacity in some ways or

    self-confidence and so i feel like there

    are ways to do it i don't have enough

    experience yet to really know what to

    look for as much it's interesting you

    say that don't have enough experience

    yet and yet like in one semester you

    are

    directly or even indirectly working with

    more students than most educators will

    see in a lifetime

    yeah that's a little bit scary thing

    sorry

    didn't mean to emphasize that pressure

    no no

    no no so i guess speaking of pressures

    like there's a lot of pressures working

    in the field of education or as an

    educator how do you stave off the

    burnout that can come with it or work

    through those pressures i think there's

    always like a new project to tackle with

    any course i think there's something you

    can always do to improve it and talking

    with educators i always know that

    they're i want to do this i want to do

    that and i think that's an amazing

    attitude to have and i think it's one

    that sustains people i've also tried to

    learn to say no to some things and try

    to focus some stuff i'm not going to

    make that improvement this fall i'm not

    going to do this or that and i'm inside

    going to focus on this other thing

    because it'll more align with these

    values i want the course to have in this

    case and that's both freed up some time

    for me and i think also allow me to

    focus more and make something better

    when i decide to make a change do you

    have any recommendations for

    improving equity and inclusion in cs

    education yeah so one thing that we've

    been doing here on campus is just

    connecting with groups who are already

    doing this work and i think if i were to

    offer any advice or any encouragement

    just connect people who are already

    doing this and who have been advocating

    for this for a really long time and so

    concretely on campus has been connecting

    with like women in computer science

    groups or groups have been fighting for

    representation computer science and

    doing more joint events listening

    and like making decisions for the course

    based off of their advocacy and so i

    think more so just listening and taking

    action based off of that i like that

    what do you wish there was more research

    on that could inform your practices or

    what you do in cs education going back

    to helping educators find their why like

    a lot of this job is really working with

    a whole bunch of future teachers or

    people who are just getting started in

    teaching and so i'd love to learn more

    about how we train and support new

    teachers in computer science

    particularly especially people who are

    themselves currently students too so

    it's like a weird thing for people i'm

    working with because they're students

    and they're also teaching and they're

    brand new to everything that's like a

    great place to be in as a person and i

    would love to learn more about how to

    support people who are in that role and

    it's like and right now it's trial and

    learning as we go yeah it was like a

    month or two ago i was working with the

    maryland center for computing and they

    did like a little in-service on

    pre-service education and like what

    higher ed faculty members can do to try

    and support cs education within that it

    is like basically what computer science

    was maybe 10 years ago in k12 space is

    like now finally getting into the

    pre-service education was like hey we

    need to do this thing and we need to do

    it like right now so yeah in the next

    decade or so i expect this to be much

    more common practice and much more

    research to come out on that particular

    topic that would be a godsend for me um

    i would love that stay tuned

    yeah and even i think i would love to in

    some ways contribute to that i would

    love to do more research in this role if

    i had more time and so i think if

    there's a way for me to help contribute

    to that i would love to be able to do

    that what's something that you're

    working on that you need help with that

    a listener might be able to help with

    concretely

    like ta training programs i know that

    they existed a variety of universities

    and i got to attend sig c this year

    which is really exciting for my first

    succeed and i got to meet people who

    were designing ta tuning programs there

    and that was a super fascinating topic

    and i'd just love to learn more about

    those see more examples and grab some

    takeaways and then apply them here do

    you listen to the csv podcast ksm

    christensen martinez i have heard of it

    i need to listen to it more all right so

    the most recent episode at least at the

    time of recording for the csv podcast is

    titled how to build a ta program and so

    they talk about that in that particular

    episode so i'd recommend checking that

    out that might point to some more

    resources well there you go thank you dr

    seuss martinez

    and i did an interview with her it was

    awesome so i'll include a link to that

    in the show notes people haven't

    listened to it do you have any questions

    for myself or for the field a question

    that was posed to me recently that i've

    been thinking about is what is the

    difference between

    a really good teacher and a great

    teacher and i think we all want to be

    great teachers i'm sure there's like a

    lot that goes into that and especially

    as i've been thinking about trying to

    iterate on my own teaching and better

    serve you know beginning teachers i'm

    trying to figure out and answer that

    question that maybe highlights things i

    should focus on as an educator too yeah

    that is a really good question i think

    the reviewing

    your own videos will really help you

    figure out long term the difference

    between that is like one of the things

    that you could do is even reverse

    engineer somebody that you feel is a

    phenomenal teacher and then try and

    compare that with your own videos and go

    what did they do that i love and that i

    want to emulate or what's something that

    they do that i don't want to emulate

    that i think i do really well and want

    to emphasize some more because like

    sometimes it's not just learning what to

    do in education but also learning what

    not to do and like figuring out that

    balance absolutely i've talked to some

    educators who when i asked them how did

    you get to do what you do like how did

    you basically build yourself to what

    you're doing today and they were like i

    just more so thought what not to do and

    tried to avoid that which is really

    interesting response to me yeah i've had

    some phenomenal educators in my life and

    some ones that were so bad that i want

    to make sure i'm not anywhere near

    approaching education the way that they

    work because

    i definitely learned what not to do in

    those scenarios yeah totally so then the

    last question that i have is where my

    people go to connect with you and the

    organizations that you work with yeah

    the canonical url is cs5.harvard.edu

    i am not on twitter but you can follow

    at cs50 if you are interested in cs50

    particularly and with that that

    concludes this week's episode of the

    csk8 podcast i really hope you enjoyed

    this interview as much as i did and i

    hope you consider checking out harvard's

    cs50 course using the link in the show

    notes at jaredaleri.com if you'd be so

    kind please consider sharing this

    episode with somebody else or sharing

    your review on whatever platform that

    you're listening to this on just helps

    more people find it stay tuned next week

    for another episode and until then i

    hope you're staying safe and are having

    a wonderful week

Guest Bio

Carter Zenke serves as Preceptor in Computer Science at Harvard University, where he teaches CS50 alongside Professor David J. Malan and the rest of CS50's team.


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode



More Content