Scratch Encore: The Design and Pilot of a Culturally-Relevant Intermediate Scratch Curriculum
In this episode I unpack Franklin et al.’s (2020) publication titled “Scratch Encore: The design and pilot of a culturally-relevant intermediate Scratch curriculum,” which introduces the Scratch Encore curriculum and provides a quick summary of positive feedback from the teachers who used the curriculum during a pilot year.
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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
some scholarship in particular I'm going
to unpack the paper from 6e assuming it
wasn't cancelled which is titled scratch
on core the design and pilot of a
culturally relevant intermediate scratch
curriculum this paper was written by
Diana Franklin David Weintraub Jennifer
Palmer
Marishka Conrad Melissa Cobian Kristin
beck and Rasmussen sue Kraus max white
Marco Anaya
and Zachary Crenshaw and apologies I
probably mispronounced at least two of
those names just like the last unpacking
scholarship episode this paper is
available if you're an ACM member and
the direct link to the paper can be
found in the show notes which you can
find in the description below or by
visiting jared O'Leary com and as always
if there is a Google Scholar profile
associated with a particular author on
the paper if you click on the last name
for the author it'll take you directly
to that so you can read more papers by
these authors let's get started with the
abstract quote while several
introductory computer science curricula
exist for children in K through eight
there are few options that go beyond
sequence loops and basic conditionals
the goal of this project is to not only
fill this gap with a high-quality
curriculum supported by complete
instructional materials but to also do
so with an equity balanced curriculum
that is a curriculum that values
advancing equity equally with student
learning outcomes in this paper we
introduce barriers to equity in public
school classrooms pedagogical approaches
to culturally relevant curriculum and
how our scratch on core curriculum is
designed to support equity balance
learning finally represent results of
our pilot year including early evidence
of students taking advantage of the
culturally relevant design aspects in
quote if I were to provide a one
sentence summary of this particular
paper I would say that this paper
introduces the scratch on core
curriculum and provides a quick summary
of positive feedback from the teachers
who use the curriculum during a pilot
year so the authors begin this paper by
highlighting large scale CS initiatives
that I've tried to meet the need and
desire for CS education in public
schools so for example in 2017 Chicago
Public Schools has introduced computer
science to over 150 schools in the
district in addition the authors also
mentioned that funding opportunities for
research on and
imitation of CS in highschool context
have been around for the past several
years though in other words there's a
lot of support going on with CS
education particularly in the elementary
range and then a lot of support in the
high school range but the office
suggests there is a gap between
platforms and curricula for early
learning and the content in high school
context so the goal of the scratch on
core curriculum is to fill that need in
terms of providing an intermediate
scratch curriculum now while I will
agree that there was a gap in curricula
at the time of 2017 I would argue that
the curriculum that I have created for
boot up which is also free and the
curriculum that Google has created with
CS first which is also free both fill
this gap as well so if you're interested
in seeing not only the scratch on core
curriculum but also those of Attu
curricula that I just provided all three
of which are free then you can check
those out by visiting the show notes so
this particular paper explores two
questions quote one how do teachers
perceive it and two is scratch on course
succeeding in providing opportunities
for creativity and cultural expression
while also introducing computing
concepts in a structured way and if so
how is the curriculum enabling it in
quote s on page 794 in the review of
literature the authors summarized
scholarship relevant to k-8 educators on
programming environment such as block
based platforms and pedagogy such as
constructionism next the author's unpack
culturally relevant CS curricula which
is curricula that aligns quote content
with the culture prior experience and
social values and norms of the learner
which can improve retention engagement
and learning outcomes in quote so that's
a modified quote from page 795 it's
modified because I simply added the word
which to make it more sense with what I
was just talking about so in this
section the authors suggest there are
four dimensions of culturally relevant
curriculum
the first one is explanations of
concepts are drawn from quote students
as current understandings and
experiences in quote it's on page 795 so
in other words the design of the
curriculum itself needs to account for
what students currently know and things
that they are currently experiencing so
the second thing that they recommend is
that it should draw on cultural heritage
now the thing that I'd like some
clarification on is what does cultural
heritage mean
is culture and heritage in particular
can mean many different things but I
know this is a short paper so they'll
probably unpack it at the conference
itself assuming it's not cancelled
because again I'm recording this in
advance of 60 the third thing that they
recommend as a dimension is that the
curriculum can draw on practices media
and other elements from youth culture so
an example of a practice might be
texting an example of media might be
videogames and things like that and the
last thing that they suggest as a
dimension for culturally relevant
curriculum is that the ability for
students to customize projects around
their own selves is an important aspect
this is something that really resonates
with me I strongly agree with us that
this is something that we need to have
taken into account for any kind of
learning experience especially if we
can't assume buy-in in other words if
all kids are mandated to take computer
science as opposed to kids are electing
to take computer science we can assume
some buy-in in that instance now the
review of literature concludes with the
discussion on barriers to equity so with
a particular focus on a lack of
resources and access for intermediate Cs
instruction so if you want to read the
article itself you can find some of
those resources in there that address
that area okay so what is the scratch on
core design so it includes
at the time of writing 15 learning
modules for kids who have over a year of
experience with coding and uses the
approach of use modify create in other
words kind of summarize that approaches
you engage with some kind of a platform
then you learned kind of like tinker
with the code behind that platform like
maybe changing some of the variables or
parameters or things like that
maybe altering the code a little bit and
then the create part is you'll actually
learn how to synthesize and apply your
understandings into some kind of a new
project in future episodes of unpacking
scholarship I'll kind of describe the
use modify create approach more than I
just did okay so the curriculum itself
is broken up into three separate strands
so these strands include multicultural
youth culture and gaming so here's a
quote that describes them quote the
multicultural strand draws on
celebrations events or traditions
including many that are used or
celebrated by cultures often not
highlighted in dominant American culture
include the million woman March dia de
los muertos and Martin Luther King
Junior's famous I have a dream speech
the second strand youth culture includes
themes that resonate with many youth
today including sports and social
networks the third strand is the gaming
strand which was teachers as top subject
that they identify their students as
wanting to learn with computing in quote
as from page 796 one of the things that
I appreciate is that quote students are
able to personalize projects and put
something of themselves into them a
first level includes providing sprites
at multiple skin tones and varying
gender representations deeper levels
include asking students to customize MLK
Jr's speech to their own wishes for
equality and putting memories of their
own family members in the ofrenda in Dia
de los Muertos include Tom Page 797 so
again I really do value any kind of
curricula like the scratch encore or the
one that I created for boot-up or Google
will see us first that allows you to
customize things and allows kids to kind
of tinker with things to make it their
own and to make it so that their own
interests shine and are evident within
the expressions that they create ok so
let's talk about the study itself so the
study itself was with eight teachers who
taught grades 5 through 7 and who
attended professional development in
total they had 279 students who
participated across those 8 teachers and
data was collected through worksheets
observations interviews focus groups and
other computational artifacts such as
like a scratch project okay so in the
findings overall the the teacher
feedback was very positive and in
particular the teachers really liked the
worksheets in overall process now the
authors don't actually mention any
criticisms from the teachers which for
me is just always something that is more
of a red flag than anything it's the
reason why I say that is because there's
always something that can be better
there's always something that can be
improved and it's either an omission
from the authors who wrote this or it's
just an omission from the teachers and
that they just didn't want to voice a
concern or a complaint and that's not
meant as a criticism on the authors who
wrote this by any means now the only
real criticism that is provided is they
say that quote teachers noted that the
lessons took more time
then anticipated unquote that's on page
teacher feedback they provide a couple
of quick case studies I kind of
highlight what occurred so after reading
this I have some lingering questions or
thoughts so one of them is who gets to
determine what kids consider as part of
their culture or identities so for
example just because a kid is raised
within a set of cultures does not mean
they actually identify with those
cultures or have any interested in them
a common example that I could easily
point to is that many people grew up in
a religious culture that they don't
identify with or even have any interest
in I can think of many people that I
know who grew up culturally as X
religion but now I don't identify with
that religion also in what ways might
educate errs and curriculum developers
unintentionally essentialize students by
assuming identification with the culture
so in CSS occation culture is often
conflated with identities on gender or
sex or race or socioeconomic status or
geographic location or whatever so there
are many different ways that people can
kind of label something as a particular
culture and what I wonder is if we go
into something are we making assumptions
about people and which cultures they
identify with or which demographics is
that they strongly identify with and if
so are we then essential izing them into
those particular cultures so an example
from where I live I live in Phoenix
Arizona so there's a large Latin X or
Hispanic population here and some of the
assumptions that people make about the
students in Arizona because of the large
Hispanic population is that oh they must
really like mariachi music and the
reason why people make that assumption
is because of the cultural backgrounds
of many of the students that are in
Arizona however that is often a gross
essential ization of students of
Hispanic or Latin X heritage in
particular I can attest that most of the
students did not listen to mariachi
music unless they are forced to and most
of them honestly preferred rap over
anything else at least with the classes
that I work with across multiple
districts in different parts of the
valley so again to highlight this if a
curriculum developer were to come into
Phoenix Arizona and as an outsider be
like oh well Hispanic culture and this
hair
they're gonna really like this lesson
that incorporates creating mariachi
music with computer science or coding
mmm maybe not some of them might but
honestly most of them probably won't at
least based on my experiences and the
many teachers I've spoken with in
Arizona so another question that I have
that's related to this is where is the
line between culturally relevant
curriculum and culturally specific
curricula so engaging in discussions
with other curriculum developers or
curriculum specialists at districts
there's often this conflation of
culturally relevant pedagogy or
culturally relevant curricula with a
culture itself by saying oh you need to
make a curriculum that targets X
population or Y population while I
understand that there are best
intentions with this kind of approach I
would suggest that again making
something culturally specific can become
problematic when you are essential izing
and making assumptions based off of
demographic information so my previous
example kind of highlights that however
I want to kind of contextualize this a
bit more I have sat in a meeting with
somebody who is well intentioned who was
trying to talk about culturally
responsive curricula and who suggested
in order to make a curriculum more
culturally relevant to Hispanic kids you
need to include more tacos and mariachi
music and quite frankly I found that
offensive making something that is
culturally specific can essential eyes
and make assumptions about people not
saying that the scratch on core does
that because quite frankly I have not
spent enough time looking at the actual
curriculum itself outside of reading
this paper and looking at some of the
projects that they have on their website
but it was just something that came to
mind when I was reading this particular
paper another question that I have is
how my tias educators and curriculum
developers prevent efforts in culturally
relevant experiences from coming across
as pandering to youth culture so this
question comes out of my experiences
with seeing adults you learn not gamers
try and relate to kids by talking about
video games and quite frankly I find
those interactions to be quite hilarious
as somebody who games regularly for
multiple hours a day we need to make
sure that we're creating these resources
for kids that we are in fact engaging
with kids in a holistic manner and not
some kind of contrived or artificial
manner that it ends up doing more harm
than
good or makes kids just kind of like
giggle on the side like wow this adult
clearly does not understand my life and
what I'm interested in now one of the
things that actually stood out that's
kind of like a lingering thing that I've
been thinking through is the section
that is on the teacher feedback there's
a teacher quote that mentioned quote I
also like having my students do an
old-school worksheet because it helps
them to think about what they just
learned and I can use them as exit
tickets or mini assessments in quote
that's on page 798 so the reason why
this is highlighted in here is because
the scratch on core curriculum includes
worksheets now I question if this is
focusing on what teachers are more used
to or comfortable with
rather than focusing on whether kids
actually enjoy learning through this
approach or if they consider it as busy
work in general I have not really found
a worksheet that I have been super
thrilled with or thought was an engaging
experience for kids that they walked
away with wanting to do more of but
perhaps I'm wrong perhaps scratch uncor
has some awesome worksheets that kids
actually do enjoy engaging with and do
want to learn more and does increase
their interest in computer science I
just honestly don't know and my final
question is what didn't teachers like
about the curriculum yes they mentioned
that some of these sections took longer
than anticipated however I'm really
curious what the critical feedback is
and if there wasn't any why and the
reason why I ask is because like I've
created curriculum that has been used
literally around the world everywhere
except the continent of Antarctica if
you know anyone there let me know I'd
love to say every continent and while
the vast majority of teachers really
love the resources it's still not
perfect there's still things that we
could do or could be different for the
different use cases or things like that
and I know that because I've received
critical feedback in addition to all the
positive things that I've received so my
question is just basically what didn't
the teachers like about it and how could
I
as a curriculum developer kind of learn
from that negative or critical feedback
all right so that's kind of a summary of
the paper itself again you can find a
link to scratch on core where you can
register and receive access to it for
free as well as links to the other
intermediate free scratch curriculum
that I mentioned that I've created for
boot-up and as well as Google created
with CS first all of those are in the
show notes I hope you enjoyed this
episode
and I really appreciate you taking the
time to listen to this and I hope you
tune in next week which will be an
interview
Article
Franklin, D., Weintrop, D., Palmer, J., Coenraad, M., Cobian, M., Beck, K., Rasmussen, A., Krause, S., White, M., Anaya, M., & Crenshaw, Z. (2020). Scratch Encore: The Design and Pilot of a Culturally-Relevant Intermediate Scratch Curriculum. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 794–800. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366912
Abstract
“While several introductory computer science curricula exist for children in K-8, there are few options that go beyond sequence, loops, and basic conditionals. The goal of this project is to not only fill this gap with a high-quality curriculum supported by complete instructional materials, but to also do so with an equity-balanced curriculum. That is, a curriculum that values advancing equity equally with student learning outcomes. In this paper, we introduce barriers to equity in public school classrooms, pedagogical approaches to culturally-relevant curricula, and how our Scratch Encore curriculum is designed to support equity-balanced learning. Finally, we present results of our pilot year, including early evidence of students taking advantage of the culturally-relevant design aspects.”
Author Keywords
Computational thinking, Scratch, K-12 education, culturally-relevant instruction
My One Sentence Summary
This paper introduces the Scratch Encore curriculum and provides a quick summary of positive feedback from the teachers who used the curriculum during a pilot year.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
Who gets to determine what kids consider as part of their culture or identities?
In what ways might educators and curriculum developers unintentionally essentialize students by assuming identification with a culture?
Where is the line between culturally-relevant curricula and culturally-specific curricula?
How might CS educators and curriculum developers prevent efforts in culturally-relevant experiences from coming across as pandering to youth culture?
I find it interesting that a teacher mentioned "I also like having my students do an old school worksheet, because it helps them to think about what they just learned and I can use them as exit tickets/mini assessments" (p. 798).
In particular, I question if this is focusing on what teachers are more used to/comfortable with, rather than focusing on whether kids enjoy learning through this approach or if they consider it as "busy work."
What didn't teachers like about the curriculum?
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
Fostering Intersectional Identities through Rhizomatic Learning
In this episode, Jon Stapleton and I read our (2022) publication titled “Fostering intersectional identities through rhizomatic learning,” which uses mapping as a metaphor for individualized learning.
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.
Lifelong Kindergarten with Mitch Resnick
In this interview with Mitch Resnick, we discuss misconceptions people have around the four P’s (Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play) in Mitch’s book, encouraging depth of understanding while playing, what has surprised Mitch during his career, encouraging online communication and collaboration without creating artificial engagement, what Mitch wishes we’d see more of and discuss in CS education, our pet peeves with unplugged activities and computational thinking, accounting for survivorship bias with Scratch, expanding our focus on equity and inclusion to include both the “who” and the “how,” the importance of experimenting and learning through play, and much more.
Music Making in Scratch: High Floors, Low Ceilings, and Narrow Walls?
In this episode I unpack Payne and Ruthmann’s (2019) publication titled “Music making in Scratch: High floors, low ceilings, and narrow walls,” which problematizes the limitations of making music with Scratch.
Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
In this episode I unpack Ladson-Billings’ (1995) seminal publication titled “Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy,” which influenced much of the discourse around culturally relevant pedagogy in computer science education.
More episodes related to culturally-relevant pedagogy/curricula
You can access the Scratch Encore curriculum by filling out a short form
Other curricula that might be of interest
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter
Free CS Resources I Have Created
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