Suggestions for Starting or Expanding Your Program with Dianne O'Grady-Cunniff

In this interview with Dianne O'Grady-Cunniff, we discuss some suggestions for starting or expanding your program, as well as other topics for novice and veteran CS educators.

Welcome back to another episode of the
csk8 podcast my name is Jared O'Leary
this week's episode I interviewed Diane
O'Grady Kenneth Diane works at the
Maryland Centre for computing education
and has experience working in high
school settings as well as collegiate
levels in our discussion we're going to
not only talk about advice for new and
veteran CS educators but we're also
going to talk about how you can
potentially start or expand your program
in your class school or district as
always the show notes will link to some
of the stuff we're talking about for
example Diane mentions the scripts
program that cs4 all runs which is a
fantastic program that I recommend and I
have a direct link to that inside the
show notes as well as some other links
as well and you could find those show
notes by clicking in the link in your
app wherever you are listening to this
or by just visiting Ghirardelli recom
where there's nothing for sale and now
we're gonna begin the interview with
Diane introducing herself of Diana Grady
Kenneth and I'm the director for the
Maryland Center for computing education
and we're a center that just started as
part of the University System of
Maryland last year when we got funding
from Larry Hogan who's our governor here
in Maryland who's one of the governors
for computer science he tell me the
story of how you got into computer
science education sure I got my computer
science degree back in the 80s so I'm
dating myself I talked and worked in the
computing center there as an
undergraduate the people there were
fantastic definitely made me love what I
was doing and then they hired me at the
University right after I graduated
because they were desperate for people
to teach computer science courses I
didn't stay there long because I moved
around a lot I always had and I always
found some place to teach and work for
computer science either doing Network
administration teaching at community
colleges there just seemed to be ongoing
opportunities I finally ended up
teaching in a public high school when I
was kinda shocked by three things the
first one was the lack of diversity in
the classes the second was how likely
computer science was to disappear off
the course offering lists because of
different factors and the third one was
what you really deal with in a public
school classroom as far as you're almost
more of a babysitter than a content
delivery
and compared to teaching at the
university level and that was a lot to
learn but I learned a lot from peers and
especially learned a lot when we formed
our own CSC a Maryland chapter with some
university people and a bunch of other
lonely and desperate souls because we
all realized that computer science might
not stick around if we didn't actually
do something about it and working on the
update in 2010 for the CSTA k12
standards really helped me see that the
bigger picture of what was going on so I
really got into CS education at that
point yeah and your point about working
in public schools in it how it's
different from higher ed I just like to
kind of reiterate that real quick I'm
fortunate and then I've worked with
every grade K through graduate and it's
so different when you're working with
people who are paying a lot of money to
be in your class versus people who are
forced to be there you just have to take
that into account in terms of not
everyone's gonna be interested in in
whatever subject you're doing exactly
it's just a whole different way of
presenting things a whole different way
of you know in university people are
like grateful that you have distilled
something into a meaningful piece that
they can relate to and in high school
they're like why are you telling me this
yeah I sometimes wish that more college
professors would have classroom
experience in the k-12 to better
understand computer science education
research in particular because it's just
night and day different or at least it
can be totally so can you tell me a
story about an experience in education
that continues to impact you today yeah
I thought about that there's really I
think two things that were kind of
formative for me and the first was in
third grade we read a story about this
kind of computer assisted individualized
learning scenario for the future and I
was like yeah that's it
you know why shouldn't I be learning
what I'm ready to learn instead of what
everybody else is learning and direct it
to what my interests are and then the
second thing was homeschooled my kids
for a number of years and we worked with
other groups and everything we did was
inquiry based and project based and
learning just lasted you know you
learned what you needed to learn and you
used it and it just seemed kind of
natural when I worked at the University
I did work with some of the projects to
develop online learn
modules and to realize how much goes
into creating those personalized
learning experiences with all the ifs
and then and yep Wow didn't know that in
third grade so what's something you
believe when you first began working in
education that you no longer believe so
I think one of the biggest things that I
believed in the beginning was this idea
that change could happen quickly it can
in private schools and it can in
universities you know you can have a lot
of agency to say hey I want to do this
and people say okay go do it but it's
sort of this one on one thing for this
institutional change somebody somewhere
along the way you know gave us that line
about this is a marathon not a sprint
and it did take me years to really
believe and understand how much that's
true just got to keep chipping away
chipping away chipping away don't walk
away cuz you could lose the progress you
made what kind of advice might you give
to new CSS yeah for the new people we
keep pushing this idea of being the lead
learner and I think that's super
important just be willing to give it a
try so many people discover this is
something they do like and they do have
a talent for once they get there and so
hope that that's the case but this isn't
just a once and done thing you've got to
keep learning yeah pedagogy and content
right there's a wonderful things
happening in this area all the time barb
Erickson
just did a talk this week about how the
value of Carson's problems ties into
student learning and retention and about
near peer learning through giving
everybody a multiple choice question and
then discussing the answer together
before you decide what the answer is and
you know they're starting to do some
different kinds of research in computer
science that comes out of what they
already know and other kinds of
education is there's just so much to
learn content wise pedagogy wise and
just remind yourself keep learning yeah
in your comment about doing research
that's already known in other subject
areas so it's actually something I
talked about in a podcast that hasn't
released yet that one of the biggest
recommendations that I gave is to read
outside of your subject area hmm so if
you're computer science educator read
stuff in other content areas and just
read stuff outside of Education in
general you can learn a lot that you can
apply in
classroom oh yeah yeah podcasts and
different things too little two-minute
stories yeah so how might your advice
change if our asks you what kind of
advice would you give for a veteran si s
educator I think that's really that
thing about just keep learning I mean
that's that's really the advice for this
for new end veteran and then would it be
the same for teachers who are interested
in integrating CS or CT but aren't
necessarily doing it full-time no
because what I'm thinking with the
people I work with that are trying to do
the integration is it really helps if
you start small yeah that's possible if
somebody's not you know dumping a whole
stuff on your head and you just have to
swim through it but you know keep trying
to just kind of push outside the box and
you know think about it math is
computing we are computing technology so
you know there's all these connections
just because the way that we teach
English language arts doesn't include
computational linguistics and things
like how we communicate body language
inflection the digitization of things
there's all these wonderful connections
to every subject area that's in
computing if you can just be able to
take bits and pieces of it and make it
part of other things we'll finally get
to the rational point where we should
have been all along we're computing is
part of what we teach yeah and there's a
lot of organizations in the last few
years in particular like Korg who are
are great at advocating for and
promoting those connections that can be
made and demonstrating like the value of
learning computer science or coding but
there are some districts where it just
hasn't caught on yet either because it's
not mandatory in their state or it's
just administrators are unaware of it
but there are like individual teachers
who are incorporating CS or CTE in their
class
what might you recommend for those
teachers who want to expand the reach to
outside of just their classroom and
maybe reach their whole district yeah I
think a lot of us started out as lonely
souls kind of the voice in the desert
there and you know to keep looking for
other collaborators and connecting with
other people that are doing what you're
doing is a big part if you really want
change to happen I think you have to
work and bottom-up top-down and side
weighs all at the same time because that
that's I think what happened in Maryland
that really worked and it took us a few
years of doing that but you know
peer-to-peer works really well a
principal tells another principal look
at this great thing I did or a counselor
or a district administrator or another
teacher and an elementary teacher - an
elementary teacher so people having
success in telling other people about it
is part of what makes it work but then
at the same time trying to educate your
legislators trying to educate your
administrators it's a lot but really
that's what we are we're like this big
education institution try to catch up
with what people don't know yeah I I
really like the idea of the peer to peer
as two examples like one you could share
on social media and that could
potentially help promote to the idea
with other teachers in your area but to
just inviting it and ministers to your
classroom to see what you're doing can I
had a makerspace that was a middle
school elective and the superintendent
just happened to walk in one day and was
like this is amazing and long story
short it ended up that we created a
maker bus that traveled from school to
school that would provide these maker
experiences so that everybody in the
district could experience that at some
point throughout the year so that just
one-off moment where the superintendent
walked in my room led to a makerspace
going to every one of the schools so
things can kind of snowball into bigger
things and it doesn't have to be
something as big as a bus right it could
trigger those lending bins right okay
let's make up some bins of these cool
little activities for logic or these
cool little robots and let's make them
available to people so that all more
people can do it and let's provide PD
for it so they know what to do it yeah
yes that's the thing that I often see is
missing or the PD that's provided is
just this one-off thing where it's like
okay I spent six hours or eight hours
doing this this thing and now what yep
or they give you training on something
that you're actually not going to have
access to yeah that was fun yep so what
kind of advice might you give to
district administrators who see the
awesome things that can be done with
computer science and are interested in
getting started with it
their district or school I think script
cs4 all really has distilled a lot of
great lessons inside of there you know
talk about learning from other people
but you gotta have a vision and a plan
you gotta be able to say in words why is
this important to our particular
community and you got to work in teams
you can't just have one off person who
might leave be the one person making the
plan for everybody you got to do
vertical planning and it's amazing in
districts how often you find the high
school middle school elementary school
people haven't even talked much less the
special ed people the counselors it's
gotta be a team thing you got to have
the vision and you can't do it all at
once because you don't know what's gonna
work yet so you've got to do it in
stages and like you and I were just
saying you know you've got a build
relevant professional development into
the plan at every single step don't just
give somebody a pacing guide and say
this is what you're gonna teach this
year and the poor soul looks at it and
goes I don't even know how to define
some of those words yeah I mean having
just a small plan I think what I'm
seeing as successful is here's how we're
going to move it forward this is the PD
we're gonna offer this is the PD we're
gonna offer for the people who miss the
PD in the first place these are the
supports we're gonna give people and
moving away from that once and done
where you're kind of building a whole
structure around it and for people who
might not be familiar with it Scripps is
this process that kind of guides you
through that so it kind of helps you
think through the questions that you as
an administrator need to think through
like oh if we're gonna provide PD well
then we should probably also provide
cost for substitutes or we need to make
sure that we have enough devices for the
kids or things like that and it helps
you think through the long term not just
the short term of how to implement it in
your district yeah in stages right yeah
start we start with the first part and
then get that going and then work on the
next part I like that also kind of think
outside the box because this is you know
this whole new subject area it's
integrated and its standalone so you got
to kind of think of it both ways this as
far as where it's gonna fit
you know our traditional education is
the same education that's been there for
the last hundred years and this didn't
fit in there so where you put it as a
chance to innovate a little bit I really
like that you mentioned that it's
integrated and standalone what I
typically recommend is to start
standalone and then build from there
because it's it's it's easier once kids
know how to program or how to use a
platform like scratch to then okay now
that you have developed this expertise
now you can apply it into other subject
areas but if you go the other way around
it's it's often a little bit more
difficult yeah and it frustrates the
teachers too because they want to do
this project that's valuable in their
subject area and in their curriculum but
instead they have to set aside X number
of days to teach the kids the basics to
use the tool which yeah definitely works
out better that way
so what mistakes are hard lessons have
some districts made that you would
recommend others avoiding I think some
of the biggest mistakes that the
districts make are getting stuff and not
really knowing how it fits in or what
you're going to do with it or like we
said providing enough professional
development that people are comfortable
using it another thing that people do
that doesn't turn out well is taking too
big of a step all at once and sometimes
that's not a district sometimes that's a
state thing where you know now it's
mandated every student must take
computer science you know I have five
teachers in my state I have to have 500
of them within two years so it's not
like they always have a choice I think
if they they're able to work with that
script have a short plan act on it build
up and analyze your gaps always keep
your state standards in mind always keep
equity of access in mind while you're
doing it you know how am I going to
reach all kids as I work because some
people have this vision that computer
science is just for some and all of
their efforts go towards building this
elite group of computer scientists for
the future whether they're cybersecurity
people or artificial intelligence or
cloud computing whatever which is a
great thing to work on but you're
missing 90% of your kids if that's where
you focus yeah that's an import
and there are many ways that you can't
approach it unless you have a district
or a state mandate of everybody needs to
do it at once
some districts will do okay this first
year we're gonna have kinder through
third grade and then next year we'll
have kinder through fourth and they'll
just kind of like keep building off of
that that has a different amount of
support that's needed up front then okay
everybody K through 12 needs to do this
this year you just gotta take those into
consideration which I had seen that
happen somewhat successfully but it just
takes a whole lot of work on that end
one of the other hazards is if you start
with elementary but you don't do
anything with your middle school
teachers until the kids get to be that
age now the teachers are starting at
Ground Zero but the kids are coming in
like on level three okay so if you're
not kind of educating your middle school
teachers at the same time you're
training your elementary school students
you create this strange kind of a gap
yeah we actually had that in the
district person so it was a k-8 district
and the high school district was his own
separate entity so we had all these kids
who had multiple years of programming
experience and then they would go to
high school and there wasn't even a
class offered at some of the high
schools yeah so you have to that
vertical planning piece is where that
keeps coming back right and the other
stake that people make is universities
do it too is just just connect with the
high quality resources that are already
exist before you start to develop your
own yeah so many people want to create
their own but face it two years of
testing in a classroom and refining a
curriculum is worth a lot yeah it is a
really big ask for teachers to teach
this stuff and if we're providing them
with minimal Cee'd lessons with possibly
some links that you have to go out and
sort through that's not fair
yeah and I'll say from professional
development and curriculum standpoint
after having done this professionally
for a couple of years we reiterate and
keep adding and changing things every
week so those couple years of experience
like really separate us from people who
are starting right away yeah and lots of
what's out there is free I mean it's
high-quality and free so if you haven't
did that why not that's my big line if
not why not so what about funding so a
lot of districts might be interested in
it but they might not have the money for
the PD what might you recommend
or districts who want to obtain funding
or professional development I mean every
state's got their own set of rules and
what it's for
but I think at least in Maryland all I
have to do is talk to me but do to
create an actual plan that includes a
budget in a timeline and show how it
actually reaches a broad reach of kids
and improves what's already there so
have a plan a timeline budget objectives
I think you can get a lot farther that
way try to hook up with people business
nonprofit University people were all
part of doing the same thing departments
of Education are all educating
themselves so that they can start to
include this and something that they do
so you're kind of getting onto a moving
wheel that's already turning you don't
have to start something on your own if
you can connect up with somebody else
that's already got something working
yeah and the a lot of organizations or
even state funded organizations are
providing grants and other opportunities
forward this kind of funding but what
would you recommend for a district who
applies for that what should they really
focus on or take into consideration I
just think some people just want to go
for the bling drones they do that and
some of that stuff is great as long as
that's not most of it I mean especially
like people will go for these consumable
kits and then you know scale and sustain
scale and sustain can you get it to
every teacher and you keep it going you
got to ask yourself that if you're going
to write some sort of an application for
funding okay so looking out at the
computer science and in the field of
education what are you looking forward
to in the field of CS education I get so
excited about what could it possibly be
like once we get past that basic
literacy that most people don't have to
that point where the majority instead of
this little minority have the ability to
use it as this creative tool in maker
spaces in school out of school I mean
you see examples of what can be done
with people who have a background but
still if you ask any University computer
science intro level professor you have a
large number of kids thinking they want
a major in computer science with real
minimal skills so
you have to spend a couple of years
playing catch-up to get the basics
before you can start getting to the
really cool stuff so not flipping that
question what concerns do you have about
current trends in CS education I talked
a little bit about this idea of pushing
the requirements so hard you have a
bunch of unprepared teachers and instead
of a success you have a big frustration
and people have a negative experience
just that if you don't do things with
thought and support for the teachers
quality curriculum quality professional
development ongoing PD it can just
fizzle out so I kind of worried that a
lot of people are pushing forward
various requirements and you know while
the computer science people are pushing
don't forget out there there's a whole
movement to get AI in k-12 and
cybersecurity is developing guidelines
for k-12 and these are a whole nother
set on top of computer science for k-12
how many different directions can we
push at the same time and speaking of
being pushed in many directions teachers
in general are pushed in a lot of
directions and there's this tendency in
the field to kind of either stick with
it for many years or to fizzle out
pretty fast like within the first few
years I imagine that might be
exacerbated in areas like if a teacher
is being asked to or force to teach CS
education but they're not necessarily
interested in it so what might you
recommend or teachers to kind of help
stave off that burnout well if they can
take things in small steps that's
definitely one of the pieces but that
connecting with ears and and
collaborating on things that work well
is it not the best thing that get me
going what do you wish there's more
research on that can inform your
practices or the field I wish we could
point to more research that say this
works almost all of us seem to be flying
by the seat of our pants
I believe with all my heart and soul
that this is important and valuable but
I can't prove it in any kind of
measurable way I wish there was more
research about the pedagogy and and what
really works because sometimes you can
tell a kid what a variable is 20 times
over and they still clearly do not
understand what a variable is
and what the learning trajectories are
that you know this really is a base
knowledge you need to build on to get to
the next step what questions do you have
for myself or to the field at large I
would love to know from from you in
particular since you've worked with
people in a number of different places
what trends are you seeing do you see
people coming to you with more
information and knowledge when they want
to do something over time or do you see
everybody still being at a beginning
level over and over again it varies by
district and location generally speaking
if a district has seen it done in a
neighboring district they're usually a
little bit further ahead in terms of
preparation but most of the places that
we work with it's at the beginning
stages they they are excited about doing
something or maybe they're being forced
to do something so the hesitant about it
but they're like okay help us where do
we go from here and so I'm fortunate in
that I work at or an organization that
is able to help provide those steps but
I still think there's a lot of
floundering going on for districts
you're just like okay where do I go what
do I do and I think like you mentioned
with scripts that's a good place to
start to start thinking of those
questions I mean it's like Smee that
every single district in Maryland has
started you know I mean that's just this
neat feeling that this gigantic barge
has started moving forward and there's
people in all parts of the state that
are doing something but then when I talk
to people in other states sometimes I
feel like wow overall we haven't really
made that much of a difference yet we're
still at square one yeah that's not the
norm yet what Maryland's doing
eventually it will be I mean I imagine a
decade from now it's gonna be a very
different conversation that we'll be
having in terms of we're no longer
starting at Ground Zero with most people
it'll be more of how do we advance the
field as opposed to how do we get it
started in all the schools just so you
know that's where I thought I was ten
years ago oh really I said the same
thing well I'm hope I'm not proven wrong
on that positive outlook me too it was
at marathon sprint thing though you know
I think it things are in motion now in a
way that they weren't ten years
ago so maybe now it'll be lasting change
not just sporadic change yeah I mean I
think in order for that to really happen
it's God I've helped her into higher
education in the teacher preparation and
that's starting to happen some places
but once these kids who have actually
gone through ideally like a pre-k
through 12 computer science and coding
program when they get into teaching
they'll have at least had experience res
most the teachers who are currently in
the classroom and haven't had an
experience with computer science or
programming exact I'm so excited working
with our what 14 now University partners
who are incorporating this into their
resurfaced programs in different ways
and its really really exciting
universities are such a great resource
and they have those connections to the
other subject area learning and the
colleges of education and they have the
subject area and their CSR IT
departments how would you recommend
making those connections because like in
Arizona there was this kind of chicken
and egg scenario where the state wanted
to provide an endorsement and then force
SES education but then the university
wanted to provide training on it but
they're waiting on state but then the
state was waiting on the university to
kind of develop some stuff so like how
do you make those connections to kind of
foster those collaborations between like
departments of Ed universities and
colleges and then actual districts yeah
I mean it's a challenge for us to but
you got to keep trying to connect that
circle around your State Department of
Education your legislation your
university people and your k-12 people
and just keep looping around I think
once you have standards and you've
agreed that this is what kids need to
learn and the educator standards will be
published in December 2019 so this is
what somebody should know to be a good C
s educator you can at least put again
beginning steps around that you're not
going to develop all five courses in a
sequence all at once you're gonna create
that first course so what does that look
like and then what's an outline of where
you're going to be going and where might
people go to connect with yourself and
the organization is that you work with
we RCS for MD com the Maryland Center
for computing education most of our
stuff is on our website which I am
currently reorganizing so don't be
surprised
if it looks a little messy for a few
weeks and that concludes this week's
episode of the CSKA podcast just a quick
friendly reminder that every week the
show notes have relevant links related
to each episode you can find that in the
app that you're listening to this on or
by visiting jared O'Leary com I ask if
you enjoy this content and the content
that's on my web site that you simply
share it making no money off of it just
want to help other people out so please
consider sharing with somebody who might
be interested in these free resources I
hope you enjoyed this week's episode and
I hope you look forward to next week's
episode where I unpack some scholarship

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- Advice for School Administrators Interested in CSforALL with Clark Merkley
  - In this interview with Clark Merkley, we discuss what Clark has learned over the years working with administrators across the nation who are interested in implementing CS education in their district.
- CS for What? Diverse Visions of Computer Science Education in Practice
  - In this episode I unpack Santo, Vogel, and Ching’s (2019) publication titled “CS for What? Diverse Visions of Computer Science Education in Practice,” which is a white paper that provides a useful framework for considering the underlying values and impact of CS programs or resources.
- How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
  - In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
- Suggestions and Considerations for District-wide Implementation with Abby Funabiki
  - In this interview with Abby Funabiki, we discuss the differences between for-profit and nonprofit CS education organizations, the importance and ability for nonprofits to collaborate with others, CS as the new digital divide, how to get started with CS implementation with limited or no extra funding, suggestions and considerations for district-wide implementation, and much more.
- The CS Visions Framework and Equity-centered Computing Education with Rafi Santo and Sara Vogel
  - In this interview with Rafi Santo and Sara Vogel, we discuss informal learning in CS, the CS Visions Framework, equity through social justice pedagogy, considerations for Integration, and much more.
- More episodes related to curriculum
- More episodes related to funding
- More episodes related to implementation
- More episodes related to professional development
- All other episodes
Learn more about the mobile makerspace I mentioned (the Avondale Mobile STEAM Lab)
Learn more about CSforALL’s SCRIPT program
Maryland Center for Computing Education (MCCE)
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter