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.

Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is Jared O'Leary in
this week's episode I'm going to unpack
a white paper by Rafi Santo Sarah Vogel
and Dixie chain from cs4 all the paper
is titled cs4 what diverse visions of
computer science education in practice
one of the things that I love about
white papers as they can be found for
free so for example you can find this in
the show notes simply click on the link
that's in the description in your app or
visit jared O'Leary comm or you could
visit cs4 all's website but going to see
s for all org backslash visions and
that's fo are not the number for if
however you do visit the show notes
remember you can click on the author
last names and it will direct you to
their google scholar profile so you can
actually read more papers by each of
these authors so this paper doesn't have
an abstract however I'm going to read
the introduction for you so this starts
on page for vote why should students
learn computer science for creativity
jobs justice innovation the answer to
this question shape what computer
science education CS ed looks like in
practice
CS ed can and should look different
given the diverse aspirations and
experiences of students as well as their
educators families and others who aim to
support them and who's involved in
articulating the vision driving CS ed
also matters because it has real
implications for how the equity issues
at the heart of the CS for all movement
are addressed having stakeholders come
together to do the messy and challenging
work of hashing out their values makes
it more likely that all needs and issues
of equity can be addressed it can create
a seat at the table for broader voices
to shape what CSN looks like on the
ground this white paper provides a
framework for understanding the myriad
reasons for teaching computer science by
considering the underlying values
beliefs about what is good worthwhile
and important it provides examples of
how different CSN curricula programs and
tools embody particular values and
rationales in their design finally our
recommendations invite those involved in
computer science education at every
level from policy makers and ministers
to curriculum designers and teachers to
come together with students families and
their communities to deliberate about
why they think CS education is important
then use these answers to guide their
choices around designing and making
available CS learning opportunities when
diverse stakeholders come together
consider
debate and decide what values they want
to drive their work around CS education
they embody the democratic ideals at the
heart of education if I two kind of
provided one sentence summary of this
white paper I would say that this white
paper provides a useful framework for
considering the underlying values and
impact of CS programs or resources now
this white paper is 55 pages long
however I highly recommend people check
this out it provides some excellent
examples and considerations for thinking
through the different kinds of values
and impact that you might want to have
with the kids that you work with or the
resources you develop or if you're a
researcher like the kind of research
that you want to do and have an impact
on the larger cs ed community so this
paper outlines what they are calling the
values and impact areas and there are
seven of them they are not in any
particular order however I'm going to
number them just so you know when I'm
reading the next one so here's the first
one
equity and social justice second one
competencies and literacies third one
citizenship and civic engagement the
fourth one technological social and
scientific innovation the fifth one
economic and workforce development six
one school reform and improvement and
the seventh one is personal agency joy
and fulfillment alright so I'm going to
unpack each of these a little bit by
providing a definition that they give
and then kind of summarizing and a
couple of these sample rationales for
each one of these impacts values and
rationales for CS education however I
strongly recommend that you actually
check out the paper itself so you can
see more of the rationales and get a
deeper understanding of each one of
these areas so the first one that I
mentioned equity and social justice so
this is on page 14 quote values and
impacts that promote fairness and
address historic in justices in quote so
some of the sample rationales that they
provide is that there are disparities
among minority groups represented in CS
or STEM fields another rationale is that
some want to close the digital divide
among low-income youth okay so the
second area the competencies and
literacies here's a quote from page 15
that kind of describes what this is
quote values and impacts linked to
computer science education x' unique
potential to promote particular skills
end quote
so some of the rationales that they
provide are that computer science can
promote 21st century skills literacies
and ways of thinking so for example
design or systems thinking the third one
citizenship and civic engagement here's
a quote from page 15 quote values and
impacts focusing on computer science
education relationship to social
cultural and political participation in
quote now some of the rationales that
are provided in this white paper are
that we aren't just consuming but are
producing technology another rationale
that they provide is that a program
might want to create more informed and
respectful citizenship or citizens so
the next category is technological
social and scientific innovation here's
a quote from page 16 quote values and
impacts promoting scientific
technological and social advancement
weather around current goals or ones
currently not on the radar of those
driving innovation in quote so our
rationale in this category might be that
we need to provide a better
understanding of CS education or CS as a
field in order to solve large problems
and promote technological innovations
that help society or the world so two
examples that they provide are working
towards problems such as climate change
and cyber security issues the next one
that we actually hear a lot in CS
education is the category of economic
and workforce development here's a quote
from page 17
well values and impacts that orient
toward professional life industry in the
economy unquote so some of the
rationales are that there is a shortage
of CS professionals or that CS or C T
will be integral regardless of what
profession you go into the next category
school reform and improvement here's a
quote from page 17 quote values and
impacts that see potential for CS
education to work in service of broader
school reform goals benefiting teachers
school administrators students and the
education systems they're a part of
unquote some of the rationales for this
approach is that CS education might
enhance learning and other content areas
examples of enhancing learning in other
content areas typically relate to like
integration another rationale is that CS
education can increase student
engagement through project-based
student-centered or culturally
responsive pedagogy and the final
category is personal agency joy and
fulfillment here's a quote from page 17
quote values and impacts oriented toward
the fun fulfillment and personal agency
that can come out of CS education as
positive for their own sake in quote so
some of the rationales for this kind of
approach is that computing can be a form
of creative expression that developed
personal agency or that it can lead to
quote wonder discovery and enjoyment end
quote
also from page 17 so the author's point
out that these values and impact areas
don't exist in isolation but can overlap
in various ways for example this
framework can be used to assist with
quote conversations among district
leadership teams organizations that
design CS ed curricula or professional
development out of school organizations
funders or policy makers anyone involved
in CS education efforts that can do
their work better when they have clarity
about the visions they have for CS
education end quote
in other words thinking through these
kind of values and impacts and
rationales for CS education is something
that anyone involved in CS education
should consider in addition these
conversations should be ongoing it's not
just something that you front-loaded at
the beginning and then you never think
about again but you are just constantly
reflecting on and reassessing your
values and impacts in your CS ed program
in relation to the impacts that you want
your kids to have on your community and
the values that the communities hold
here are a couple quotes that I want to
read that kind of drive this home a
little bit more so this is a quote from
page 20 quote arguments for computer
science education and the values that
undergird them have real implications
for instruction design and
implementation values whether they are
stated or implicit well-thought-out or
ad hoc are baked into teacher
professional development curriculum
pedagogy and learning technologies
encode and here's a quote from page 43
quote even if a given CS education
program our curriculum centers on one
particular purpose we hope that across
the ecosystem of learning opportunities
a young person experiences a plurality
of purposes emerges once keyed to the
many ways we think about education role
from fostering creativity and agency
preparing youth for a changing
professional landscape opening up
opportunity where it's been closed off
and supporting the emergence of critical
thinkers and civic minded community
members in quote I really do appreciate
the
Quotes I'm a big fan of multi
perspectival education in other words
kids approaching things from several
different perspectives and having many
different options for exploring a
Content area rather than saying there's
one way to explore a field or a practice
or concept or whatever so following this
introduction of the different impacts
values and rationales for CS education
there are cases from the field so from
pages 19 through 41 there are a lot of
examples of what this actually looks
like in practice so for example there
are three examples of creative computing
here's a quote from page 21 that kind of
unpacks what that is quote much like
drawing writing or filmmaking learning
the language of code can be a powerful
way for young people to express who they
are use their imaginations and share
their perspectives of their communities
and the world in quote so people who
engage in creative computing tend to
have a combination of the following
values and intended impacts so they are
personal agency joy and fulfillment
competencies and literacies as well as
equity and social justice so for each
one of these categories of cases from
the field they have different examples
of platforms or approaches that really
kind of highlight these different
combinations of values and impacts so
for example under the creative competing
they discuss how scratch is one of the
platforms that encourages creative
computing so the next category is
broadening participation and labor
empowerment so there are three examples
that they kind of provide in this
section here's a quote that highlights
this approach quote broadening
participation of underrepresented groups
NCS has been motivated by both an equity
imperative to provide access as well as
concerns that a lack of diversity leads
to a tech sector only focused on certain
problems others are more focused on
careers in technology as a potential
source of economic mobility regardless
of anything else in quote that's from
page 25 so some examples of some
rationales that are provided includes
some different combinations of economic
and workforce development equity and
social justice as well as technological
social and scientific innovation the
next category of
cases that they discuss are two examples
of computing across the disciplines
here's a quote from page 29
well since computing education
incorporates skills and competencies
around 21st century technologies
computational thinking collaboration and
critical thinking some programs use it
to enhance student learning in the
traditional academic disciplines such as
math science and language arts this
subsection describes initiatives which
support schools to integrate computer
science concepts and practices into
other subjects grounded in the vision
that CS is useful to broad audiences of
students as a tool for inquiry in other
fields and quote some examples of the
combinations of rationales that people
within this category might use are
equity and social justice or school
reform and improvement or competencies
and literacies the next section is on
computing for social action and there
are four examples in here and this is an
approach that quote guides youth to use
computing to address social issues local
global and otherwise in quote is from
page 32 and the examples in this
particular section actually include all
seven of the values and impact areas
which again reiterates the idea that
there are many ways that you can combine
these different values for an intended
impact and the last section within this
particular section of the white paper
are three examples of ethical CS and
learning social impacts of computing so
here's a quote from page 37 rationales
here include the need for a
technologically sophisticated citizenry
that can respond to social changes and
the ability for students to push back
against potential negative effects of
tech in quote some of the rationales
include citizenship and civic engagement
equity and social justice as well as
technological social and scientific
innovation now here's a quote from page
point of thinking through all those
different values impacts and rationales
quote given that holding different
visions has important implications for
design and implementation of CSN efforts
we encourage CS edie stakeholders at all
levels to actively reflect on and
collectively deliberate around what
values drive their efforts and how
designs can best index those values in
quote so near the end paper
multiple pages of recommendations and
they're broken down into different
categories one of them is policymakers
and others educators and instructional
leaders as well as content providers and
tool designers and then finally a
researchers I'm gonna summarize the
recommendations for educators and
instructional leaders however I
recommend taking a look at all of them
if you're interested in looking at those
other areas so the first recommendation
they give is to learn about the interest
from various stakeholders in the
community that you suit you work in next
they recommend aligning the resources in
PD with your community's vision and they
recommend resisting the temptation to
purchase tools or subscribing to
services that don't actually align with
your vision
so for example if you want to focus on
tinkering creating and sharing and
perhaps you don't want to subscribe to a
platform that doesn't allow for the
creation of computer science expressions
and instead limits kids to solving
puzzles with one correct answer next the
authors recommend aligning both student
and teacher outcomes with the vision in
other words what the kids are going to
do in the class as well as the PDE that
teachers are doing we need to make sure
that all of those align and finally they
recommend ensuring that these values are
reflected in what kids experience in the
classrooms so it's one thing to have
this on paper or on a school's mission
or whatever but it's another thing to
actually see this implemented in a
classroom setting so it's very important
to not just talk about what you want in
terms of an impact and what you value
but actually seeing it happen in the
classrooms that you work in the authors
conclude by encouraging everyone to kind
of reflect on these different things and
thinking through the different ways that
the ways that you work with kids or the
resources that you create or the
services that you provide kind of align
with different values or impacts and
whether or not those are actually what
you intend to be your values and impacts
so normally towards the end of these
unpacking scholarship episodes I like to
talk about some of my lingering
questions in this episode I'm gonna do
it a little bit differently so instead
I'm going to actually verbally think out
loud the different ways that we may or
may not align with different values or
impact areas and the resources that I
create for budda so the curriculum that
I create is free and we describe it as
interest driven the goal is to get kids
to create something that is interesting
to them because it's focusing on
primarily elementary kids and
getting them really interested in the
field and the things that you can do in
particular with coding so the curriculum
that I create heavily focuses on the
creative computing side of things so for
example a goal in the free curriculum is
to focus on interest driven learning
that really encourages personal agency
joy and fulfillment in whatever project
that kids are creating so the goal is to
not get kids to recreate what I
demonstrate in the walkthrough videos
and tutorials that I create but instead
to get kids to take those ideas and
apply them in a new way so the
curriculum heavily focuses on personal
agency joy and fulfillment and one of my
rationales for doing that is because I
just want to get kids excited about
creating something at the elementary
stage they can dive deep at the
elementary level but if I were to start
talking to them about jobs and like all
the money that they can create a lot of
elements your kids just are not
interested in that because they're not
having to think about bills quite yet
however another overall goal that's kind
of guiding the approach that I've done
not only in the classroom but also now
with boot-up is that we really like to
focus on equity and social justice
impact areas as well as the different
kind of competencies and literacies so
my goal is to not get every kid to be a
CS professional but is instead to get
them to see the things that they can
create that can have an impact on the
world that they live in whether it be
for a social justice issue or just to
engage in modding practices for leisure
like I've mentioned in several previous
podcasts so the three main categories
that are very evident in the curriculum
that I create our B personal agency
joint fulfillment category equity and
social justice as well as competencies
and literacies however the professional
development that I direct for boot-up
focuses on more of the pedagogical
approaches that sent around project
based and rhizomatic learning
philosophies that encourage facilitation
practices over lecturing which aligns
with the school reform and improvement
impact areas in addition in the PD that
we do we actually discuss potential ways
to modify any of the free project
resources that I create for the
curriculum in order to assist with
integration which also falls under the
school reform and improvement impact
area and although it's not a primary
focus
in our PD we also point towards
resources that encourage citizenship and
civic engagement as we found that some
districts are unsure where to look for
that kind of content so those are the
main areas that I would say the
curriculum that I create in the PD that
I direct at Buddha kind of aligned with
the values and impacts as proposed in
this framework now there are some
categories that we intentionally avoid
or just don't discuss so for example I
feel there is too much focus on economic
and workforce development throughout
most CS education discourse and don't
feel like these conversations are
appropriate for elementary kids and I
mentioned that several times in previous
episodes with different interviews and
even some of the other unpacking
scholarship episodes so if you're
interested in hearing more about that
check out some of the prior episodes in
addition I prefer to focus on personal
agency joy and fulfillment over the
technological social and scientific
innovation with the elementary kids
however elementary kids could certainly
modify any of the projects to focus on
those areas so for example in the
interview with KD Henry we discuss the
do your bit challenge with my crabbit
which encourages more of these
technological social and scientific
innovations that can assist with the UN
global sustainability goals so if you
haven't checked out that episode yet I'd
highly recommend it so I hope walking
through the values and impact areas with
the curriculum and the PD that I create
helps you to kind of see one example of
different ways that you can think
through however you engage with computer
science education so if you are a
Content provider I highly recommend one
reading this white paper and then to
thinking through okay in what ways are
as the content that I'm creating aligns
with different kind of values and
impacts and what does that say about
we're trying to forward with the
resources that we create or if you're in
the classroom think about okay what are
kids engaging in and what kind of values
are that encouraging and what kind of an
impact is this going to have a decade
from now now again this paper you can
find just by clicking in the show notes
it's free to use which is great thank
you cs4 all I appreciate that the show
notes I found that Jared earlier calm or
you can simply go to cs4 all org
backslash visions and then the paper is
available there
that is fo r not the number for if you
enjoyed this episode please consider
sharing it with someone else or even
providing a review if you'd be so kind I
hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope
you tune in next week for another
interview

Article

Santo, R., Vogel, S., & Ching, D. (2019). CS for What? Diverse Visions of Computer Science Education in Practice. New York, NY: CSforALL.

Introduction

“Why should students learn computer science? For creativity? Jobs? Justice? Innovation? The answers to this question shape what computer science education (CSed) looks like in practice. CSed can and should look different, given the diverse aspirations and experiences of students, as well as their educators, families, and others who aim to support them.

And who is involved in articulating the visions driving CSed also matters because it has real implications for how the equity issues at the heart of the CS for All movement are addressed. Having stakeholders come together to do the messy and challenging work of hashing out their values makes it more likely that all needs and issues of equity can be addressed. It can create a “seat at the table” for broader voices to shape what CSed looks like on the ground.

This white paper provides a framework for understanding the myriad reasons for teaching computer science by considering their underlying values—beliefs about what is good, worthwhile, and important. It provides examples of how different CSed curricula, programs, and tools embody particular values and rationales in their design. Finally, our recommendations invite those involved in computer science education at every level—from policymakers and administrators to curriculum designers and teachers—to come together with students, families, and their communities to deliberate about why they think CS education is important, then use these answers to guide their choices around designing and making available CS learning opportunities.

When diverse stakeholders come together to consider, debate, and decide what values they want to drive their work around CS education, they embody the democratic ideals at the heart of education” (pp. 4-5).

My One Sentence Summary

This white paper provides a useful framework for considering the underlying values and impact of CS programs or resources.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

How does the curricular content I create align with this framework?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- Good (and Bad) Reasons to Teach All Students Computer Science
  - In this episode I unpack Lewis’ (2017) publication titled “Good (and bad) reasons to teach all students computer science,” which problematizes common rationales/myths for teaching computer science in K-12 schools.
- 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.
- 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.
- Unpacking Systems for CSforALL with Leigh Ann DeLyser
  - In this interview with Leigh Ann DeLyser, we discuss the purpose of CSforALL, considerations for leading people with different visions for (or interests in) CS education, the evolution and future direction of CS education, positive and negative corporate influence on education, thinking through equity from a systems perspective, and much more.
- More episodes related to CSforALL
- More episodes related to impact
- More episodes related to rationale
- More episodes related to value
- All other episodes
Learn more about CSforALL
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter