Examining the Realities and Nuances of 'Low-stakes' Interest-driven Learning Environments

In this episode I unpack Worsley’s (2022) publication titled “Examining the realities and nuances of ‘low-stakes’ interest-driven learning environments,” which discusses two case studies of students programming in low-stakes, interest-driven learning environments.

  • 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 unpacking a paper titled examining

    the realities and nuances of low-stakes

    interest-driven learning environments

    this was written by marcelo warsley

    here's the abstract for this paper quote

    the push to develop low stakes and

    personally meaningful computer science

    experiences is creating novel

    opportunities to broaden participation

    in cs these opportunities have become

    increasingly present across context and

    have expanded the possibilities for

    introducing and sustaining student

    participation in computing however while

    these experiences tend to be effective

    ways for engaging new participants in

    new forms of participation we must be

    careful to not overlooked how high

    stakes these experiences might be for

    learners to explore this tension this

    paper describes two case studies of

    students engaging in coding and

    computational thinking with minecraft

    education edition the first case study

    involves a seven-year-old black and

    latina girl who experiences significant

    frustration when her computer program

    destroys significant portions of her

    project the second is from a latino boy

    who avoids using the coding capabilities

    in minecraft edu out of here that the

    code might not work properly building on

    these case studies this paper suggests

    that the field takes steps to ensure

    that the language and actions associated

    with low stakes and high stakes are

    reflective of learner perceptions and

    that we design learner experiences that

    appropriately reflect this nuance end

    quote better summarize this paper into a

    single sentence i'd say that it

    discusses two case studies of students

    programming in low-stakes

    interest-driven learning environments

    you can find a link to this paper in the

    description of the app that you're

    listening to this on or by simply going

    to jaredaleri.com and clicking on

    podcasts while you're there you'll

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    or if you want to learn more about the

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    facilitate alright so it's probably no

    surprise to anybody who's listened to

    this i'm a huge fan of interest driven

    learning environments promote it

    frequently in my presentations

    publications podcasts et cetera it's a

    big part of what i did in the k-8

    schools that i was working with before i

    joined boot up and it's something that i

    highly recommend for a lot of people but

    what i appreciate about this paper is it

    looks at it from a critical lens and

    says hey not all sunshine and roses

    there's some things we need to talk

    about which i appreciate so here's a

    question that kind of guides this short

    paper from page 45 quote in what ways do

    youth demonstrate the possible

    high-stakes nature of interest-driven

    learning in a game-based learning

    environment end quote so in the prior

    literature section

    the author describes frameworks for

    interest-based learning they discuss

    culturally responsive sustaining

    computer science they talk about

    guidelines and best practices for

    game-based learning so if any of those

    three sound interest in you make sure

    you check out the publications that are

    cited there and the next section on this

    paper is on the methods so in the first

    subsection of this they talk about

    program participants and contexts

    they've been working in the school for a

    few years now impacted over a thousand

    students and 15 educators but this

    particular paper is just going to talk

    about two students emilia and alejandro

    and the author obviously points out that

    like look this is just two perspectives

    on here this is not the norm but it's

    something we need to consider they

    mentioned they've noticed similar

    interactions or responses with other

    students and i have as well even though

    i recommend interest-driven learning

    environments it works great for like 95

    of the students i've worked with they're

    still the five percent we got to talk

    about and consider or maybe even provide

    an alternative for those particular

    students next sub-section under methods

    talks about the background on minecraft

    education edition so if you're not

    familiar with it education version of

    minecraft you're able to do some

    different like extensions basically

    where you can like program stuff in the

    game and it'll like run code that you

    write to like build stuff or destroy

    things or whatever so there's a lot of

    really interesting things you can do so

    check that out if you haven't seen it

    before you can just like search on

    youtube for examples of it and people

    will give you some overviews all right

    so the case studies this is the main

    bulk of the paper so the first one is

    amelia so amelia signed up to attend a

    once a week program that was for six

    weeks long during a winter term amelia

    is described as quote a gregarious

    seven-year-old black and latino girl who

    attends a title one school in the

    midwest region of the united states of

    america end quote from page 46. now

    emilia's six-week program was actually

    disrupted with kovid so the author

    describes an incident that actually

    occurs during the summer of 2020 during

    the four week section that was kind of

    like a makeup for the winter session so

    during this time the students who

    participated were engaging in like

    collaboratively creating a treehouse

    amusement park so minecraft if you

    haven't played it you can like all you

    can have friends join into the same

    server and that makes it so that you can

    play in the same world and like build

    stuff together or go on adventures or

    whatever which is what my wife and i did

    and how i was able to propose to her

    through a mod that i made for the game

    which if you haven't seen that video

    i'll link to it in the show notes okay

    so while they were doing this like

    amusement park creation the researchers

    would show students like different

    things that they could do with code in

    minecraft like how to build a house or

    stairs or whatever now in one of the

    incidents that amelia ran into she was

    trying to do something with a program

    which would make it so that it would

    allow you to dig to excavate an area so

    to like clear out i don't know like a

    hill or a mountain something that's in

    the way to make it like flat or

    something like that while she was

    running the code to dig it ended up

    destroying much more than she had

    intended and so she became visibly upset

    because it like destroyed some stuff

    that she had built or had been working

    on when she ran it it actually ended up

    continuing to run longer than she

    intended to so she started the code and

    then was unable to make it stop and so

    it destroyed the structure that she was

    trying to like add on to and as she

    continued through this process it just

    kept like she'd reload it come back and

    end up destroying things so she got

    pretty upset and then refused to

    actually try building the structure

    again so she had what might be described

    as like a fixed mindset and that she

    felt like she could not properly use the

    code to do what she wanted to and then

    convinced herself that the best way to

    do it was just to manually excavate or

    dig in the ground rather than running

    the code for automatically digging but

    even though she may have felt that

    manual was like the safer way to do it

    she felt that it was a poor use of her

    time because of what she knew what she

    could do with the code builder so she

    ended up actually not engaging with

    minecraft for several months and it was

    roughly a year later that she actually

    started minecraft again and while she

    might use some of the commands to like

    teleport to different locations or

    change the time of day she did not use

    the code builder to excavate for her dig

    for her or build stuff and so the author

    in this particular section cites g's

    work which i've talked about quite

    extensively on this podcast like check

    out the podcast on affinity spaces or

    check out the interview with brian brown

    which i'll link to in the show notes

    both kind of talk about g's

    understandings of like affinity spaces

    or situated language and learning which

    are two really important concepts in my

    opinion that educators should check out

    heavily influenced the way that i

    facilitated classes so here's a quote

    from page 47 that kind of summarizes

    things quote she made multiple attempts

    to utilize the code builder but to no

    avail instead of being an experience

    where she could leverage computer

    science to improve her minecraft world

    she became detached from both coding and

    minecraft in quote a little bit further

    down on that page quote in this case the

    code builder was actively detracting

    from amelia's goals of creating her

    structure the ongoing challenges

    reinforced that she was not effectively

    learning how to use the code builder and

    this was negatively impacting her

    self-perception in quote all right so

    that was kind of a summary of the first

    case but let's talk about the second one

    alejandro here's a quote from page 47

    quote alejandro is a seventh grade

    latino boy he enjoys playing console

    video games and computer games but does

    not really identify as a gamer while

    happy to talk alejandro tends to keep to

    himself in class he sat at a computer

    where there was no one to his left and

    typically an open seat to his right this

    relative alone list did not seem to

    bother him and quote i can relate to

    that honestly preferred it so in this

    particular case the author describes how

    alejandro wanted to build stairs using

    again code builder here's a quote from

    page 47

    alejandro was impressed with himself

    when we got it to work and showed his

    peers that he had successfully coded a

    large staircase i congratulated

    alejandro on his persistence and went to

    work with some of the other students in

    the class however when i passed by

    alejandro a few minutes later he was

    manually constructing the other side of

    the arena when i asked him about why he

    decided not to use the code he remarked

    that it was too risky in short while he

    was able to eventually figure out how to

    make the stairs the various roadblocks

    and challenges that we had to overcome

    instilled a general sense of distrust in

    the code moreover he was concerned that

    if he tried to use the code something

    might go wrong and portions of his arena

    would need to be reconstructed end quote

    so having built stuff in minecraft

    before i can totally understand this not

    everything you make is going to be like

    perfectly symmetrical and so if you run

    code like on one side of an area it

    might not work in another so sometimes

    if it's going to be asymmetrical or

    unique in terms of the overall design

    not just cut and paste then running a

    code might take longer or maybe you just

    need to start like smaller chunks of

    code rather than like building the whole

    staircase just like one floor or one

    level or something alright so the next

    section on this paper talks about the

    discussion so the author mentions that a

    lot of these challenges or frustrations

    could have been prevented if students

    had the ability to undo like a control z

    or if you had like a transparent overlay

    that would show you here's what it's

    going to look like if you run this code

    so it gives you at least a preview of

    what's going to happen it doesn't oh i

    should have moved over by one and not

    you know deleted my entire building

    here's a quote from page 48 that's

    important quote it is important for

    adults to be sufficiently trained with a

    collection of strategies to address both

    the content and the emotional nature of

    potential moments of youth distress end

    quote definitely agree with that had

    many guests on talk about social and

    emotional learning check out the

    podcasts that talk about that in the

    show notes but also just in general like

    i remember a kindergartner who'd come

    into the computer lab for the first

    couple months of school and he would cry

    about wanting his mom one of the

    strategies that i would do to help

    redirect his attention away from wishing

    that he was home was to ask questions

    like would you have for lunch today or

    what's something funny that happened on

    recess or just like other questions that

    would help with that emotional

    regulation to kind of distract him

    temporarily and help him reset when it

    comes to frustration with like school

    work or whatever it's very helpful to

    have some kind of a strategy like that

    to help manage that frustration or work

    through it so working through problem

    solving or emotional regulation or

    whatever many different approaches or

    strategies can be used but definitely

    agree with his statement all right so

    here's a main point that's a paragraph

    in page 48 that i'd like to read quote

    while we have primarily talked about the

    work in the context of minecraft the

    ideas raised also have relevance across

    interest-based learning environments

    more broadly technological or design

    choices the coding platform should

    include some intentional features that

    recognize the high level of importance

    that youth might place on the program

    content within interest-based and or

    culturally sustaining computing

    experiences similarly instructors and

    facilitators should help normalize

    making mistakes as a common part of the

    programming process and teach students

    strategies for proactively managing

    those errors finally educators should be

    taught core practices for supporting

    participants social emotional well-being

    while this is being increasingly

    emphasized within in school k-12 context

    social-emotional learning should be

    equally as integral to educator learning

    and support in out-of-school context far

    from being spaces where youth become

    relaxed and indifferent these

    interest-driven spaces may be closely

    tied to youth identities aspirations and

    community roles as a result there can be

    a high propensity for emotionally

    charged interaction failure to attend to

    these considerations could result in the

    cycle of goals identity and learning

    negatively impacting one another and

    pushing youth further away from

    computing related experiences end quote

    that's an excellent set of points to

    consider if you are going to encourage

    people to create projects that are of

    interest to them how might you support

    and respond to students who are

    interested in exploring projects that

    might be considered controversial or

    emotionally charged so for example would

    you encourage students to explore a

    topic related to politics that's

    relevant what about related to a family

    member dying what about related to

    social justice issues and human rights

    depending on where you're teaching you

    might have different laws in place for

    that that may prevent students or you

    from actually addressing any of those

    things that might want to come up so

    something that you'll need to consider

    but also if students are exploring it it

    might cause other students to react

    positively or negatively or just

    emotionally in some kind of a way and so

    we need to have support for that so it's

    a very important thing to consider when

    engaging in interest-driven learning

    most of the projects that kids created

    were just kind of fun or for the lulls

    or whatever but sometimes kids would

    explore a heavy topic or an emotionally

    charged one and that's okay as long as

    you're able to support them in some way

    and if not speak with a counselor try

    and get some input on how you can best

    support students which leads to another

    lingering question or thought that i

    have after reading this paper is when is

    interest driven learning challenging or

    taxing on students just because it's fun

    doesn't mean it's not difficult like if

    you listen to the interview with bob

    irving the second one where he talks

    about his book hard fun it'd be a lot of

    fun engaging in programming and

    exploring interest but it doesn't make

    it easy and it doesn't mean it's not

    like emotionally or intellectually

    taxing so how can we support them what

    kind of support can we provide in

    moments like those far too often when

    people talk about interest-driven

    learning when i say people i do include

    myself on this we talk about the

    positives all the like great things that

    you can do with this approach but we

    also need to talk about how it can be

    overwhelming for some if they're not

    used to this approach we need to provide

    some scaffolding to help them so i

    really appreciate that this author talks

    about some things that we should

    probably discuss more if we're using

    interest-driven learning in our classes

    but anyways this was a short paper so a

    short podcast i hope you enjoyed

    listening to it i hope you consider

    reading it checking out the authors

    other works if you enjoyed this please

    consider sharing with somebody else or

    sharing a review on whatever platform

    you're listening to this on stay tuned

    next week for another episode and until

    then i hope you're all staying safe and

    are having a wonderful week

Article

Worsley, M. (2022). Examining the realities and nuances of ‘low-stakes’ interest-driven learning environments. 2022 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 45–49.


Abstract

“The push to develop low-stakes and personally meaningful computer science experiences is creating novel opportunities to broaden participation in CS. These opportunities have become increasingly present across contexts and have expanded the possibilities for introducing and sustaining student participation in computing. However, while these experiences tend to be effective ways for engaging new participants and new forms of participation, we must be careful to not overlook how 'high- stakes' these experiences might be for learners. To explore this tension, this paper describes two case studies of students engaging in coding and computational thinking with Minecraft Education Edition. The first case study involves a 7-year-old Black and Latina girl who experiences significant frustration when her computer program destroys significant portions of her project. The second is from a Latino boy who avoids using the coding capabilities in Minecraft EDU out of fear that the code might not work properly. Building on these case studies, this paper suggests that the field take steps to ensure that the language and actions associated with low-stakes and high-stakes are reflective of learner perceptions, and that we design learning experiences that appropriately reflect this nuance.”


Author Keywords

Game-based learning, informal, formal, pedagogy


My One Sentence Summary

This paper discusses two case studies of students programming in low-stakes, interest-driven learning environments.


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • How might you support students when they are engaging in emotionally charged projects?

  • When is interest-driven learning challenging or taxing on students?

    • How can we provide support in those moments?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode



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