Integration through Data Analysis and Implications of CS as a Skill with Anne Gunn

In this interview with Anne Gunn, we discuss Anne’s background as both a CS professional and educator, thoughts on data analysis for classroom integration (e.g., sonification), implications of understanding CS as a skill rather than a topic, our experience helping develop the Wyoming Computer Science Standards, and other topics relevant to #CSK8 educators.

  • Hey everyone I just wanted to give a

    very quick disclaimer before the episode

    starts that this interview was recorded

    in early January of 2020 so if you're

    wondering why when we're talking about

    online learning we do not at all mention

    Cova 19 that's why now there's still a

    lot of great content in here that is

    relevant to see us education and I hope

    you enjoy listening to this episode

    welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is Jared O'Leary in

    this episode I interview and gun and is

    an instructor at the Community College

    in Sheridan County Wyoming she also

    works with some school districts in the

    local area to help them with CS

    integration in the classroom in our

    conversation we discuss Anne's

    background as both a CS professional and

    as an educator summit Anne's thoughts on

    data analysis for classroom integration

    some implications of understanding

    computer science as a skill rather than

    just a topic our experiences helping

    develop the Wyoming computer science

    standards as well as a range of other

    topics that are of interest to see sk8

    educators now you may notice that my

    voice sounds a little different that's

    because I am recovering from a sinus

    infection and you'll actually hear it

    in this interview because it was

    literally recorded a few hours before I

    got pretty sick so my apology is that my

    voice is a little out of it for this

    recording before we get started just a

    friendly reminder that you can find the

    show notes at Jared O'Leary comm and

    there should be a link in the

    description for the show notes for you

    to go directly to these show notes for

    this episode where I include a bunch of

    resources that Anne and I discuss and

    with that let's begin with in

    introducing herself so my name is Anne

    Gunn and I am currently an instructor at

    Sheridan College which is one of the two

    campuses of the northern Wyoming

    Community College District I teach

    computer science programming and web

    development online essentially a hundred

    percent online although I have some

    classes that meet once a week in a

    hybrid format Sheridan County in Wyoming

    is a bit unique because we have these

    remarkable philanthropic organizations

    that try to take active roles in various

    aspects of the community and one of them

    decided a few years ago that they really

    wanted to support computer science

    education so they've funded my position

    at Sheridan College as both an

    additional instructor of

    pewter science and as a liaison to the

    school districts so I have this

    appointment where my time is split

    basically 50/50 between teaching college

    students community college students and

    mentoring primarily high school and

    middle school teachers and the students

    so I get to actually spend time in a

    classroom with high school students even

    though all of my college students are

    online and that helps with the sanity

    quite a bit because teaching solely

    online is a really difficult task just

    as learning online is a difficult task

    so if I remember correctly you were us

    yes professional and you switched over

    into CS education I was wondering if you

    could share the story of how you got

    into computer science education I've

    essentially always worked in the

    software industry the first half of my

    career I was in the business side of

    software doing tech support sales that

    kind of thing the second half of my

    career I promoted myself to an

    entry-level programmer and became more

    and more technical and wrote software

    for a living and now in the third half

    of my career which I always intended to

    have I'm teaching programming to others

    this really was always my intention in

    some vague way when we moved from New

    England where we were living to Wyoming

    and we had to choose a community the

    deal was we would go someplace small

    enough for my husband but large enough

    to have some kind of college so there'd

    be some hope of being able to teach

    computer science eventually so three

    years ago I went from being a freelance

    programmer full-time to being what I am

    now which is an instructor and school

    district liaison full-time with a little

    bit of software development work still

    as a freelancer on the side sounds like

    you have a really interesting balance

    between working with a wide range of

    people and in different things being

    able to get in a classroom and and work

    with students is really is really a

    pleasure for me I'm very grateful to the

    high school computer science teachers

    who let me walk in and do the fun easy

    part

    which is figure out why the codes not

    working and try to explain

    obscure things to students without

    having to do any of the classroom

    management or grading it's it's just a

    huge privilege and probably the most fun

    I have all week is is those few hours I

    spend with the high school students yeah

    and you refer to debugging as like the

    fun part of coding and I I feel the same

    way like it's like this fun like problem

    trying to solve but I know a lot of

    people are very frustrated with it and

    as we've kind of talked in person in the

    past like debugging is one of those

    things where even if you don't want to

    do it you're gonna do it right so I'm

    wondering like how do you frame

    debugging as a fun thing or people who

    are kind of hesitant or about it or

    afraid of it you know it's that's a

    really good question it's interesting we

    had a conversation with one of the math

    instructors so I worked very closely

    with a colleague Mark Toni and so we are

    together teaching computer science at

    Sheridan College and we had this chance

    hallway conversation with one of the

    math teachers the other day and she was

    talking about a student and saying and

    saying oh well he'll take oh say ten ten

    in the spring and then he can take this

    other class in the fall and and we were

    saying well yeah but he's got to get

    through cosig ten ten before he can you

    know count on taking this other class

    and she said oh well he's in calc 2 I

    mean he's smart he can do anything and

    and we both had this reaction like hit

    the pause button why is that statement

    wrong you know why does why is that

    assumption that somebody who's smart is

    also going to be good at coding and I

    finally came up with the fact I was

    thinking about a student I have who is

    in exactly that same situation you know

    he's in calc 2 as a freshman at college

    he's super smart the difference is he

    wants to be right he always wants to

    know the right answer and do things the

    right way and he gets really frustrated

    when things don't work and one of the

    chief aspects of enjoying coding is that

    you have to enjoy solving mysteries and

    you have to take some sort of weird

    pleasure in figuring out why you were

    wrong yeah what programmers say to each

    other all the time is they they sit

    from their keyboard and they look around

    the room and with this huge smile on

    their face they go oh I'm an idiot and

    the thing is you have to you have to

    just get this kind of weird pleasure

    from going that looked like it was gonna

    work and here here's why it was just so

    wrong right that's the personality trait

    that's the that's the sort of mindset

    you're trying to cultivate and I don't

    think I have the perfect answer for that

    yet in class when I'm with my high

    school students I model this behavior

    because when I can't figure out their

    problem right away

    it's it I just expressed to them how

    cool that is

    and what a great deal this is that they

    have something that I can't just look at

    and figure out like okay now let's have

    some fun

    in my online classes that's harder but

    one of the things I try to do is using

    zoom and screen share recording I will

    work through a problem and sometimes I

    know what I'm going to do and I'm doing

    a relatively scripted task and sometimes

    I just take my heart in my hands and say

    I'm gonna start coding this and you get

    to see all the things I do wrong now

    in either case even if I think I know

    what I'm gonna do I will type things

    wrong I'll make bugs I'll do I'll hit

    some problems that they hit and then you

    know if there'll be this pause and I'll

    go oh I what's wrong with that and try

    to model that joy in the bugging part of

    the process yeah but I do think it's a

    mindset that people have to cultivate

    and I haven't figured out the ideal way

    to communicate that online yeah online

    adds some tricky aspects to it like you

    could certainly talk about a Carol

    Dweck's like fixed versus growth mindset

    and whatnot but online settings present

    interesting challenges I I too love to

    model my own debugging practices and

    like bugs that are trying to solve so I

    saw kids four to five days a week and

    every Thursday if I remember correctly

    was debugging we're at the start of it

    I'd share here's a big bug I was working

    on in this past week and here's how I

    solved it here's how I'm attempting to

    solve it right

    I would have kids that go through some

    debugging challenges on their own before

    resuming the projects informally you

    know you know in a formal sense one of

    the techniques that I've picked up from

    algebra instruction is the concept of

    the worked example mm-hmm

    so we're it's not just an example that

    is you don't just show people three

    problems and then ask them to solve it a

    worked example involves some sort of

    interactions so you've got some some

    code in my case and then people have to

    for example enhance it or explain it so

    so my students work with a lot of code

    that is nearly complete or complete but

    then they have to change it but then

    also I give them worked wrong examples

    which is also a concept from algebra

    instruction and and so not every week

    but probably half of the weeks in any of

    my coding courses as opposed to my web

    authoring course my students will have

    codes that's broken and their job is to

    fix it it's really fun because like I

    have a smiley face exercise where I can

    I have the code wrong in all these

    little tiny ways there's like one line

    you have to fix but but it's a smiley

    face with one eye instead of two or his

    smile is upside down and students just

    really love that they don't love the one

    where I can break a while statement it

    only has four or five lines I can break

    it in six different ways without even

    trying and and they have to figure it

    out and one of the things I realized is

    I have to make them not only fix it

    but tell me what was wrong with it yeah

    not only for their reflection but also

    it would be easy to just copy the same

    code back in because the loops are all

    the same but that focus and emphasis on

    hey codes broken all the time so let's

    just work on our skills for fixing it

    that is something I try to work formally

    into my classes yeah and I think new CSS

    caters can kind of learn alongside kids

    when it comes to bugs they haven't come

    across or immediately be able to fix and

    like guide through some questions and

    then once it's solved asking that can

    you explain to me how this now works

    what do you think was going on before

    what do you think is different

    and what not and then both people are

    learning the initiative we have where we

    put si s professionals in classrooms

    which kind of parallels the Microsoft

    teals thing we invented it in parallel

    probably about the same time so I go to

    a school district one classroom two days

    a week I go to Sheridan High two days a

    week and then my colleague mark Toni

    goes down to Buffalo for one block

    period of the week and the thing I think

    that we add most is that it's so easy

    for teachers who are using one of the

    online curriculum which are great those

    curricula are just wonderful but I see

    teachers resorting to let's look at the

    posted solution and compare your lines

    to those lines and what we model and

    what we try to get the teachers more

    skilled in is the ability to not look at

    the posted solution but to look at the

    students code and figure out what's

    going wrong and some way to fix it which

    may or may not end up looking like the

    posted code solution yeah and I really

    appreciate when they post like here are

    several options of how you can solve

    this particular bug as opposed to here's

    the one way to do it yeah yeah but that

    is it's laborious to sort through and

    one thing teachers never have is enough

    time

    Dean tell me a story of one of your

    experiences in education that continues

    to impact you or informs what you do or

    don't do in the classroom when I was a

    freshman at college I had the privilege

    of taking my first calculus class from a

    man whose name was John Kemeny and

    Kemeny and Tom Kurtz were the

    co-inventors of basic so you know this

    was a guy who had he had been a math

    professor they had invented the basic

    computer language and one of the

    variants of time-sharing systems and

    then he had become the president of

    college but he still taught one class a

    semester he had the most remarkable

    capacity to listen to a question and

    perceive what you didn't understand

    about what he had just taught you so

    that when you asked a question you

    didn't get him repeating what he had

    said before as if you hadn't heard it

    right

    he was able to come around to the side

    of the topic that you were on and

    explained it in a truly different way

    that eventually fed into when I was a

    manager I was one of those people who

    really liked the seven seven Habits of

    Highly Effective People and the one that

    I think's the absolute most important is

    seek first to understand and then only

    to be understood and this is very hard

    with with all education and particularly

    with the threshold concepts of computer

    science to see things from the other

    person's perspective and and even if I

    can't always do that in my presentations

    I try to do that when I'm working

    one-on-one students or I'm staring at

    their code and trying to leave them

    notes that make it make sense from there

    make the solution make sense from their

    perspective as opposed from my

    perspective that has always been

    something that I harked back to when I

    thought about teaching was was trying to

    understand the students problem from

    their eyes instead of from mine boy

    that's hard yeah but it's such a

    valuable approach having multiple

    perspectives and providing that in in

    the responses can really change things

    one of the questions that I have as a

    follow-up is how do you encourage

    students to find different perspectives

    from resources that are not responsive

    so for example if they find an

    explanation of how to do something

    outside of class and let's say it's a

    blog post or YouTube video they might

    not have the ability to actually contact

    the author to gain another perspective

    so how would they seek out a different

    answer for a solution they're looking

    for my problem is not really getting

    students to seek out different answers

    because the internet is so full of

    coding solutions for everything one of

    the things that I I do quite

    intentionally is try to focus students

    on what I think of as reliable resources

    so so for example a specific example as

    a computer science professional as a

    programmer okay you know person who

    actually generates code for pay I use a

    site called Stack Overflow

    all the time but Stack Overflow is full

    of old material

    it's full of obscure answers to edge

    conditions mm-hmm it's also the top one

    or two search results on almost any

    coding question you can ask and I try

    very hard to get my students to not go

    to stack overflow as a primary resource

    because they don't have the skills to

    understand why the answer to a question

    there that's a perfectly good answer to

    a perfectly good question is not the

    answer that they're seeking to the

    question the simpler question they have

    so I direct them to a site like w3

    schools which isn't question and answer

    but is you know add a tutorial at a at a

    you know simple reference level and try

    to get them to focus on doing the sim

    trying to find a simple answer to a

    simple problem I don't know that I

    actually use this exam example in my

    classes but if if something you know

    could be a zebra or a horse you know

    assume it's a horse it's really easy for

    you know all of us as coders have always

    assumed that there must be something

    broken about the environment we're using

    because the code is clearly right and

    you have to focus on the fact that your

    code is probably wrong and so so you're

    looking for a simple explanation not an

    obscure one

    yeah and context matters context does

    matter I do encourage students to ask

    questions boy that's hard for them we

    use slack instead of the standard

    college style discussion forum as a

    place for students to interact with each

    other and with me I'm always encouraging

    people in fact I'm I give extra credit

    for people who will ask a question on

    slack because it's the almost any

    student finds it a difficult thing to

    put out there in public in front of all

    the other people in a class the you know

    a question that shows they don't

    understand something even though it's

    the most valuable thing they can do for

    anybody else in the classroom is to

    admit that and ask the question but then

    I was always that person that the you

    know who had my hand up asking the

    question nobody else would ask when I

    was

    a class in person so that hesitancy to

    ask questions is is sort of foreign to

    me and I have to just keep remembering

    that it's true so what are some of the

    things that you wish you knew when you

    first started teaching computer science

    or coding there are some things I now

    know that I didn't know before so for

    example your choice of textbook at the

    college level just makes an enormous

    difference

    just as at the high school level where

    we're now teaching primarily with

    published curricula from say code org or

    code HS calm or Project Lead the Way

    your choice of one of those environments

    for learning really makes all the

    difference we're so lucky at the high

    school level to have this selection of

    solid really dependable well-thought-out

    curricula and then within that one of

    the things I do in my college classes

    that I kind of wish the the high school

    curricula did a little bit more of I

    will through the course of my 15 weeks

    take two or three problems and we do

    something super primitive with those

    problems in the first you know three

    weeks and then in the middle part of the

    section we'll do an advanced version so

    for example I use this textbook that's

    not really that's intended to be a

    self-study book for for my cosig 1010

    and in the course of the semester they

    build three different versions of a

    battleship game and pretty uniformly by

    the time they build the last one they've

    really impressed themselves and in my

    web authoring class they do an exercise

    where they create a National Park page

    like about week two I think and then

    over the course of the semester they do

    more and by the time they do the last

    one they've done a responsive grid or

    flex styled

    CSS styled version of the same page and

    they just love that that they can see

    their own progress and they look at what

    seems so hard and obscure at the

    beginning and now that's the easy part

    and the message should be okay you're

    always going to be learning something so

    that the

    old stuff is the simple part and in the

    stuff that was so hard three weeks ago

    you know now seems like all that was

    trivial now this is really hard right

    and that's the programmers journey when

    I worked with people you know when I

    mentored young programmers the you know

    the phrase I always uses if you're old

    code isn't embarrassing you then you're

    really not working hard enough because

    you're not growing fast enough because

    the purpose of old code is to just make

    you blush because you'll know such a

    better way to do it now yeah and I think

    that like you I believe you phrase it as

    the coders journey I think that's also

    like the an educators journey as well

    just if the way that you taught five

    years ago versus the way you teach now

    it should be very different

    you should just constantly be growing

    and whatnot yes and I have I have this

    experience coming up for your don't

    don't tell them this but I have a couple

    of students in my kosai ten-thirty class

    which is the C++ compiled language class

    this spring who took the previous class

    more than two years ago one of them took

    it for me one of them took it from

    somebody else a year a year earlier and

    both of them are you know I worry about

    those two students versus the people

    who've now taken my cosig 1010 because I

    you know we do such a better job of

    teaching the introductory class now and

    it's so much more substantial than it

    was when when we began our teaching

    journey three three two years ago for me

    in three or four four mark that it'll be

    interesting to see how those students do

    at least they're both local to me so I

    could have them come in and if they need

    extra tutoring I just happen to be lucky

    that they're both here in Sheridan

    County where they could get to my school

    if they need to but yes old of course

    old course curriculum also embarrass one

    so you you mentioned in the beginning of

    the teaching journey I'm curious if you

    were to lose your memory and you had to

    relearn CS and you had to relearn how to

    code and how to teach like where would

    you start and how would you try and

    regain your mastery in the those areas

    you know that's that's

    such a difficult question for me because

    I have programmed for so long even

    though I'm you know my teaching journey

    my final teaching journey is is very

    short I actually did my first

    programming in probably almost 50 years

    ago that's how long I've done it so I'd

    like to change the question a little bit

    and focus on what I think things what

    things prepare you to learn how to code

    yeah and to me you can't do anything

    better for yourself or maybe for your

    kids if you want them to be good

    technologists then simply have them

    build and make things I mean if you

    think about it coding is making things

    with your mind but you have to be able

    to do things like understand that the

    order in which you do things makes a

    huge difference and that clarity of

    thought and directions and writing makes

    a huge difference

    I think of coding as communication I

    think if I was if I was gonna spend five

    years on a desert Isle trying to get

    ready to take a coding class when I got

    off it you know I would I'd weave

    baskets I would build Nets I I don't

    know I would do anything that had

    process to it I when I look back on my

    sort of childhood I spent a lot of time

    doing things like you know if we bought

    a car I'd assemble it or you know with

    the barbecue or you know figure out how

    to just put things together and how they

    work and you know there's so much

    real-world debugging to do particularly

    in this day and age where in general it

    tends to be you know put your kid in

    charge of getting the new router set up

    and dealing with the completely obscure

    instructions because they have so much

    more to gain from going through the

    process and you have so much to gain by

    offloading that time-consuming

    frustrating experience to somebody else

    that you know just always lets let you

    know the young person around you do some

    of this as long as they can explain to

    you

    why it works which is an important thing

    you need to get them to explain to you

    what happened yeah I don't know about

    learning computer science I think it is

    like learning anything that is process

    and product oriented the more different

    other process and product things I mean

    whether you've baked or you so where

    you've welded or you do carpentry you

    know I was a fiber person so I taught

    myself how to crochet I taught myself

    how to weave I taught myself how to do

    needlepoint and boy do those things

    apply to computer science because it's

    all about patterns and and you know

    on/off and colors and I don't know it's

    just the parallels between fiber arts

    and coding well they go far as back as

    far as the jacquard loom but they really

    they work really well together so what

    advice might you give for people who are

    struggling to find integration examples

    in other subject areas because you've

    already mentioned multiple she's only

    part-time right now but we have an

    educator who is an employee of the

    college but does nothing but work with K

    through five classrooms doing

    integration and integration is so

    important because so many topics now and

    increasingly in the future are

    data-driven so I think I think any kind

    of data analysis that you can work into

    another class you know there's a lot of

    stuff in the in the science curriculums

    about collecting data but oftentimes you

    collect very small amounts of data

    because you you're assuming your

    students have to do any kind of math by

    hand and I think to the extent that that

    you know science teachers or math

    teachers can begin to integrate for

    example spreadsheets where you can work

    in you know you can teach somebody what

    the calculation is but then suddenly

    they can download a data set with maybe

    a thousand entries in it and for the

    same amount of work get you know a

    really interesting analysis of some

    real-world data there's just so much

    real-world data out there the hard part

    is choosing it right and the same is

    true with

    social science topics in my kosai 1010

    class I have a couple of exercises that

    are based on Native American census data

    you know at some point you have to sum

    average and look at mins and maxes and

    so for that I use Native American

    population data from the US Census

    across States and and one of the things

    that jumps right out at you is that the

    populations are not where you think they

    are that in fact you know there's

    there's substantial populations are in

    states like Oklahoma and New York as

    opposed to Wyoming and Montana and the

    thing is that could all be done in a

    spreadsheet we happen to do it with

    JavaScript but you could look at those

    same numbers very easily and that data

    is all available and then you can also

    work in the obligatory conversation

    about how badly the US census data

    actually represents Native American

    populations for a couple of different

    reasons

    so it's you know so even though I'm only

    teaching the computer science I've been

    striving each semester to find examples

    that have nothing to do with computer

    science they have to do with the world

    right and I think that can be done at

    every grade level yeah I have a

    difference with some of my computer

    science colleagues I personally think

    spreadsheets are great programming

    environments and great places for people

    to do data analysis real scientists

    often use spreadsheets elimin Airy data

    analysis or pre or data cleanup and I

    know that social scientists do and so

    the fact that it doesn't look like

    programming to some people doesn't mean

    that you're not understanding you know

    the order you have to apply the

    operations or you're not having to debug

    the spreadsheet when it's not coming out

    right

    and so I just I really encourage people

    to find data sets and analyze them and

    you know analyzing them in Google sheets

    or in Excel whatever you have available

    in your in your school district I think

    that's a great way to do things

    yeah and we even previously talked about

    sauna fiying data I'm wondering if you

    could potentially share what that sounds

    like and/or what that is what its

    like one of the one of the interesting

    computer science sort of fields of

    research and development over the last

    decade or so has been utilizing the fact

    that the human ear can distinguish

    patterns and gradations of difference at

    a much higher level than the eye can

    what that means is is that you take data

    you've collected digitally so it ends up

    being a set of numbers and instead of

    trying to do a visualization where you

    try to make a graph or you try to make a

    pie chart out of something you find a

    way to sana Phi it that is turn it into

    sound and that can be kind of reefs on

    affine so for example you can collect

    earthquake data and then instead of

    presenting it as as some kind of

    visualization you turn it back into

    waveform but in in as sound waves as

    opposed to earth waves it turns out that

    the trained ear can hear differences in

    data and be able to distinguish between

    types of earthquakes for example simply

    by hearing them in a way that seeing

    that data either as numbers or seeing it

    as some other kind of visualization

    wouldn't allow you to do and I'm still

    struggling with finding ways to work

    sonification into my classroom practice

    it isn't that the the libraries are out

    there I just haven't found an example

    that it's you can fit into a week right

    but you know we know this the trained

    physician can diagnose different kinds

    of heart ailments simply based on the

    sound of the valves and so the idea is

    to try to take that skill that's

    inherent in the human and provide that

    particular sense with data that needs

    that needs analysis and I'm really

    intrigued by that I think it's a growing

    field but I I'm still struggling with a

    way to work it into the classroom that

    you know my classroom and my one week

    lessons yeah

    if this sounds too abstract for like

    elementary teachers this is something

    that can be done with young kids whether

    it's in Sonic PI or even something like

    scratch like in a easy example is you

    could take stock market price of a

    specific stock and assign it to a MIDI

    note so when it's a hundred dollars

    assign it to mini note 100 when it's 100

    $1 assign it to one hundred one or you

    can get in more complicated stuff with

    like multiple variables so like assign

    certain notes to the cholesterol level

    and then other notes too like blood

    pressure and just like going to

    different parts of health and then

    listening back to that and going okay

    well how is this person's health data

    changing over time and what are some of

    the incidents that are impacting when it

    sounds very different from other moments

    and in one of my favorite example sites

    that I usually do show students various

    points is the site that Sanne Phi's

    Wikipedia mm-hmm wikipedia makes a live

    stream of the data about changes being

    made available and there's a site that

    turns that into both sound and

    visualization so that you'll hear one

    tone when a new user is created on

    Wikipedia and you'll hear another tone

    when an article is edited and a third

    kind of tone when an article is created

    and then there's a certain amount of

    volume information that codifies like

    for example how large a change and it's

    just I sometimes I just turn it on and

    listen to what the pedia being changes

    that's great it's great white noise you

    know it's it's a beautiful it's a

    beautiful sound but it is random and

    musical at the same time mm-hmm so a lot

    of the CS educators that I know don't

    have experience in CS as a professional

    there are a few people who do like

    yourself and like Sandy and I'm Sarah

    but some of the people that I've

    interviewed on the show but I'm

    wondering what are some of the things

    that you wish that CS educators knew

    about computer science as a profession

    and how might that understanding kind of

    change the way we approach CS education

    it's an interesting question because I

    think

    soon as an educator starts teaching

    computer science they begin to

    appreciate the fact that it is a skill

    and a practice not a topic but if I was

    going to try and convey that message to

    someone I would convey it to school

    board members and the PT SB and the

    folks who manage I guess it's the Board

    of Education who managed the curriculum

    process standards process because I

    think one of the things that people have

    to appreciate and that teachers in

    particular needs support for is that

    this is a topic like teaching that's a

    journey and that it the field is always

    changing out from under us our ability

    to understand it grows and then it

    shrinks when we don't practice for a

    while and then we have to get back into

    practice and that unlike math say it's

    not going to be the same five years from

    now that it is now so for example in my

    cosa 1010 class I have I have a week on

    events and when I learn computer science

    lo so many years ago programmers regular

    human programmers didn't really deal

    with events you had to be a sis prog to

    have to worry about having your code

    interrupted by some kind of user input

    and now it's like I Drive down the

    highway at 70 miles an hour and it seems

    perfectly simple to me but 80 years ago

    it would have seemed impossible on two

    or three levels for me to be going down

    a road 80 miles an hour and be in

    control well computer science education

    changes faster than that now what we

    need to teach how we need to integrate

    with other things need to change and I

    think the teachers have very little

    trouble appreciating that I think the

    folks who are trying to find those

    teachers and get them to take on a new

    class and oh well you know you find this

    online curriculum and then you'll be

    able to teach it or the administrators

    who want to just or even the legislature

    I love the fact that our

    state legislature mandated computer

    science education K through 12 but I

    don't think they appreciate the ongoing

    struggle that's going to that's going to

    present in terms of teachers keeping up

    with the field and then trying to push

    integration down to the K through five

    for things that and into the other

    classes I mean we know for example that

    science is rarely is is done only

    partially in a test tube anymore

    so at University of Wyoming biology

    majors are required to take a computer

    science class Co site 1010 and I believe

    that's going to be true of every science

    the single most self-taught topic for

    PhD students now is programming PhD

    students of any discipline but

    particularly science disciplines if they

    didn't know coding when they started

    their PhD they find they have to teach

    it to themselves the teachers seem to

    appreciate the fact that that their

    topic is going to change all the time

    and they're going to keep having to have

    education this isn't a topic it's it's

    not US history you know two to nineteen

    ten it's it's a skill that both the

    teachers and the students have to

    maintain and that is also the education

    I was going to change all the time

    if there's one factoid that people

    should know about okay as opposed to

    sort of a mindset people should have its

    that current employment data says that

    almost no matter what professional job

    you have right now or you're trying to

    get if you can show that you also know

    how to program and/or do effective data

    analysis with some of the tools like our

    or MATLAB or or whatever not only are

    your job prospects better but your

    salary prospects are much higher and

    that we need to be making sure that

    people understand computer science isn't

    just for programmers anymore the

    computer science is going to drive

    virtually all science and science

    developments and then many of the social

    sciences so yes

    history

    research you're still gonna go out and

    you know a certain amount of it's gonna

    be reading old tomes but then you're

    also going to do a lot of data based

    analysis of documents and things like

    that so you know that's probably the

    thing that administrators and ever and

    and other teachers need to know not the

    computer science teachers is how central

    probably programming and data analysis

    are becoming in every field in the

    modern age yeah and to jump onto your

    mentioning computer science as a skill

    it's a skill and a literacy

    so like administrators who are mandating

    things and like oh we only have to teach

    computer science for like 30 minutes a

    month or a quarter or whatever it's like

    okay but if you were trying to have kids

    learn English but they could only speak

    it read it and engage in it for 30

    minutes a month they're not going to do

    it by the end of their k12 tenure the

    example Mark Toni always uses is about

    is about playing an instrument or

    painting yes you know you can paint by

    number and produce something that looks

    okay but you really not you know you're

    not really able to paint that takes

    practice it takes teaching your brain

    how to see in a different way and the

    same with music you can hit a button on

    a player piano and it's making music but

    that's not really learning how to play

    it takes application it takes practice

    it takes being willing to be wrong and

    try over and over again and that's a

    really good model I think for

    programming so it takes you get out of

    practice quickly it's remarkable if you

    don't code for a few months and you go

    back and look at and you you look at it

    just it takes a while to warm back up

    again yeah and so you'd mention Wyoming

    support we met for the Wyoming's Cs

    standards Review Committee

    I'm wondering how did you get involved

    with the committee and what are some of

    the things that you kind of learned in

    that process in terms of how states are

    supporting computer science in Wyoming

    one of the school district

    administrators that I work with on a

    regular basis sent out an email call to

    people sort of who were involved so the

    the public school teachers I was working

    with computer science faculty at my

    college and

    said please sign up to be on this

    committee I think the committee

    selection is based partly on geography

    and pertinent trying to get a wide

    selection of different points of view

    and so three of us from Sheridan County

    were selected there was a person from

    industry a public school teacher and and

    me from computing from a community

    college and I had absolutely no idea

    what I was getting in for but it was it

    was just it was an interesting

    experience it was a worthwhile

    experience it'll be interesting to see

    how this standard rolls out when I heard

    the process was one of consensus and

    that we were a group of 40 people I

    almost didn't show up as much as I liked

    to get people to agree I've always been

    a sort of a lead from the front kind of

    person and that somebody eventually has

    to be the person who the buck stops and

    you make the decision so the concept

    that we could find some way that 40

    people at a time would agree on these

    little tiny detailed you know tidbits of

    text just struck me as insane and yet

    given the right organization given

    people of goodwill given time and

    patience and the relationships we built

    it's not a perfect document but we I

    think we did a great job and even when

    we were sent back by the Board of

    Education for a rather painful review to

    try and come up with some change or some

    trimming of the document to make it more

    digestible it was such a remarkable

    group of people who are all trying to do

    the right thing together I was I was

    really impressed yeah both in terms of

    the processes that we went through like

    the discussions we had but then the

    overall end product I think it was it

    was good yes it really was and and it

    was interesting the different roles that

    people played I mean you came at it with

    with a big background in pedagogy and

    sort of pedagogical theory the classroom

    teachers we had in our subgroup were

    absolutely essential in terms of saying

    sure but here's the way it is in the

    classroom you know and this is what

    works in Wyoming and here's the

    situation in a school with you know

    only 80 kids in k-12 and you know and

    and you know they brought real truth and

    some of us you know really stood up for

    no you have to deal with packets for

    example and when you're talking about

    network because it's like the atomic

    theory you know messages are made out of

    little parts and they have to get

    reassembled and so we each we each took

    up a role but nobody took up a hardened

    stance and we eventually with enough

    patience came to a lot of I think

    important agreements I certainly

    appreciated the fact that that you were

    another person who really cared about

    the wordsmithing yeah cuz I think in the

    end you not only need to agree on what

    you're trying to say you need to make

    the words say that right and there's a

    level of patience in trying to make the

    words say what you're mean again it was

    just everybody was contributing in

    different places and that's a place

    where you and I I think built some

    common ground yeah cause like you have

    to think through okay what are we

    intending what's the best-case scenario

    but what's also the worst-case scenario

    of this wording right one of the biggest

    takeaways I took away from the standard

    is I didn't know much about what the

    documents were like I didn't know much

    about the overall process I believe that

    as a group one of the things that

    concerned us about the overall process

    is that the normal cycle in Wyoming for

    reviewing standards documents is nine

    years and there are two reasons why that

    should probably not apply to the

    document we produced one is the topic as

    I said before you know this is an area

    where things are changing very fast all

    the time and the other is it was a first

    draft and we I think we all agree that

    when our standard is in practice in

    classrooms people are going to find

    places where it needs to be changed so

    I'm I'm really hoping the state of

    Wyoming can make an exception for that

    document and probably put it on a five

    year cycle

    unfortunately the cycle for reviewing it

    is is over a year so you can't do it too

    often but I don't think it should be

    every nine or ten years it really just

    is too long yeah and when we initially

    created the first draft and sent it to

    the Republic review there was some

    pushback in that there's hesitancy about

    whether these were even doable with the

    in particular like the k2 and the k5

    group right there's just a sphere of

    well we don't have enough time we're now

    having to add in yet another subject

    area onto our plates in a packed school

    day I'm wondering what kind of advice

    you might give for any of the teachers

    who are looking at some of the computer

    science standards or just computer

    science in general who are hesitant

    about it my advice is to try and turn

    that around a little bit as I mentioned

    before here in Sheridan County we have a

    educational trainer who's working with K

    through five grades whose job is

    specifically to work on integration and

    the idea that she's pursuing you know

    her background is I think as a second

    grade teacher so she's she's a you know

    very recent classroom teacher she knows

    the people she's working with she's

    respected by them and her message and

    and the materials she's providing is to

    not in any way treat the computer

    science curriculum as an additional

    topic that should be taught separately

    except for maybe just some very very

    minor parts of it that in fact

    everything about it should be used to

    integrate with other topics and enhance

    the teacher's ability to educate the

    students in those areas so for example

    she's using scratch jr. to help them not

    only meet the the upcoming computer

    science standards but to enhance their

    language arts skill one of the skills

    students need to demonstrate is that

    they understand sequence and that they

    can put a story together and tell it in

    a way where it makes sense in order and

    if you're using scratch jr. for example

    to create that story the students

    experience is very enhanced because it's

    not only it's not just words on a piece

    of paper

    it's an illustrated story but they still

    have to get the basic skill down

    of being able to decide what happens

    first what happens second you know and

    be logical about it I'm hoping that the

    computer science curriculum can almost

    disappear into the other curriculum

    areas you know except for those few

    areas we mark that need to be assessed

    separately the skills enhance other

    areas they shouldn't have to detract a

    lot from the classroom instruction in

    other areas now that's a very idealized

    college teacher you don't guarantee kind

    of way to say that I my feet are not on

    the ground in K through five but that's

    that's certainly the hope and I think

    ten years from now and this conversation

    will be much easier to do because

    teachers who are going to come out of

    colleges of education over the next few

    years are going to likely have some

    experience with computer science and are

    gonna see models of ways of implementing

    in it but right now there's the issue of

    well how do we get the professional

    development for all those teachers and

    how do we do certification and other

    forms of support so I'm wondering what

    you think the state in particular could

    do to kind of further assist with this

    process to get to that idealized version

    of CSM k12

    I don't know what it can do what states

    in general can do I can speak a little

    bit to what Wyoming is doing and the

    clarification that has come down so it's

    interesting I work with classroom

    educators mainly sixth grade and above

    and I teach classroom educators in my

    classes they they have begun voluntarily

    over the last couple years going ahead

    and signing up for classes even though

    they weren't sure what the credentialing

    picture would be and I find that they

    their questions are much more often to

    me about credentialing so this used to

    leave me feeling very helpless but I

    have tried to understand the

    credentialing picture as it's developed

    in Wyoming for classroom teachers who

    are adding the computer science

    curriculum to their integrated K through

    five classroom instruction they don't

    need any additional credentialing which

    doesn't mean

    they don't need additional training our

    school district was somewhat ahead of

    some other school districts in terms of

    implementing a lot of computer science

    stuff anyway and so we're trying to stay

    serve on the leading edge and I

    certainly hope that the school district

    will share some of that wisdom and

    experience with other people around the

    state in trainings and presentations and

    that kind of stuff but for either

    pullout special teachers or for any any

    teacher of computer science six through

    next few years those teachers are

    supposed to get a computer science

    endorsement and there's been a lot of

    misunderstanding about that there

    unfortunately like my field as a whole

    there are many different things going on

    at once a lot of good work is being done

    but on different timescales and so one

    of the things that's been confusing is

    that there are some things that are

    being talked about now that probably

    aren't going to be ready for a few years

    and then there are a few things that are

    being talked about that are ready right

    now and that teachers and school

    districts can go ahead and start on so

    for example in what for them is rather

    lightning speed the professional

    teaching standards board last spring

    reworked the computer science

    endorsement requirements for computer

    science teachers so effectively six

    through 12 and went from a twenty seven

    credit endorsement down to a 15 credit

    endorsement that could specifically be

    delivered all those 15 credits could

    specifically be delivered by community

    colleges so they really tried to step up

    I think to making the credentialing the

    endorsement more achievable and

    achievable more locally yeah and some of

    the difficulties that credentialing

    institutions have kind of gotten into or

    just credential in general were

    sometimes offering classes to teachers

    that are great for your undergraduate CS

    major but really don't have a lot of

    relevance to somebody who's teaching

    computer science in an integrated manner

    to a kindergartner so yeah you might be

    learning like the basics of how to

    construct a program and like an IDE like

    eclipse or something but you're never

    going to use that with your K through 2

    kids right and that's where I think you

    know what I haven't heard in Wyoming is

    because those K through five teachers

    don't need an additional credential what

    I haven't heard is a statewide approach

    to the professional development that

    they need I think that integration in

    the classroom is very tricky it's really

    critical because it's now declared to be

    out of the credentialing pathway I do

    have some concern that that might make

    it ignored when in fact in some ways

    it's the harder and more critical

    problem I mean what we what we've said

    all along here in Sharon County is you

    know we're firing on all cylinders and

    we're rolling out computer science

    education and rolling it down to the

    elementary level we're gonna have an

    ongoing problem that as students get to

    the high school suddenly the classes

    that work two years ago don't work

    anymore because they already know that

    stuff and we're seeing that I mean we

    have this problem that we have

    sophomores taking what would have been a

    senior class and their final experience

    in computer science at our high school

    well they're taking it as a software now

    and so suddenly you know and maybe their

    junior years filled up with the classes

    but by senior year they're ready to take

    another program in class and so we've

    had to add yet another AP class on top

    of that and that's the problem you want

    to have is for the skill set coming up

    through the elementary levels to be

    driving high school teachers to

    distraction in terms of always having to

    move their practice farther up the

    evolutionary scale but I I do worry

    about how that's being rolled out

    particularly in the smaller school

    districts now wde though aiiowing

    department education has an effort

    funded somewhat by a microsoft grant may

    be fully by microsoft grant to try to

    work with all school districts and help

    them plan and help my hope there to be

    some amount of consistent approach to

    rolling out the elementary level do you

    know is I mean I would think I mean this

    isn't like you said this isn't teaching

    computer science this is teaching

    computer science integration in the

    classroom is there a is there an

    accepted curriculum for that are there

    online programs for teachers to to get

    professional development in that area is

    there even a certification or degree for

    that I'm not aware of any certifications

    or degrees there are a lot of people who

    are approaching in different ways like

    in the PD that we do we can't possibly

    go in and find examples in every subject

    area for every standard for every state

    that we're working in right so what we

    like to do is okay here are some

    examples of projects in here are some

    examples of how you could potentially

    integrate these projects but now let's

    kind of unpack how it relates to the

    standards that you are working with and

    let's kind of create our own lesson

    plans related to this and so that way

    you can integrate it into your classroom

    and use it tomorrow if you wanted to but

    that's just kind of one approach right

    because that that's one of the things I

    always forget about you is that you're

    not just I mean you don't do that much

    or any teaching of computer science

    directly yourself you're in a company

    that's trying to provide just the kind

    of professional development I was just

    talking about right yeah and yeah like I

    used to be in the classroom I'm doing it

    was a k-8 coding classes but now I'm at

    the nonprofit doing all the professional

    development stuff and curriculum right

    and so you probably have a much better

    perspective on how on housed counties in

    Wyoming in school districts and states

    around the nation are honored are trying

    to tackle that integration problem which

    I think can be done so well but but is

    labor intensive I think students could

    benefit from being done well they could

    benefit so much but I just don't see it

    isn't computer science taking away from

    the classroom experience of the student

    it's the burden it puts on the teacher

    to figure out the integration that

    enhances the student experience that

    does seem like a hard problem to solve

    over the next few years

    yeah and really well in what way so like

    there are districts that I know of who

    are claiming that they're doing computer

    science for all or coding for all and

    like little of all these wonderful

    we're doing but then when you actually

    look at it in practice they are spending

    like 30 minutes a quarter on it and it's

    like well okay just because you spend 30

    minutes a quarter on it doesn't mean

    you're really diving deep into the stuff

    so the quality of what you're doing is

    is not enough right so you mentioned

    that multiple times like see us just

    being a skill that's constantly changing

    and whatnot and that adds pressures on

    to like you said before some of the high

    school teachers who are like okay well

    now what was a senior class is now going

    to be like an entry level class and I

    need to create more content for those

    upper divisions education in general has

    a really high kind of like dropout or

    burnout rate I'm wondering what advice

    you might have or how you kind of take

    care of yourself to kind of prevent that

    kind of burnout when you're in a field

    that's just constantly changing and

    asking more from you I mean that's my

    whole career is is even though I'm doing

    it in teaching now you know there are

    two things about me I've always worked

    in a field that was changing out from

    under me and programmers don't usually

    burn out because they get tired of doing

    what they've done programmers as

    professionals quit the profession I

    believe primarily because what they knew

    two years ago isn't worth much now and

    they have to go through that whole

    learning experience over and over again

    I like to learn in fact it's probably

    the only thing I'm actually good at I've

    never been super topic obsessed or I'm a

    good writer I think an editor but

    otherwise I don't have you know a super

    skill in one area I've never been I'm

    not a real conventional programmer in

    the sense of you know just like diving

    deep into one particular technology I

    like to learn and so the field of

    programming of coding of technology has

    always worked for me because I don't

    have to do anything for too long I can

    just always be starting over again and I

    think teaching is like that you have to

    suck up and deal with the fact that you

    know you're always refining you're

    always creating you're always having to

    add something new but it also keeps

    things interesting I'm one of those

    people who puts a lot of stress on

    myself so I'm always stressed my

    solution to that is to try really hard

    to find one

    a week that I actually take off mmm and

    to either get outside or to make

    something or do something so you know

    digging in the garden teaching myself

    slowly slowly how to so you know making

    something beautiful is is this is just a

    fix for many ills and you know once or

    twice a year we go on vacation and we

    completely unplug you know I'll be out

    in a place that not only has no cell

    connection it has no electricity it has

    nothing for me I think that's really

    really critical is to just get totally

    away and usually you know in setting the

    outdoor stuff do something that's kind

    of scary

    because there's something about being

    scared that really like makes you focus

    on the moment instead of thinking about

    like what you have to do when you get

    back yeah I think essentially hitting

    the f5 to refresh is a valuable thing to

    do throughout the year yeah yeah yeah

    it's hard though especially when you

    have a lot of deadlines and yeah it is

    her but I've also changed career I mean

    I've been in the same field but I've

    also completely changed careers twice

    now that gives it a certain freshness

    yeah yeah what do you wish there's more

    research on that might inform what you

    do in the class I'm gonna say something

    kind of embarrassing I don't know if I

    wish for more research or if I wish for

    more time to read the research there is

    when I do find time to go looking for

    research I always learn something like

    several years ago I tried to start a

    business and get a government grant to

    do it to write a math teaching app and

    found a whole body of literature on

    different ways to teach algebra and

    what's effective and what's not and came

    up with this concept out of there of the

    worked example one small thing like that

    can inform and shape your practice for a

    long time yeah so I think it is

    interesting that even to this date the

    computer science community cannot decide

    how to teach computer science what to

    teach in what order

    and in particular what our introductory

    topics and what are not

    so you know I do occasionally go out and

    I look to see what other people are

    writing about how you teach computer

    science and what I see is a community

    that has essentially no agreement

    there's a there's a document that comes

    out every I know five or ten years from

    one firm I think it's the Association of

    Computing Machinery about computer

    science teaching practices and it just

    keeps getting longer and longer because

    there just is a longer longer list and

    they have syllabi from from you know now

    probably twenty five different

    institutions and none of them are the

    same I don't wish there was more

    agreement but it is a disincentive to

    spend much time reading when as far as I

    can tell we're all making it up as we go

    along because that's how I program that

    doesn't bother me as much as it bothers

    some other people and one of your

    questions someplace there's a line about

    you know what advice would you give

    somebody who is starting to teach

    computer science and I you know as much

    as you're teaching two years ago is

    always going to embarrass you it's

    better to start and observe the results

    and give your students access because

    really you're not teaching you're

    letting them learn and if you know a

    year from now you know a better way to

    present something than you did to this

    year's students you still gave them the

    chance to learn this on their own

    because like any other skill or practice

    it's it's every bit as much what they

    put into it and what they bring to it as

    anything you can give them except the

    opportunity yeah and your point about

    like finding the time to read the

    research that's one of the reasons why

    this podcast alternates between an

    interview on one week and then the next

    week I kind of talk about scholarship

    relevant to see us education because I'm

    aware it's very hard for people not only

    to find time for sitting down and

    reading but also even just getting

    access to research because there's like

    that pay wall to get to it so I'm hoping

    that this podcast helps with that what

    are some questions that I have not asked

    that you might want to

    besides learning from my own practice

    and trying to observe I really don't

    know where and how to find the time to

    identify the ideas and influencers that

    I should be learning from yeah I mean

    that's hard I mean you can find stuff

    like TED Talks of people who talk about

    Education Ken Robinson's I think is

    still the most watched one and that

    one's on education and creativity that's

    a guy who talked about the factory the

    factory model yeah yeah I've seen him

    he's good

    yeah even like just in your day to day

    so like I for a couple of years took

    multi classes and the people who were

    teaching the classes didn't have any

    kind of background in education but the

    way they taught how to fight and defend

    yourself was phenomenal the pedagogy

    that they were using it was really well

    done and like I went in and was just

    shocked at how good they were as

    educators and so I took some of what

    they are doing and was going oh I can

    apply that pedagogical approach in my

    class obviously not the fighting part

    not the content but like the how they

    approached like teaching somebody

    something so even the day to day you can

    find people who are doing good things

    well and that's the other piece that I

    didn't mention about about the chance to

    go into the high school classes is that

    there is so much to be learned from an

    experienced master teacher in her own

    classroom they don't they probably don't

    think they're doing much but they're

    just are doing so much into and then to

    add a second classroom and see the

    difference you know the things that are

    working the difference in the students

    the difference in in the behaviors in

    the classroom and the progress the

    students are making on exactly the same

    curriculum it's amazing what a

    difference the teacher makes so I do pay

    attention to the folks around me but boy

    you know it's just you're like putting a

    spoon down into the firehose and trying

    to get some water out it's just a me

    where my people go to connect with you

    or the organizations you work with

    I'm always available at Sheridan ddu if

    you go to share do that edu and in the

    search bar you type in gun GU in in I'm

    the only one there or you can look

    through the website and find the

    computer science department and find me

    that way

    my email is Egon at Sheridan dot edu

    because my formal first name is

    Elizabeth even though I've always been

    called an and IT systems seem to have

    lost the ability to be flexible in that

    way so my email address is Egon at

    Sheridan media which is pretty simple

    I do present I'm almost always happy to

    present as Jared now knows from talking

    to me for a couple of hours I like to

    talk and I like to present we have some

    outreach materials that we've used to

    explain programming to adults for them

    to get a little more comfortable with

    with what we would eventually teach

    students I've done some presentations

    with either hands-on programming or

    talking about our approach so yeah I'm

    available for presentations anybody

    wants me to come and speak I'd be happy

    to do that I don't know if I'm at the

    forefront I think I'm in the fight and

    making some decent progress and it'd be

    great to share that information with

    other people and to access all of those

    resources that we mentioned throughout

    the podcast such as Sir Ken Robinson's

    TED talk information on growth mindset

    by Carol Dweck Steven Covey's 7 Habits

    of Highly Effective People etcetera

    etcetera

    you can find those in the show notes in

    the description or by visiting George

    O'Leary com I hope you enjoyed this

    episode and I hope you consider sharing

    with somebody else next week I will be

    unpacking some scholarship and the week

    after that I will be interviewing

    somebody else for this podcast hope you

    all have a great week

Guest Bio

Anne Gunn was born in Lander, Wyoming, and grew up in Helena, Montana. She went to school in New England and subsequently lived in New Hampshire and Vermont for 20 years before returning to the West in 1999.

Anne has spent her entire working career in the software industry, in both business and technical roles. In 1990, she and a group of fellow employees of Metropolitan Life Insurance were able to spin off Tally Systems, a bootstrap-funded software company. Tally was a pioneer in developing software to help corporations manage and maintain personal computing assets. Anne was on the board of Tally from its founding until 2005 when the company was acquired by Novell.

At Tally, Anne wore many hats, including sales, technical support, quality assurance, product management, and people management. Eventually she promoted herself from Senior VP of Product Management to entry-level software developer in order to have more schedule flexibility and options for where to live/work. Since leaving Tally, she has worked remotely as a software developer on a large variety of custom software projects.

In 1999 Anne and her husband Mark, a freelance engineer, brought their work and their two daughters to Sheridan. They both enjoy the outdoors and, depending on the season, try to get out hiking, biking, paddling, fishing, and cross-country skiing as often as they can.


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