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.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK 8 podcast my name is Jared O'Leary
this week's episode is actually a group
interview where I am interviewing Rafi
Santo and Sarah Vogel who are two of the
three scholars that wrote the paper that
I unpacked in last week's episode titled
cs4 what diverse visions of computer
science education in practice in this
interview we discuss informal learning
within CS education the ciaz visions
framework social justice pedagogy and
equity considerations for integration
and much more if you haven't listened to
last week's episode I highly recommend
doing that as it will provide some
context for a discussion on the CS
visions framework and then once you've
done that come back here and listen to
this awesome interview with Rafi and
Sarah there are a lot of scholars in
publication that both Rafi and Sarah
mentioned throughout this podcast so
make sure you check out the show notes
which you can find in the description
using that link or by visiting jared
O'Leary comm and none of the links are
affiliate links nothing like that I
really hope you enjoyed this episode and
we will begin now with an introduction
by Sarah and Rafi my name is Sarah Vogel
I'm a doctoral candidate at the Graduate
Center which is at the City University
of New York in what is hopefully my last
year in the program working on my
dissertation and I'm also a research
assistant with an NSF funded projects
called participating in literacies and
computer science which focuses on how
bilingual young people use language
resources in computer science education
my name is rocky Santo I'm a learning
scientist I focus largely on the
intersection of digital culture learning
and institutional change in education
and I hold a position as a research
associate at CS parole and I'm also the
principal researcher at Taylor's
learning but tell me the story of what
led to your interest in computer science
education research starting at a young
age I was always kind of a tinkerer II
kid who enjoyed like making little
websites and using technology and later
on when I became a teacher I was a
bilingual teacher in the New York City
public school system for a while I was
always the most excited to watch
students use technology to amplify their
voices so I did projects with them where
they would blog or tell stories with
technology in videos I found this
amazing organization which Rafi you
was also a part of for many years called
global kids there's a program within
global kids where students use digital
media to express themselves and so
working at that organization they were
doing a lot of game design work at the
time when I was there and it wasn't just
about making videos and using text to
make it was about building tech so I
sort of hooked on to this idea of CS
education is also a means of student
self-expression and I was placed at this
at the school called New Directions in
the Bronx which worked with quite
vulnerable populations of students and
they were also bilingual kids and
watching them use technology in such
innovative ways and integrating their
communities and languages it was really
exciting
and as the CF for all movement kind of
took off in New York City I thought
about you know where students like this
in that movement are people paying
attention to the unique strengths and
challenges facing what we call emergent
bilinguals students so that's what sort
of set me on the path to explore these
questions as a researcher yeah I'm like
Sarah we've got so many parallels for
both New York City kids were kind of
little thinkers in our in our earlier
years and maybe you know early interest
in technology and then both even worked
in the same organization at global kids
even in the same program in the online
leadership work and you know I'm a kid
of the of the nineties and early web and
was always somebody who was kind of
taking apart my computers and you know
doing kind of that early work in web
design as things like you know geo
cities and other similar platforms came
up and and really kind of grew up in a
time when the web was very much more I
would say tinker ball than it is more
today and then within games you know in
gaming culture I was never I was never a
huge gamer but I always was involved and
always really interested in the kind of
you know kind of modifications and
customization that you can do and just
really found that technology was a place
where I had a lot of agency and
creativity personally as a kid and an
early in my kind of like professional
career saw the tools as very powerful
modes of expression and reflection for
me I did
of vlogging when I was in college and
then you know through into my early
years my 20s my professional life and I
just loved being in conversation through
technology with a broader world and it
really did kind of expand horizons of
who I was in dialog with and also what
hundred ideas I was exposed to like Sara
said you know my my early work was
really around the relationship between
an emerging digital culture and digital
tools and youth power and voice I had a
really wonderful experience with global
kids of really coming to see and
understand how new media could be a
venue for young people to equip explore
their interests but also explore their
power global kids as an organization is
an organization dedicated to having kids
think about both local issues and global
issues and within the online leadership
program there went digital now digital
learning program there how to use
technology to amplify and expand their
voice and so we were always innovating
around new media that were coming out
virtual worlds like Second Life
platforms our own game design practices
of game design programming and tinkering
in environments like scratch we were
always just at the edge of trying to be
like well what's happening in kind of
the digital culture space more broadly
and how can it be applied to our goals
of organizing youth power and having
them really be actors that are
participating in their communities in
ways that are consequential and then you
know I've got broader work that really
came out of that related to you know
doing curriculum design around
technology and whether it's game design
digital storytelling programming that I
did in my early grad career and then a
lot of work you know building off of
that in informal digital learning in the
out-of-school space in New York really
rooted in kind of community-based
organizations and that was sort of the
line in again as Sarah mentioned to you
when the ps4 all movement kicked off you
know it certainly locally here in New
York where we're both based seeing so
many of the ideas I've been working on
for many years at that point
finding a pretty prominent place in a
big hall yeah it's interesting going to
the various education conferences how
there's an interest in game based
learning but not a lot of people in
certainly know about game design in
relation to game based learning so I was
at a conference last week at the time of
this recording where they were talking
about game based learning and stem
classes and whatnot and they're like oh
well you should hire developers to
create these games and yadda yadda I was
like okay that's cool and all but hey
how about you actually like collaborate
with a computer science educator and
like have kids design games for other
kids and what could you do with that and
yeah it's just funny that like there are
people in the school that can help you
with that thing and help you develop
those games but instead people are
looking outside of it rather than
actually collaborating with it
their own teachers in their school yeah
and I think a really powerful you know
part of my journey and especially as a
learning scientist was coming to ideas
of what really powerful learning is
right what is powerful learning I know
when I was at global kids and probably
when Sarah was there too were really
heavily influenced by the work of the
kind of constructionist learning
movement really foundationally led by
Seymour Papert and then his
contemporaries and miss Resnick and yes
means I laid her out who really just saw
the power that comes of making things
creating things digital artifacts non
digital artifacts in community in social
context and things that were personally
relevant to you and I think to me the
one of the reasons that I was never
really oriented towards technology for
technology's sake but really interested
as a burgeoning learning scientist at
the time and like what is powerful
learning look like and I saw in the kind
of creative and constructionist
orientations that can be found in
learning in computer science really a
powerful mode of engaging with the world
and engaging and learning so could you
paint like a vignette of a story that
kind of like impacts you today that is
an example of what powerful learning
looks like
I can definitely kind of piggyback on
what he was saying about global kids
just for the sake of picking one mobile
kids had this project developed by a lot
of people I'm going to miss people when
I say book people like Mary Joseph and
Juan drew Leo and Jack Martin some good
writers is now the library's jeweler so
Daniel all these other obviously people
who came together to think
about history and how to have students
explore the history of their
neighborhood using the tools of game
design and specifically location-based
game design so this is a really mixed
genre exploded with things like Pokemon
go but at the time few people are
thinking about games in public spaces
and having them really support students
and exploring local issues and histories
I got to run this project which is
called New York City haunt because the
idea is that you're excavating the
ghosts that haunt all around New York
City several locations including the
school that I mentioned before which was
called New Directions this is a school
that students it was like a trance for
middle school so it with students who
for one reason or another their previous
middle schools like thrust them off
which is a really sad state of affairs
in New York City that this even happened
but the schools that word New Directions
would just accept all the students that
other middle schools like didn't know
how to deal with so students were
extremely intelligent and capable and
interesting and I got to do this project
near City Hall with them and it was in
sort of an intergenerational experience
because we had middle school students
who were often of varying ages because
it was an overage under credited kind of
situation we also had their younger
brothers and sisters who just decided to
come along for the summer we had high
school-aged interns from global kids and
we had college agent turns and adult
facilitators and so it was this
incredible opportunity to engage in like
an intergenerational collaborative place
boost game design when do you ever get
to do that like this is like the mother
lode as an educator just are awesome
situations we have like the
nine-year-old inspiring the 18 year old
to like you know pick their head up off
the table and and and get creative and
you'd have the 18 year old talking about
you know hip-hop with a 9 year old and
they created this incredible game that
takes place in the neighborhood in the
Bronx about rebuilding after sort of the
artisans that occurred in the South
Bronx that we know are sort of part of
the history of the South Bronx the
disinvestment and of that area and
students thinking about
the items that would be needed for a
group of concerned citizens to repair
and rebuild their neighborhoods and so
it's just this opportunity to do this
culturally sustaining like technology
rich intergenerational project and I
just like thank the stars that I got to
see that and and got to participate on
that before going into education
research where so much so many buzzwords
about literally sustaining pedagogy of
being thrown around and to really know
what that means and what it looks like
or what it can look like that's really
exciting yeah I love projects that allow
kids to collaborate outside of their age
band because like most grade levels
you're in a class with kids who are like
plus or minus maybe one year age
difference from you and to have like a
second grader collaborate with a high
school or even just like comment on
stuff it's awesome
yeah and I think the example that comes
to mind is in some ways really similar
but it has some interesting contrast it
was also in my time at global patron
think it's a very special place that we
can kind of acknowledge that you know I
had mentioned that we were doing some
work in Second Life which folks might
not be familiar with but it was an early
platform that was kind of a 3d virtual
world it wasn't a game it was very
creativity oriented so you can create
you know if you kind of think about
minecraft now or you're building over
the sandbox first but my cover you kind
of build anything second life was sort
of like that but it had its own coding
language you can you know customize your
avatars to know nth degree you know
doing graphic design porting it into the
system and doing scripts that really
allowed you to kind of much make games
or little small interesting interactions
and toys but you can kind of really use
your imagination really broadly and we
did work in Second Life and we ran some
programs there where we had kids that we
never met one summer we had a program
where we had kids in the US Canada
Australia and Russia actually they were
all you know in a program together we'd
meet online in this virtual world on
this kind of crazy island with a volcano
that we we had and you know big part of
that program was like many programs at
Global kids having kids decide on issues
they cared about and figure out how to
run some kind of campaign except in this
case it wasn't in the quote-unquote real
world it was in this virtual space and
after like a number of weeks of the this
kind of camp that we had online
the kids they're all teenagers decided
to do a big campaign around sex
trafficking of course it's always
refused incredibly intense issues we did
not choose that issue reliably kids
enjoy and choose these issues and they
created just incredible incredible
installation on the island work together
with our help it really wasn't adult
youth collaboration I think again the
theme of like what it looks like not to
cap you know young people working
individually on even on their own
project put on something very large
something's very ambitious and some that
requires them to collaborate with adults
and maybe was younger to them them
everyone had different roles some kids
was gonna her gramming some kids were
good at the graphic design sides and
some kids were create project managers
and they created this amazing it was
actually I mean come A's and as you went
through the maze there was all these
kind of knowledge building experiences
that the player would go through about
child sex trafficking they created a
donation system as well to became bad in
second life work is at the end of the
maze could donate and child sex
trafficking an important Geo that does
leading work in that and and it was this
amazing experience of first of all like
you know staying up so many nights
together online and kind of geeking out
together but also really a sense of
accomplishment together of how you can
use creativity and technology to advance
ideas of justice in this case it wasn't
a local community it just was in a
virtual local community there's probably
about no peoples and kids on Team Second
Life and I think most of them went
through the maze at the end of it even
though we had there just maybe a dozen
and a half kids that work on the project
so I thought would really stuck with me
is something that was like okay this is
really at this sweet spot of stuff that
kids care about stuff related to justice
stuff that really advances their ability
to be a gent akin the world has hard
skills has soft skills really all that's
was together and really reflects more
how you work in the real world in
collaboration and and on large project
right as opposed to we usually see in
more traditional environment so there
aren't good exceptions for that even in
schools so did this occur in a
formalized educational environment like
a school or outside of it I mean in the
example I gave it was entirely online
and kids
together literally in the virtual world
yeah my example the camp it was a summer
camp took place at a school but it used
the school space in a completely
different way then you normally see
schools being used where like you know
students were looking at those old
cracks on the walls of the school that
tell you who the honor roll was in 1950
right so they were using their schools
as sort of an artifact of history to
excavate you know seems and people and
so yes it took place in a school but not
within the formal strictures of what
school looks like because I'm interested
the roles that remained kids like being
a project manager being the coder and
whatnot oftentimes in schools it's like
well you have to sample all of the roles
and do a little bit at all of them
rather than specialize in one area and I
personally find value in cultivating
individualized expertise so I'm
wondering if you were to kind of do some
of the stuff in a classroom where there
are like sets of standards or
expectations of everybody coming out
falsely as being or knowing the same
thing what might you do or navigate or
how might you like to speak to an
administrator with those kinds of
expectations yeah I mean I can say from
actually studying other organizations
I'm thinking in particular of one
organization of studies a youth media
organization do you filmmaking
organization in Chicago called free
spirit media they focus on youth kind of
making both documentary as well as kind
of PSA films and you know narrative or
reporting what they do in a couple of
their programs that I studied is that
they'll have every kid cycle through in
the first semester every role involved
in a production team so you know whether
it's being the overall project manager
being the cinematographer doing editing
Jean free production everyone has to
cycle through all of those roles and
then the second semester they choose to
specialize and go deep in one of them
and so I think that there is a lot of
value but it's from an empathy
standpoint to have to cycle through all
those roles as well as from a skills and
outcome standpoint so that everyone kind
of does get at everything and then the
kind of agency that can come from going
very very deep and I think that's very
applicable to you things like game
design or app development or other forms
of
yes work yeah and then the way I have to
handle this in terms of work in schools
because I haven't run little kids
programming like as a class when we
would do community school partnerships
navigating those is always tricky and
challenging students also very different
expectations of what happens in a school
day versus what happens outside of
school
one way that we did that was we would
have sort of mini challenges where kids
could sort of see a project through or
see small projects through who and
complete many roles and then I sort of
see four projects where then they would
kind of specialize so everyone would get
a chance to see what it was like to use
the software that we use for the coding
of the location based game design was a
blazer so they could see how to code and
tell whether how to draw some artwork
how to write a little story and then
afterwards take what they wanted so very
similar to what rap is saying where you
get a taste of everything so you get
that real deep rich exposure and then
you can go deep on what you care about
what you like to do and you identity
that way yeah I did that with
programming languages in the classes i
facilitated so like we'd spend some time
in scratch then in sonic PI using Ruby
and then doing Swift and then getting
JavaScript and then after that is all
right pick whatever you want whatever is
more in alignment with what you're
interested in exploring and then they
could dive deep into that thing and then
they'd often kind of jump between the
languages and whatnot so what was
something that's you believed when you
first began working in education that
you no longer believe I got into
education in 2009 which was the capital
or reform movement right like was at a
fever pitch and you had also that
coinciding with the austerity budgets of
the financial crisis it was like a time
of intense pressure on scrub on teachers
on students all of those kind of the
guise of accountability in some way is
also in the air was this idea of the
achievement gap and how the role of
teachers was to close this achievement
gap and there was this educational
research supporting this view that a
good teacher was a single greatest
predictor
of student achievement and student
achievement was measurable by a safe
exam and the rhetoric trickled down to
me as a first-year like wide-eyed
teacher as all as students are doing
well then you are tonight like teachers
are the problem and I think that now
having had a lot more experience in
non-traditional education spaces both
here and abroad I was able to work in
Mexico and Argentina and see like
different approaches to education and
education reform collectivist and
movement based education approaches I
can now kind of question all of those
assumptions and those assumptions are
still with us but I think that you know
in a lot of this rhetoric and now I can
kind of question this idea that there's
only one way that students can do well
and achieve and now you see that that I
actually see you know that's a quite
racist and classist premise Riven in
that model of the edge of the
achievement gap achievement is always
this you know the performance of a white
standard english-speaking middle class
person way it was kind of the benchmark
and then everyone else has to sort of
measure up to that and that is a racist
classist premise around the staff kind
of rhetoric and then also the second one
being like teachers can make a big
difference that they can only be as
effective as those support systems
around them and teachers are embedded in
these you know larger systems and forces
in education and also outside of it and
then also the third one was you have to
be critical of Education research
because you know these oftentimes
quantitative studies that take
aggregated data across districts and
student populations you can't apply that
to individual schools and classrooms or
experiences and so I think it sort of
imbued me a healthy skepticism of this
these ideas about reform and I'm just so
glad that rhetoric has also shifted
since then about what priorities and
education should be to some extent I
think there's maybe two big things that
come to mind for me in terms of
learning and one is I would just say as
a preface I find it very satisfying to
find myself wrong or to change my views
as I learn more I think that's one of
the most gratifying things about being a
professional is dedicated to thinking
deeply about education is that we come
in and we we think are our best thoughts
that we have our you know strongest
commitments and then we have a released
in a stance towards learning we need to
be willing and able to to shift what we
think we know which really again is kind
of doubling down on unlearning right
it's deciding we're gonna be learner so
for me I think that one was my belief in
through the way I came into education my
experiences both as a child in a formal
education system and then as an early
professional I'm in more an informal
learning environment was that an idea
that really the only places we could
have very powerful learning are in
informal learning environments this is a
view that I very strongly held I would
say probably in the first decade of my
career you know starting working as
first classroom tutor in formal
classroom environments and seeing really
practices that I did not find firing
from a learning perspective and and then
my experience in school itself which was
in general I found very uninspiring for
the most part I was very disengaged by
the kind of curricula and teaching with
some small exceptions that I experienced
and then going and working in informal
environment starting in museums and then
moving into after-school programs
virtual and online programs and really
really creative stuff I just really came
to believe that like the only powerful
learning could be in informal settings
that was interest driven and and and
know collaboratively done and and those
principles have like interest driven and
collaboratively done all that those
haven't changed but I've actually
started to see a lot more within the
school system I was in the formal
education system just really incredible
not just teachers but schools that have
supported this work there's really great
research by Joel Mehta of Harvard and
Sarah fine book called in search of
deeper learning with quest to remake the
American high school it really documents
a lot of the kinds of things we talk
about in the best informal and out of
school programs
how they have come in in certain places
in high schools and I think that's a big
been a big shift for me and made me much
more excited to work with formal
schooling settings and now doing so many
much work with districts around CS I'm
bringing that belief that it really was
kind of powerful that I can't happen in
schools I would say that the second big
shift in my thinking about education and
that really came out of the work that
Sara Dickey and I did on the CS visions
work which we'll get into was the idea
that education and learning is really
only about the young person and
obviously our deep commitment to young
people to their interests to their power
to their learning to their desires and
aspirations for their future obviously a
huge huge huge partner that we don't
listen to that enough and I've really
come to think more deeply about how do
we think about education as a public
good and if it's a public good it's not
only about the young person themselves
are an individual young person but about
a society and about how a society is
structured about who gets what and and
what a society kind of needs to advance
so even if something is maybe not of
interest to a young person it might be
something that is really critical for
all of us that that young person has you
know for me you know my deep deep
commitment to civic education to
democratic participation as one of the
key roles of education you know not
every kid really is super interested in
thinking about you know whether it's
Civic issues or political issues or even
local community issues like you can't
assume that every kid is but there is a
neat the responsibility that we have
collectively as a society to ensure that
every young person we have so much work
to do on this but it should ensure that
every young person comes out of their
schooling in k12 and further in higher
education with an orientation course
being a citizen and that that's not just
about that it's about home and so that
shift of really understanding that
education it's not just about the
individual but really is about society
has been a shift in my thinking that
it's important it might seem obvious in
retrospect but we all come from our
places I'll have our learning journeys
and that was part of mine
so you mentioned the seus visions
framework and so last week's episode
that airs right before this I kind of
unpack what the framework is and kind of
talk
about how I was considering the
different visions within the work that
I've created but I'm wondering what is
like the elevator speech that you might
give for the CS visions framework so I
can give it a shot I've never tried it
out of an elevator but you see the CS
visions framework which is desired by
Raffi Center Oh myself and the ccheng
who could not join us on this test that
is a wonderful collaborator so the
co-surgeon say work helps people see the
values underlying rationale for CS
education and those impacts that they
hope it has for students communities in
the world once stakeholders have a sense
for those underlying values we believe
that we can more coherently plan for
programmatic and instructional designs
and implementation so the framework that
we developed charts out what are various
different underlying values and impacts
the CS education can have and how do
those values potentially look like in
practice how do they drive practice and
then going back to what Raffy was saying
about education as a public good
we believe sort of that by exposing
people to this range of values that can
drive CF education we hope to
demonstrate that pluralism in CS
education is sort of a good in and of
itself just like there's no one way to
educate it there's no one way to do CF
education that's sort of it in a
nutshell we have both the paper that was
developed for 60 which is the computer
science education conference in 2017
which sort of outlines those seven
values and impact areas that you talked
about on your podcast last week and then
we also have the more practitioner
friendly resource that makes those links
to practice and the way that I think
about it always and really the question
that we started with is CS for what like
the CS fishin's framework is a tool that
helps really anybody more thoughtfully
and deliberately answer the questions
yes for what and we have a very firm
belief that especially
in the context of a very robust policy
movement that is there you know state
leaders federal leaders even district
leaders are very much pushing ahead on
this and we think that there can be a
danger for rushing too quickly we know
this in general and education that rapid
reforms and rushes to change rarely work
well even taking out questions of
efficacy you know of rush to
implementation having impacts on
efficacy and quality we we're mostly
concerned in this work with impact on
actually what's being accomplished like
if you rush to implementation and you
don't think about what ultimate purpose
you're wanting to have she has education
in place you're probably accomplishing
somebody else's goals right and and we
think of that as a problem we want
communities educators even tool makers
designers curriculum designers to really
be thinking critically about like whose
interests are being served by this are
we serving the interests that we believe
in or are by not reflecting and asking
ourselves the questions yes for are we
serving some other kind of interest and
then there are a lot of other impacts on
quality which you know Sarah alluded to
in this idea is coherence right if you
don't have a really strong North Star
and I'll say that it has to be set and
always be the same it can't evolve but
if you don't have a strong North Star
how are you gonna online as a district
how are you gonna align your curriculum
your professional development your
course offerings your credit
requirements your you know supports for
it for students how do you have all that
aligned if you don't have a North Star
around what the ultimate purposes are if
that's not in place you'll end up with
kind of a spaghetti mess and you won't
reach any outcomes well you'll just sort
of kind you might have conflicting
policies in place conflicting supports
in place you know if I and I think we
have we should name some of it as we
talk about this right a vision that's
about creativity has different
implications than I create you know a
vision that's about economic viability
and Workforce Development a vision
that's about you know closing
representation counts as different
implications
than ambition that's about you know
promoting systems-thinking example which
is something you know it can be
associated with different types of cs
education and you really want to think
wow if this is for jobs is if it's for
justice if it's for innovation each of
those has implications for how you
design the curriculum it's they're not
necessarily mutually exclusive but there
might involve trade-offs or there might
also involve sequencing right you know
we can say that hey we're oriented
towards creativity in a very central way
for all of our students we want you know
computing to be an avenue for creativity
we do have some curriculum early on that
has some like puzzle based stuff that is
that has a predetermined answer but
that's in a sequence of courses and
learning opportunities that eventually
create the possibility of maybe using
much more open-ended platforms say like
Python or processing that support
creativity in various ways and I also
add that Raffy mentioned a couple times
their sense of we like these are CS
education showing our values is it
reflecting the values that we care about
well who is this we is something that
we've had to wrestle with as well
because if it's just the same voices
that are always at the table and
policymaking conversations then your CSS
in might continue to serve now interest
in conjunction with thinking about
values Jewish planning or C I said in
order for it to work you have to have a
really broad sense of who the we is and
engage in what could be like fairly
messy deliberative processes with lots
of voices especially those that aren't
often at the table like families you
know if you have immigrant families in
your communities making sure that your
outreach is available in different
languages thinking about students with
disabilities thinking about teachers at
various levels these are all the voices
that have to be at the table so that you
can really capture what your community
believe CS education is for yeah and
really the underlying value that we have
behind this work and it might sound you
know kind of
highfalutin but it really is democracy
right we I think believe deeply in the
idea of education as a a public good and
be a democratically oriented public good
right that it must be something where it
is collectively determined what shape
this public good takes because it is
about all of us and the the idea of
having deliberative tools and processes
whether it's about CS education or not
to us is very powerful it's about really
realizing these democratic ideals of
Education yeah one of the things that
really kind of was eye-opening for me is
much of anecdotally speaking much of the
discourse that I've noticed tends to
revolve around economic and workforce
development and I love that you're like
well there's all these other areas that
you can kind of align to or have impacts
on and whatnot and I think this is a
great way of framing it because if a
district or a teacher or school or
whatever is starting C s education and
all they hear is people talking about
jobs jobs jobs Workforce Development and
then they see this and go oh but wait
there's actually more options for us
rather than going down this very narrow
pipe line that's geared towards one set
of interests or impacts so I really like
the way that it was framed and like here
are a bunch of different programs and
here's how they kind of combine the
multiple things together and synthesize
like two or three of these into
something that works really well for the
communities that they're working with
yeah and and jobs is an important
outcome for sure of Education but why
should we be adding an entirely new
discipline into our school systems
purely so that a small subset of that
population of that of their school going
kids eventually enters that discipline
or that sector we don't teach English
and English language art so that
everyone can become an a novelist or a
writer we do it because it's the core
mode of communication Society we don't
teach science so that everyone becomes a
scientist we do it because if you know a
citizen and society needs to be
scientifically literate some ODE of
thinking and of course Kamala G and
similarly if we think about computer
science as being something that we
believe every kid should have
it's not so that they should all be
entering these tech jobs or CS jobs but
so that they can operate in the world
more broadly what's a good reason that's
actually have CSP for everyone we don't
think that jobs is you know a sufficient
reason forget to have a for all I don't
yes and that was sort of you'd asked us
before like what inspired us to create
this framework that I think really has a
core motive innovation we were watching
the media we were watching the news as
mayors and governors and Senators talked
about CSR all's President Obama
announced it at the State of the Union
at the time and we thought to ourselves
about our experience as educators in new
york city's vibrant digital media spaces
and that we have to amplify this
conversation so that was sort of a core
motivation I'd written a course paper on
it in my very first year as a doctoral
student Rafi and Dixie write it and
we're like we're on board we want to
work on this with us
and so that set sort of led us to
generate the framework but the framework
was not just the three of us and that's
something to really pull the point on it
was developed through what Rafi and
Dixie and their collaborators called a
participatory knowledge building session
so we brought folks together from
organizations in New York City that do
digital media and PS work with kids tool
designers policymakers at the New York
City Department of Education formal and
informal educators and we asked them
that question that Rafi asked before of
cs4 what why should we teach CSR kids
they gave us tons of different reasons
that came from lots of different
backgrounds and standpoint and then we
sort of synthesized them through the
through the framework and did member
checking at various moments through the
process to make sure it was really
speaking to community members the
framework was a labor of love of many
many people so before we started
recording you mentioned and even just
recently that you started working on
this a while ago this framework and then
it's now kind of housed within cs4 also
I'm wondering how does this framework
fit into the mission
of cs4 all yeah so I mean one thing that
I think it's really important to say is
that cs4 all and its previous
incarnation of CS NYC the foundation for
computer science education in New York
City has always been a huge huge
supporter of this work early in the
development of the framework folks from
CS NYC /es for all were participants
they helped develop it but they always
saw and really all the highlight
especially and eliezer the founder and
current executive director and other
co-founder in the form of Michael
Preston always really saw the value of
this work and I think it came in at her
at an important time and yes for all's
development as an organization when it
was really formally Co hearing around if
strategy of supporting local change at
the district level which is really
something it's very distinct within the
CSI field a lot of the field I know is
full of really amazing professional
development providers and curriculum
providers and tool makers but there was
really I think this really saw there was
a huge need for district as
organizations to think about how they
wanted to equitably to stannous
sustainably and rigorously reap you know
in a computer science education and
there was nobody else doing that the
cs:go really went and deep on a this
kind of local change for for district
and within that really saw the value of
the C efficient framework as really an
important starting point for district
leaders or even you know teachers or
instructional coaches principals that
might not have any orientation towards
CS or very limited knowledge of CS but
are experts in their students are
experts in their communities are experts
in their needs and I've always thought
about the purpose of Education and so
the idea of starting with their values
around the purpose of Education and then
bridging that in to a set of activities
that we've now developed over the course
of a number of years that support the
liberation around what are even possible
purposes of computer science education
what are ways you might think about it
and where does that maybe a line before
you already care about that was really a
critical place start with district so
now the visions framework is is an
Associated activity
the first things we do with district in
our what we call our script workshops
which are strategic planning or
transference the Association and I think
it also aligns philosophically with
house es for all thinks about processes
of educational change and how it thinks
about really the cs for all movement as
not being something that is telling
people what to do but rather supporting
communities in their own agency and in
their own desires to figure out what
they want their relationship to CS
education to be what how they want to
fashion CS education in their own image
and towards their own needs and
aspirations and so the the visions
framework and activities really allow us
as an organization at CS for all to
express our values around not telling
people what to do
supporting districts to do what they
think is important yeah and I believe I
went through some of those activities at
the CS for all event in El Paso about a
year ago mmm and I enjoyed it led to
some really good conversations among the
table like the people who are talking
about how they had different values and
impact areas and bi and it was
interesting to go through this so I
could see a district going through
scripts being a very valuable thing when
it's aligned with stuff like this like
these activities will be wonderful one
of the things that you had both
mentioned I believe if I remember
correctly in the relatively recent
webinar was that you like to focus on
equity and social justice and I know see
as for all does as well but for both of
you as CSS educators and scholars what
do you wish other CS educators
understood better about social justice
within through and around computer
science education I think one core piece
is that you know when we wrote the most
recent white paper and our author's note
we talked we made our own values really
transparent and like you said social
justice and using computing as a vehicle
to support students and making change in
the world and being critical about
technology that's a core part of what we
believe CS education is for and rathas
of others believe similarly and so in
supporting folks
who want to integrate social justice
education with CS we don't have to
reinvent the wheel I think that the
first point I would make so many amazing
social justice minded educators have
already thought about great principles
for this work so culturally responsive
and sustaining pedagogy which is Paris
and aleem great lights and feelings
Geneva gay there are some real
incredible thinkers who've been doing
this for a while Louis mara and funds of
knowledge there's a lot that you can
read and learn about though there are
all these efforts to integrate and to
support social justice pedagogy within
education at large and the glow would be
to think about what does that look like
in SDS context a lot of those efforts
fundamentally say the same thing get to
know your community is get to know your
students experiences and their ways of
knowing and their aspirations so a lot
of it feel at this point even
commonsensical but there is repeating
open over because it often just doesn't
happen there are tons of ways to draw on
the knowledge of organizations like in
New York City we have the New York
Coalition of radical educators the
connected learning community and the
hive Learning Network whether all these
youth development organizations who've
been doing this work for a long time so
I would say don't lean than the wheel
looks with these wonderful Falls and
then some other strong partnerships with
communities to really understand their
values and their purposes for CS ed
would be a great start because the worst
thing that could happen is people coming
in with their own notions of what social
justice is an imposing medicine on
others social justice is about building
from the grassroots listening to people
and then working in solidarity to fight
for change and ensure a more just
society yeah and I completely agree I
think I think one of the the big
messages I would have around you know
values of equity and justice within CS
education is that you know we've made
really great strides in certain parts of
the equity conversation you know in
particular just the idea of CS for all
in and of itself is very powerful right
it's the idea of a kind of universal
access to something that we
good and then you know in particular you
know how thoughtful the conversation
about broadening participation has been
about it's not just for all but we need
to say you know part of that implicit in
that and and we need to elevate within
that this idea is that there are
particular groups that have been
historically marginalized historically
excluded askin American students young
women young especially young women of
color games with disabilities rural
students there's all sorts of groups
that have really been excluded and not
given access we need to think carefully
about those we've made huge strides and
obviously we're not done with that work
but those are established as I think
valid what is not yet established as
values is one what Sarah just said and I
think what we're trying to partly argue
for in this white paper that equity is
not just in outcomes but in process it's
about who's the table and if you if you
in in may if you just impose from above
yes all kids must and then you don't
involve anybody from a community any
students any teachers like first of all
good luck with implementation but second
of all like it's just that's really not
equitable that's really you know it's
kind of authoritarian that's not how we
want educational change to look even if
it has some idea of equity isn't how
come for students the process really
matters so that's one way and I think
that we do see and I think very smart
especially mark districts and smart
out-of-school organizations that are
really thoughtful and dedicated really
do I think approach in these ways really
do you think you know in New York they
really did a amazing community
engagement process with teachers
principals out of school organizations
industry to think about like well what
do we want this to be and I was I was
really excited to be able to participate
in that in kudos to the New York City da
we for the way they did that I think the
other big area of equity of CSS
underexplored right now is how issues of
equity really play directly into the
curriculum itself right you can think
about equity in access to CS but what is
the CSR giving access to if it's just
loops and variables or even you know
amazing creative computing there's lots
of things that you're not addressing
that are actually equity issues with
in CS that are critical in the kpop CS
framework there are five big concept
areas one of them is the social impacts
of computing and if I want to look for a
curricula that teaches it about Luke's
and variables then I've got a million
options and if I want curricula to teach
about the social impacts of computing my
field narrows practically to zero right
there's very very little out there and
those are the places where we can talk
about things like algorithmic bias
things like you know the culture of
computing and how it might exclude
certain groups and how we might think
about changing and having those
discussions with our students it's a
place that we can think about emerging
issues of privacy and surveillance in
society it's the place where we can talk
with students about what is the role of
Technology in democracy and public
discourse disinformation and these are
things like I think kids are really
interested in - right I think that kids
can really get into this it also from an
implementation standpoint means that
you're not relying on teachers having to
have all of this knowledge around great
you know say quote unquote deep I would
say this is a different form of deep but
you know what we might classically think
of as like well I know five programming
languages and now I can teach computer
science every teacher in the world is
like then you're like holy cow learning
the other correction but you talk to a
social studies teacher about doing a
unit on how to think about you know the
social impacts of computing in World War
two and wow you know their eyes are
gonna light up right you have a whole
different way in and from animal tation
standpoint that means that you're also
able to have that many more educators
that are going to be part of this
process and so I think that there's
really two big points of equity in
process and equity in the kind of as
represented and the ideas you teach
about are two big things we need to
elevate to get the to go beyond but not
leave behind at all the discourse around
access and the discourse around running
participation books which are absolutely
critical but we can't stop there right
we need to extend those and so into
further conceptions of what good
equitable and justice oriented CSS
ocation can look like yeah I think that
builds off of podcasts released very
recently at least at the time of
recording with Sarah Judd she was
talking about a lot of that stuff really
related to AI and education and the
curriculum that she's developing and
then Sarah what you mentioned several
times in this podcast I've highly
recommended to people read outside of
the field like you need to be reading
from other people don't just keep going
down this same rabbit hole because
there's a lot of people who have already
talked about these things in other
subject areas that are very applicable
to what we're doing in CS education
definitely there's great work on
culturally responsive computing like I
know Kimber Kimberly Scott Ronnie graph
there are a lot of folks who have been
applying ideas from Gloria
ladson-billings work to computing and
sort of like those intersections they're
gonna become really important so I'm
curious what questions have I not asked
that you would like to discuss related
to the framework or anything else
laughing I've been thinking a lot about
curricular integration recently like
when you think about all these different
impacts and values underlying computing
education that we talk about in the
framework another one that is versioning
and people are trying to really put a
lot of attention to is the sense of how
do we use computing in the school
discipline and so that that's something
that maybe is that we can't get into in
depth in this podcast deserves a whole
other one I have so many issues about
like yeah how do we get social studies
teachers excited
so that and how are these disciplines
fundamentally changing you know now
there's digital humanities there are so
many fields that students don't get
exposure to in their k-12 lives that
involve using the tools of computing to
do work in the disciplines yeah that's
an interesting area of discussion one of
the things that I have recommended for
districts who are interested in
integration is to not just start with
CSS integrated but to start with like
csr coding as its own thing and then
integrating after the kids and some of
the teachers have had experience with it
because it's really hard if we think of
it from like the TPAC framework like the
technological knowledge the pedagogical
knowledge and content knowledge if
you're gonna ask a bunch of teachers to
not only teach their subject area but to
also learn the technology which would be
like the coding platform the pedagogy
involved with how to teach CS education
or coding and then the content knowledge
involved with that and how they
intersect with other
disciplines it's really hard to do but
it'd be a lot easier if like okay in
your coding class you learn how to do
this thing now we're gonna take those
concepts and apply it to this subject
area how can you take what you've
learned like in scratch to make a social
studies project etc yeah it takes
cooperation and it takes I think that it
sort of starts to unveil and reveal all
the structural areas to incorporating
serious education into a school day like
that I left curricular integration it's
such a puzzle like all of a sudden you
realize oh wait teachers are in these
disciplinary silos they don't work
together across disciplines
you know when are we gonna have enough
time in the school day to fit in all of
these you know to do these this like
rich multidisciplinary work yeah and I
think that speaks to something that you
know I think we can tease but it's
really it's almost like its entire own
subject I think one of the really big
questions that we a set have so much
work to do on it as a field is
ultimately this question of how do we
translate our values into practice right
so really when it comes down to it and
this is work that you know I've been
doing research on you know studying
school district change over the course
of years you know longitudinal studies
of school districts and really trying to
see how do they go from say the process
of doing a visions deliberation activity
where they talk about like well we care
about creativity and we care about you
know social mobility and technology to
actually translate that into the kind of
systems change and when and how are they
able to adhere to their values when do
they encounter barriers because so much
of this work is about the complexity
really working within and trying to
transform the existing ways that schools
as institutions and districts as
organizations are structured and I think
that's you know what Sarah was just
talking about about like well actually
do teachers across disciplines have like
time to collaborate together heck do
teachers within disciplines have time to
collaborate together I mean so I mean I
think that you know I would hope that as
we go about this work we can both route
these questions of how we translate
values into system change
questions will be asked together as a
field and really think about together
that we're not just only thinking about
kind of CS learning on a short time
scale and within the kind of context of
a curriculum or a classroom or a set of
students but really thinking about like
what is it actually really mean to
undergo the kind of institutional
transformation that are required to
actually enact our values in this and I
think there's more people who are doing
this but we really need everyone who's
doing this work to be sharing those
lessons back not just hey I've got this
great unit but I want to actually know I
how the heck did that unit come to be if
you're working within a school district
and district and teachers work on how do
they even get there how'd they get
enough knowledge to make it and then
what have you found out as you've tried
to actually implement over time or
instead of that scale those are really
critical critical absolutely
as I mentioned before the start
recording like I'm really interested in
the multi inter and transdisciplinary
spaces and what not an engagement but we
can't even really get there yet if we
still have like certification issues in
that well what does it mean to be a CS
educator in a state where there's no
certification and there's no background
in that and how do you develop that
professional knowledge and understanding
and get qualified people in the room to
do that and then how do you get them to
help others with integration like
there's all these things we have to get
through before we can like really start
diving deep into the integration stuff I
think is like all the levers that have
to get pulled at once like you drown
classroom examples to show people who
trained teachers or who prepared
teachers to show that this is that in
the classroom you need people who
prepare teachers in order to it's a
cycle you need all of like standards and
policy and teacher prep and leadership
like everything has to be pulled at the
same time in small ways in order to
answer any of these questions yes yeah
and I'm happy I think at some point we
have to clear now are starting to see
some models of how districts go about
the process of change over time it's see
like how how do you pull different
different levers at what point
what's based on your
particulars of you know the political
situation in your district existing
resources in your district the existing
knowledge of your team the fact that you
even have a team and you have two teams
around it you know all of those you know
there's so many lessons that we're now
starting to see around how do you even
get started and how do you even get
started that's a district but I think
hopefully we'll have good things coming
out and resources to support that
process I think the visions deliberation
tool is a part of that the script rubric
there's another part of that and
certainly being connected to national
communities and friction sources like
this podcast I really amaze it you know
all gonna kind of play into that cluster
of how you get started so where might
people go to connect with you and the
organizations that you work with all the
resources including a online fun little
quiz an unplugged
visions activity our visions white paper
can all be found at visions dots yes for
all dot org that's yes fo are all org
not the number and I'm at empathetic on
Twitter you can always reach out to me
there if you are not a member of CS for
all you can also become a member a whole
districts can become members content
providers can become members individual
researchers can become members
understand come members and if you do
become over that you get added to yes
for all slash community and then you can
reach out directly to so many folks
within that network directly you know
this is a community-based effort there's
we're not going to get to this song
alone and so definitely join and connect
with you know so many good colleagues in
this space the website for the NSF
project that I work with which is
participating in literacies in computer
science right now the website just a
landing page
Tirra c fo RG but soon we're going to
have lots of resources up there about
supporting bilingual students in
computer science education so you can
stay tuned p lab ti LA - CS org and then
i can just be found that at Sarah Evo go
on Twitter I say RA e vo GTL and with
that that concludes this week's episode
of the cska podcast I hope you enjoyed
this interview with Rafi and Sarah I
know I certainly did again you can find
the show notes with other Ling
to the various scholars and publications
that were mentioned just by clicking in
the link in the description or visiting
Jared O'Leary com if you haven't done so
yet I hope you consider sharing this
with somebody else as it wouldn't mean a
lot to me and it would help spread the
word about scholarship and ideas related
to CS education thank you so much for
listening and I hope you listen again
next week to another unpacking
scholarship episode
Guest Bios
Rafi Santo, PhD, is a learning scientist focused on the intersection of technology, education, equity and institutional change. He is a research associate at CSforALL and principal researcher at Telos Learning. Centering his work within research-practice partnerships, he has studied, collaborated with, and facilitated a range of organizational networks related to digital learning and computing education. His work at CSforALL involves supporting and researching school districts as they develop equitable computing education initiatives rooted in student and community needs. He’s received support from the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation, the Susan Crown Exchange and Google.
Sara Vogel is a doctoral candidate in urban education at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, researching computer science education, bilingualism, and social justice pedagogy. She co-developed and is currently the lead research assistant on Participating in Literacies and Computer Science (PiLaCS), a National Science Foundation-funded project that leverages the diverse language practices of bilingual youth as resources in their computer science learning. A former bilingual teacher, she has also worked as a computing educator in informal settings with the nonprofit Global Kids Inc.
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
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.
Problematizing Deficits with Sara Vogel
In this interview with Sara Vogel, we discuss changes in CS education since Sara was last on the podcast, the impact of COVID on learning, some of the problems with computational thinking, the importance of modifying curricula to make it more culturally and historically responsive, deficit language and racism around bilingual students, the importance of understanding translanguaging pedagogies, what apprenticeship and joint work can look like in education, and much more.
Learn more about constructionism
Read more about the constructionist scholars Rafi mentioned
In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine (not an affiliate link)
CSforALL related links
“CS Visions highlights the importance of core values when it comes to computer science education. Understanding different reasons for teaching computer science isn’t just important so that we can get other people to care about CS, they should also shape what computer science education efforts look like – who gets opportunities to learn, what kinds of things get taught and in what ways. Our values should be expressed in our practice.”
“The SCRIPT — the Strategic CSforALL Resource & Implementation Planning Tool — is a framework to guide teams of district administrators, school leaders, and educators through a series of collaborative visioning, self-assessment and goal-setting exercises to create or expand upon a computer science education implementation plan for their students.”
Scholars, publications, and groups that Sara mentioned that discuss social justice pedagogy
Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms
Note, none of the links are affiliate links
Connect with Rafi
Connect with Sara
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter
Free CS Resources I Have Created
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