dailySTEM with Chris Woods
In this week’s interview with Chris Woods (dailySTEM), we discuss the importance of contextualizing STEM through everyday connections, leveraging student interests, blurring boundaries between subject areas, the affordances and constraints of the acronym STEM, Chris’ new book Daily STEM: How to Create a STEM Culture in your Classrooms & Communities, continuing to learn by asking questions, and much more.
-
Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
in this week's episode i'm interviewing
chris woods chris is a fellow podcaster
with the stem everyday podcast
and has a website called dailystem.com
which has a ton of free resources that i
highly recommend for anyone interested
in stem or steam
although this week's episode primarily
focuses on stem
much of our discussions are certainly
applicable to cs education
in particular our discussions center
around the importance of contextualizing
stem through everyday connections
this is something that cs educators
should also really pay attention to
so whenever chris is talking about stem
or steam i highly recommend
thinking about what would this look like
in computer science education
other topics that we engage in also
include leveraging student interests
we discuss blurring boundaries between
subject areas
the affordances and constraints of the
acronym stem
or steam continuing to learn in your
every day by asking questions
as well as chris's new book titled daily
stem
how to create a stem culture in your
classrooms and communities
and so much more as always you can find
links to
many of the things that we discuss in
the show notes which you can find at
jared o'leary.com
or by simply clicking on the link in
your app with all that being said we
will now begin with an introduction by
chris
hi there i'm chris woods i'm a high
school math teacher and also the founder
of daily stem
and dailystem.com and daily stem on all
the social medias and one of my biggest
goals
not just as an educator in my own
classroom but in
every opportunity that i can to try to
help educators make stem more relevant
make it more practical and especially
help to build that stem culture into
their classrooms their whole school
and their community so can you tell me
the story of how you got into stem
education
i would say that as a kid i had a
natural sense of wonder
like most kids do and i love to be able
to make things i love to be able to
create and build and take things apart
and put things back together
playing with legos as a kid is one of
those things that builds a lot of stem
skills into a lot of kids we'd build
tree forts me and my brother
as we grow up i was very influenced by
just spending time with my grandparents
and seeing the different things that
they do each and every day
or thinking of the different jobs that
my parents did thinking about
how is all these things that i really
like like science and math and
technology kind of things
how is it relevant in the real world so
i was a good student ended up as a
teacher ended up as a math teacher
and i wanted to bring those real life
aspects to my students so
that was kind of my reason for wanting
to
get a hold of this stem acronym which i
think a lot of people still
are kind of confused about and try to
make it really practical to my students
especially
to show them the connections of the
things that we're learning in the
classroom
so my whole story of how i got into stem
education
is really just based on becoming a
teacher wanting to help the kids
see that what they were learning in the
classroom is real you know the whole
when are we ever gonna use this stuff
anyway
question one of the things that i
frequently talk about is the importance
of contextualized learning
in the classroom and far too often we
engage in subject areas where it's just
it doesn't have any real world
application and the one thing that i
particularly appreciated with
your website your youtube channel and
just like your other resources it's
here's this very practical thing that's
related to stem that you might not have
been
even aware of one of the videos you're
talking about magnetism with breaks and
cars and whatnot like
that's something that we used to use all
the time when we were actually going out
and just thinking through those everyday
things that we see every day whether
we're an educator or a parent
how can we point those things out to our
kids if we're an educator
pull out that phone out of your pocket
and snap a picture of stuff and then
take that back to the classroom and say
look at this that i saw what do you
notice what do you think what do you
wonder how does it work does it open up
any other questions what do you want to
learn about could you imagine doing this
so many things that build off of
questions that kids ask
what's been interesting not being like
an education historian but it seems like
stem has kind of been
a very important acronym or at least a
set of subjects
ever since sputnik in particular where
it's like oh wow
other people are doing things that we
haven't done yet and so we as a country
need to focus more on these particular
areas
however in like recent decade or so it's
like stem has been at the forefront of
we need more funding we need more
training for teachers and for students
etc
but i'm curious if somebody asks you
like what are some problems that can be
solved with stem
what would you say to them yeah that's a
great question jared because i think a
lot of educators
feel that way like what can i do how can
i start and
frankly it's great when educators start
with just those simple projects that
they see
like we're going to take toothpicks or
straws or
spaghetti and marshmallows and gumdrops
or whatever we can to build tall towers
those are great those are the simple
entry points that every teacher needs to
start to feel confident with stem
because if you just stop
a 3d printer in front of an educator and
say there you go
now that stem in your classroom they're
going to be intimidated they're not
going to have confidence
they're going to feel like they don't
have any training so i think we really
need to build that
up for every educator to say okay what's
something i could do this week
to incorporate some simple practical
stem thing into my classroom maybe it's
we're gonna take the kids around the
school and pick up all the trash and
then we're gonna think about
all the different types of trash we saw
and say what kind of recommendations
could we make to the city council what
could
recommendations could we make to the
food service at our school to maybe
limit some of those things that's a
simple thing it doesn't require any
funds even much pre-planning it's just
let's you know maybe throw some rubber
gloves on
grab some trash bags and let's go do
that i think there's a lot of
little problems inside every school or
even the kids could bring from their
home or their neighborhood
things that they could say let's try to
tackle this problem then you've
especially increased that relevance
aspect as well that really resonates
with me
i recently recorded like a little mini
series on paulo ferreira's book pedagogy
of the oppressed and so
one of the things that he talks about in
that book in particular is like a
problem-posing approach to education and
the importance of that
and making it so that you're solving
problems that actually matter
and so your example of like picking up
trash around the school
that is an example that i can think of
with that so that definitely resonates
with me
do you have any other advice for like
educators who are like interested
in getting started but they might have
some reluctant kids who are just like
i'm not really interested in this thing
how's this relevant to me or the things
that i care about yeah exactly jared
because i think a lot of educators
know that some of their kids are going
to say i'm just like us as adults often
say well i'm not really a math person or
a science person
right you know i couldn't be a writer
you know but i think if we remind kids
that
the writing process where you write a
rough draft you change it you modify it
you make it better
well that's exactly what we do in
iteration when we're creating something
and inventing something and solving a
problem and it's also the same thing
that we do
when we're doing the scientific method
we're making a hypothesis we're drawing
conclusions
going back and refining our hypothesis
so number one if kids are like i don't
like math or i don't like science
connect and show them how it connects to
the things they're already doing if a
kid has a love for history though
find a way to connect the stem aspects
to history look for interesting ways
that historians are
finding archaeological sites or
renovating old things to preserve and
protect
find your kids passions and leverage
those
to unlock the stem potential in a kid
that's going to be the number one thing
and us as educators we need to know
what are our kids interested in what
drives them what gets them excited every
day i like that
one of the themes that kind of became
apparent in a lot of the stuff that
you put out on your resources like on
your website and whatnot is
the importance of bringing home this
learning
and connecting as a family to talk about
it and i'm curious if you have
some suggestions for educators who are
interested in
trying to make that connection between
at school learning and at home learning
with the family
yeah you mentioned resources that i have
on my website
and i'm not trying to sell anything here
i mean but definitely because i've got
all my
resources on my site for free lists of
ideas you know multiple lists of simple
things that any family can do together
whether that's
and oftentimes it's just that reminder
that parents need because
parents might not feel like they're
rocket scientists and you don't have to
be a rocket scientist
to do stem so you can just give parents
a list maybe you print out the list as
an educator and then you share a couple
each week and say hey parents here's
five
pick one of these to do with your kids
this week you know go outside and look
at the stars or
how many bugs are in you can you find in
your backyard or
go for a walk and how many different
animals or types of trees or things do
you see
go to a nature preserve whatever you've
got in your neighborhood
and again that allows every kid to be
able to experience stem
not just the kids that have you know
resources at home like a 3d printer or
fancy technology at home
every kid can do stem with a little bit
of creativity and again
those resources are on my website
dailystem.com you can just click on
download them as pdfs they can share
them they're in multiple languages
even thanks to great people that have
translated those that can often just
get it started there's obviously more
things you can do like
parent nights and things like that but
that's just a great first step to just
start getting parents excited
yeah i like that if listeners haven't
heard the episode yet i did an interview
with
peter rich and stacy mason where we
talked about the research findings on
computational thinking in the elementary
space
and one of the important findings that
they found that they hadn't really
thought of was just how important that
connection was with at-home learning and
like whether or not
parents were encouraging and engaging
that at home had a statistically
significant
impact on their level of retention and
understanding of computational thinking
in the schools
yeah and jared if i can mention right
there as well if you think about
we've often told parents read with your
kids read with your kids read with your
kids
you know we have to be able to stay
let's do stem with our kids to stem with
their kids and again it could be putting
a puzzle together playing a game
and actually making the kid do all the
adding and counting for the money and
monopoly or
anything like that or make your own game
using all the broken pieces and parts of
games that you've lost
yeah just to normalize these processes
to make it so
no this is just a normal thing that we
do this is a part of our everyday
which is why i love like your idea of
daily stem yeah
i'm curious if we were to flip this
though if somebody would ask
like you to argue against stem and when
they should not learn stem what kind of
arguments might you give
yeah in fact i mean as much as i love
the stem acronym because it draws
attention to all those
aspects of education those subjects
again we just put like up another
silo more constructs of subjects
when really stem is really just about
connecting
the learning in the world outside to the
learning that's happening in the
classroom
we need to find better ways of just
making whatever content
whatever curriculum we're responsible
for in our classroom and in our
situation
make it more relevant to the kids to
their lives to their world
whether that's science and technology
and math or whether it's
english reading history spanish social
studies
whatever it is i mean i love to read i
love reading
like historical fiction and just random
things like that and biographies i love
reading
stories but you know what i'm also a
math person too so you can have those
reading those math people you know we
talk sometimes oh i'm right painting i'm
left brain
but we just need to help kids just use
their brain yeah i like that
and a lot of what i have seen forgive me
if this is a false impression but
it seems like a lot of your resources
are really great for informal learning
and
learning outside of school in particular
yeah like there's a lot that are
designed for like
at home and family learning however in
the classroom space there's
like you mentioned those silos that are
put up so stem even though it's an
acronym where all the letters are
together like
it's often treated as well science is
separate from technology which is
separate from engineering which is
separate from math
so what do you recommend for teachers
who are trying to
make those connections across and within
those different
silos yeah great question jared so
number one i'm a math teacher i'm a high
school math teacher
i'm not like a quote unquote stem
teacher the kids for
stem class or anything but what i do of
course i'm showing my kids
how my algebra that i'm teaching or
geometry that i'm teaching connects to
their world
but i'm also showing them how those
things connect to
digital marketing how they connect to
art how they connect to business
i'll collaborate a lot of times like if
i come across a resource especially
that i happen to notice because it's
mathy or sciency i share that with the
art teacher
if it's got a great artistic connection
and likewise when she
notices something she shares it back
with me something that
she knows that i might find enjoyable
and i think a lot of
educators if we just said you know i
don't have to feel like i'm an expert or
a know-it-all
all i'm doing is i'm just sharing a
resource i came across
with one of my colleagues i'd want
somebody to do that to me so i'm just
going to do it with them and it's such a
simple powerful thing because we all see
different things in our social media
feeds or the websites that we go to
instead of just having like one set of
eyes looking for stuff that's great for
your classroom
what if your whole school your whole
staff was looking for things that were
great for your classroom i like that i
particularly
would use reverse engineering practices
to find new ideas for projects like to
create with kids so
either while i was playing a video game
or if i'd like watch something on
youtube it'd be like i wonder how i
could make that in scratch
or in swift or whatever just to find
those connections and like
fun ways in engaging in computer science
in particular that's also
where on social media when somebody
posts a question i love that when
educators say
like just this afternoon somebody asked
me hey i'm going to be doing a unit on
the amazon
you know so i'm instantly in my mind i'm
thinking okay this is probably like
elementary teacher thinking about
geography thinking about social studies
and they're like how can i connect some
stem things to it well when teachers
post those kinds of questions
in their network their professional
learning network they're instantly going
to get
resources and ideas from a lot of people
again it's that crowdsourcing
does a whole lot more than just when
it's that one person what about have you
had experience with any colleagues who
are resistant to it and i say this as
somebody with a background in music
education and like i think of
some of my music ed colleagues who are
like technology doesn't have a place
with quote real instruments and whatnot
it's like oh i'd beg to differ
yeah you'd beg to differ so would i
jared google chrome music lab
is an incredible resource that educators
could use the band ok
go makes amazing music videos but they
use
science and technology engineering and
math to craft those videos to make them
all
work like they recorded a video in four
and a half seconds for one of their
songs and when they slowed down the
frame rate
it all lined up to the beat every single
step and the great thing is is they've
shared a bunch of that content
on a website so educators can find it
and use that and again
leverage those interests those passions
that kids have to
find new ways to say oh yeah the stem
this math the science whatever i'm
learning
it really does connect to things that
i'm interested in and you know we can
just be patient we'll
convert the whole world to understand
that stem is part of the world yeah i
like that
one advice that i have given to some
teachers about
that particular topic is find somebody
who can be an advocate who also speaks
their language
so with me with my background in music
education i just say just send them to
me i'll talk to them like
i'll send them flight of the bumblebee
where it's played on like this grid
of buttons as opposed to on a piano like
they'll look at that and go oh wait
you're creating quote real music but you
just happen to using a different
tool for it so many neat things out
there and again the internet is filled
with so many
super resources because again you've
crowdsourced ideas
and everybody is so creative everybody
wants to be noticed
on youtube yeah they're going to come up
with the most creative thing they can
and all we have to do as educators is
just sit back and find them
so stem as an acronym like is a bit
constraining so we've had some people
who have tried to like add in
a for like arts so now it's steam we've
also had like stem plus c for computer
science
so on that note where do you see
computer science potentially fitting in
or complementing stem computer science
is such an incredible
aspect and i think a lot of educators of
course have jumped on the coding
bandwagon i mean that's the
that's the quick simple you know you ask
any elementary teacher and they'll say
oh yeah i've heard of coding
we do hour of code or a code week and
and those are great because those are
like those
entry points to get all teachers
realizing that computer science is so
important i think as kids grow up though
they realize
that coding is really more than just
let's make a fun game when we're in
elementary school
and i think if any educator that feels
like they are
good at computer science and have that
basic knowledge of that
if they take some of those opportunities
and say oh yeah here's how
computer science is used to you know
create this kind of program this kind of
app that that solves a problem in our
world
right because everybody face it right
now is using
computer science whether they think
about it or not as you would know you
would understand it's
built in it's embedded to everything
that we do nowadays because we've got a
phone in our pocket that does
all sorts of different things that we
never imagined we could do
while walking around or standing at a
bus stop you know i mean
and it's all because of computer science
so show those kids those
examples show them the new technology
show them a news story i love showing
news stories to my kids because
that's like the front cutting edge and
we never could do that in the past
because we'd have to wait till a new
textbook came out you know five years
from now
until it had updated information we've
got an updated textbook right there on
the internet and it's news stories each
and every day
yeah and we walk around with devices in
our pockets with more computational
power than
everything it took to send somebody to
the moon so it's just amazing to think
about that and then go
and here i am using it to text and
listen to podcasts
yeah which are both good and for those
kids that are you know just recording
their videos of themselves or tic tocs
you know whatever it'll be by the time
this podcast comes out
if we can help those kids also realize
that that tool in their pocket
is such a game breaker i mean it can do
so much not just to create their
quote-unquote brand
of themselves to be an influencer but to
create not just consume
you know that's a big topic as well in
education a lot of the
subject areas that are within the
acronym aren't typically known for being
creation-based
places like you mentioned
contextualizing mathematics i wish i had
you as my math teacher
because all my math teachers it was
decontextualized and i was just
constantly like what's the point of this
i'm not actually making anything i'm
just solving different
equations or problems but i'm wondering
how
do you challenge educators to think of
stem as a creative
field and include other disciplines that
are typically more creative like the
arts humanities et cetera
honestly it happens when you demonstrate
it yourself i mean i guess that's maybe
the
simplest thing and i can't maybe
convince every teacher to be a different
type of teacher or better type of
teacher but
like you said when i share something on
my social media so like let's say i post
a picture on my twitter
and a few teachers look at it and they
say oh that's a great idea i never would
have thought of
cutting parallelograms out of old
magazines and pasting them together
on a piece of paper and it gives that
illusion because when you put three
parallelograms together it looks like a
three-dimensional cube
and so you create this artistic picture
that's very cool any kid can take home
and hang it up on their wall in their
room and be like you know that's some
cool art that i made
it's also math you can bring up all
those aspects of well it worked because
of the angles of the sides of that
polygon of that shape
and there's reasons that different types
of polygons do that and other types of
polygons that don't
then the kids start noticing they're
like hey mr woods i saw this picture
or i saw this graphic in my game or i
saw this
background on a folder and so i bought
this one because it reminded me of what
we talked about in our class
and that's the best part when the kids
start to realize that that stem that
you've been talking about and
contextualizing it as you said jared
when they start to see it in their world
and bring it back to you and show you
how they're starting to notice it
so what kind of spaces do you think
afford this kind of
approach to connecting all these
different disciplinary boundaries
we're always i think until education
radically changes and we see education
right now already changing
with distance learning and those types
of things so change is possible in
education we've just proved it
you know in 2020 but at some point
education i think
will change to have less of those
walls those rigid lines between subject
areas
in fact i would love nothing more than
there to never be
a stem teacher because the moment that
we just have you know stem class we
walk down the hallway we go to stem
class then we walk back to our classroom
and then we do something else i mean
it's great i love that kids get to do
that and experience that
especially because maybe that's the best
way to share those resources and the
expert maybe in your building
but that's not the focus of being a stem
school or having stem materials and
learning for your kids
we want that stem to be part of every
classroom we want us to be part of every
aspect and again
same thing with literacy one thing that
i make each week for educators is like a
weekly newspaper of just some stem
stories
from news articles and a puzzle and a
challenge and different things like that
because i want kids to not just think
that stem is something that we do
it's also something that you read about
it has a literacy aspect to it as well
and i think the more that we can combine
all these subjects
yeah i'd love nothing more than in the
future there to be a school to be
education that doesn't have so many
boundaries in it so if somebody were to
wave a magic wand and be like okay chris
you get everything you want i designed
the ideal school would it just be like
one giant maker space or like
how would you construct this
hypothetical school
you know honestly i think it all comes
down to no matter what kind of building
you have no matter what kind of
resources you have
even what kind of subjects or electives
you decide to teach
i think it comes down to two things it
comes down to passionate educators
who love what they're doing and want to
keep getting better and want to make
education relevant for every kid
and then number two it's got to come
down to those kids rediscovering the
wonder
the curiosity that they had when they
were young and often that wonder
is pushed out in favor of worksheets and
instead we need to recapture that wonder
that excitement for learning that
they're not just at a school to get
grades
grades have some sort of effect because
they are the best way that we've come up
with so far of saying
yes you've mastered this no you haven't
mastered this
you know at some point that'll probably
change too
but if kids can regain that passion just
for learning i want to learn because
this is something i'm interested about i
know the hard part is we don't have time
machines for these kids to get in and go
see the future self of them where
they'll know exactly what career or job
they're doing
but they still have interests right now
and if we can help them just look at
those interests and
see how they connect with career focus
then they're going to say okay i want to
learn this because it can help me to do
some amazing things someday
one of the things that i've kind of
experienced in my tenure in education is
like
it eventually got more about the things
i was interested in so when i started in
like pre-k kindergarten it was all here
are the things that you need to know
i didn't really have a choice in it it
wasn't until my master's when it was
like
okay now you're within this content area
like music psychology what do you want
to focus on within that
and then it wasn't until the doctorate
when they're finally like okay what do
you actually want to research and
understand
and i don't understand like why it took
like 20 some odd years until it finally
was okay what do you want to learn
and we wonder why a lot of people just
don't like education
and don't like going to school well
perhaps it's because we wait until
like 20 someone years into this thing
when we beaten all that wonder and
curiosity out of kids
and then we finally go okay what do you
want to learn again i think a simple way
that every educator can do that
is have a have a board have a poster
board on the wall
something somewhere where kids could
write this is something we want to learn
about
this is something i'm interested in have
every kid you know wherever they have
their like notebook or whatever a page
in it that they can write this is
something i'm interested in because we
forget we're all forgetful we move on to
the next thing we're
you know oh the new level of the game
that i like just released and i want to
play that and i
instantly forgot about something that i
wanted to learn more about so
we watched a video and i was like wow
that's cool i'd love to learn more oh
here's the next video i'm going to click
on that and you've forgotten
so we got to have those lists we gotta
you know because kids are gonna
interrupt they're gonna say what if we
did this or would this work you know mr
woods
let's write it on the board we'll get
back to it because man if we can
pull out their interests and use those
then that's great so in our conversation
and a lot of the resources like the way
that you talk is not just
limited to the acronym of stem the
subject areas that you bring into it it
is like well beyond those
four subject areas so i'm wondering if
you could potentially like
talk about some of the affordances and
constraints of having it labeled as
stem and maybe even proposed should we
call it something else or
just keep calling it stem well i love
adding the a in there
for the arts i love that even if you
could add
every other letter of the alphabet with
it it's great because you know what
naturally
i see the arts in math in science i mean
i look at a cocoon i look at a leaf i
look at a raindrop
and you know what yeah there's science
and math and even engineering and
technology to that but guess what they
are artistic they are beautiful
they make a really cool sound when that
raindrop hits the ground and goes blink
or plop
or but every one of those things i mean
yeah we could add all those letters to
it
i just like the stem acronym because i
think it draws that focus of these are
all these
subjects that really do kind of connect
together
and almost what it's doing is it's
starting to say maybe there isn't so
much of a dividing line between math and
science
and technology and engineering of course
too i can teach math and i can also
teach science
with my certifications and stuff but
i'll always be asking the kids what are
you doing in science
or this thing that we're doing right now
in algebra is going to help you in
chapter four in science because i've
built that connection with a science
teacher at my school
i know what they're going to be doing so
it's already i guess
it's saying all these things are kind of
similar let's group them together
it's going to connect but yeah it does
history connect
sure it does does social studies connect
yes does the arts does music does pe
yes it all connects i think it just
draws a great focus
on all those very nerdy geeky subjects
which are great words by the way nerdy
and geeky
just like a bookworm is a good
descriptor too i want kids to be proud
of those terms actually i'm proud of to
be all three of those
if we had to get rid of the stem acronym
that's fine because i'll just start
talking about let's make education
relevant
because i think that's really what it
really comes down to yeah part of that
question is like a selfish
question because so when i was writing
my dissertation i was looking at this
discussion forum i had like over 10 000
people on it talking about
making music with old video game
hardware and so when they were
talking about it they talk about like
music composition and performance the
typical things you'd think about
but they also talked about okay how do i
modify my old game boy to make it so
that it has new audio ports
like how do i write a program to make it
so i can actually compose music with my
game boy
so they're doing all this computer
science stuff and like all this hardware
engineering
etc like modifying building
manufacturing et cetera
and i was having difficulty trying to
describe it because there's like
this isn't just music this isn't just
computer science and engineering like
it all blurs together so i basically
settled on well maker space culture kind
of
has some words that talk about it but
like there wasn't like this definitive
thing i could point to and say this is x
yeah so
like with stem like the way you're
describing it it just made me think of
the dissertation like
well yeah it's stem but it's also all
these other things so what do we call
that
you through that phrase maker space and
making and maker education
i think that's like the building step of
the theoretical step that that stem
often you know it's kind of like that's
the action step behind
the maybe the the content step yeah
they're so linked together you throw
project-based learning in there you can
throw design thinking in there
i mean it doesn't matter what we call it
in the end as long as this is good
relevant
education good relevant learning for the
kids one of the resources
that you haven't talked much about but i
know just came out is your new book so
it's titled daily stem how to create a
stem culture in your classrooms and
communities
so i'm wondering if somebody asked you
well what is the elevator pitch for this
book
what would you say you know what number
one teachers always ask me the question
you know how do i do stem in my school
you know how do we start stem
or we're doing stem how do we keep doing
how can we make it better
and i always wanted to reply and it was
hard to reply in 280 characters
all the time or i found myself answering
the same question over and over again
and it's like
there's got to be a quicker way to do
this so it was like i want to help as
many teachers as i can
because you know some people talk about
well you could become a principal or you
know things like that and you can
influence
more people it's like no i gotta be in
that classroom with the kids because
i love being able to just help those
kids in that context
but i felt that if i took the
opportunity to
write a book write all my thoughts about
stem and how to make it practical
just to help so many other educators out
there think the strange way about stem
that i do
then that was going to help multiply the
efforts help educators out there realize
that it's not just robots and rocket
science it's not just 3d printers
it's something that every teacher can do
every day
in every classroom with every kid and
not just in your in your own school
culture but
drawing that out into the the community
as well so any
large projects like this that i've
worked on i've always learned like
something
just i never anticipated i'm curious
when you were
going through and writing this book
what's something that you learned while
working on it writing a book is hard
[Laughter]
writing a book is not something you do
because you like want to get rich or you
want to get famous
you really write it because you have a
story to tell and people have always
been storytellers and in fact that was
the part i actually like
best about the finished product of the
book people have told me as they've read
it they're like this reads like a story
it doesn't read like a college textbook
that you would think of
but it's really meant to just remind
people that we
see stem every day it's part of the
world it's when we go to the grocery
store it's when we're cooking dinner
together with our family when we're
fixing something around the home
when we do whatever type of job we have
the stem
is always there and i just wanted to
help readers
help educators especially understand
that stem is just
part of our everyday lives how can we
help kids
to understand that as well so it's hard
to write a book
but in the end when you have a story to
tell as an educator it's worth it
because
undoubtedly your story will impact other
educators who
feel the same way you do or just don't
know you know what is it that i'm
missing
in my class we all have so much to share
yeah that's why i love to do my podcast
as well and
i'm sure same for you jared because we
love giving a platform to educators to
share
what's on their heart so what about
educators who are interested in sharing
what's on their heart and sharing their
story but
they're like okay a book sounds like it
would be interesting but how do i
honestly even get started with that like
do you have recommendations or i wish i
hadn't done this when i started
well number one don't start when you're
not ready you know if you open up a
google doc and just start
throwing in their thoughts whenever you
come across like an idea
something that you share and if you feel
like it really resonates either with
your classroom or
like you share some on social media and
all of a sudden like 200 people retweet
it and you're like
what the heck how did that happen you
know right you start just grabbing those
pieces and say
that's something that you feel in your
heart
if you have the opportunity to present
you know at small conferences
i love any chance that i get you know
big conference small conference in fact
i love
just any opportunity to be able to share
with educators
and also listen to other educators so
share whatever it is that's on your
heart what your passion
is for making education better write a
blog
hop on a podcast you know send an email
to somebody and say hey i love your
podcast
you know would you let me come on it you
know i mean most podcasters are always
willing to do that so
yeah but just start to say what is it
that i'm passionate about what do i feel
like
really makes a difference in the lives
of my kids and then just start
finding ways to share it it doesn't have
to be in a book if it ends up being in a
book something that's great
but it doesn't have to be i like that so
you
have mentioned earlier that like the
learning process is iterative you're
just constantly
refining things and whatnot i'm
wondering how do you personally
iterate on your abilities whether it's
as an educator
as somebody who understands stem or as
like
somebody who owes their own podcast or
has written a book like how do you
essentially practice and improve
in any of those areas that interest you
jared what you're asking about is like
do we still have that growth mindset as
an educator and or that continuous that
lifelong learning
just yesterday the person who came to
the house that we bought happened to
have a sprinkler system and i never
would have paid for a sprinkler system
to be put in but the house already had
it so it's like okay i gotta have
somebody come and winterize it blow all
that water out of that which
i can understand the science of that
because you know as something freezes it
expands and you don't want it to
you want to expand and break all those
pipes underground so
as the person is there i could have just
said all right thanks let me know when
it's done
you know and i'll give you the check but
no i was right there
asking him questions about how he's
doing it why does it work you know
what's this process you know why are you
doing it like that how big of a air
compressor do you need and
and actually i found out that when it's
not irrigation season you know in the
summer
he works with statistics he has a degree
from a university and does
statistics work actually at the
university that he graduated from so
you know you never know who you're going
to learn something from
again it comes down to being a good
question asker and i think educators are
good at that
be willing to ask and listen not just
tell everything
you know that you want to say but ask
other people find out about them people
love talking about themselves
that's why you got me on the podcast i'm
just talking about myself jared
well i am directing a lot of questions
at you so yeah that's good
i heard similar advice from an advisor
of mine saying
the quality of questions that you asked
is going to have a huge impact on
yourself your career like
everything that you want in life so i
used to write down like every question
that i had after
reading an article or a chapter or
something or when i engaged in a
conversation i'd write down questions
that led to really good
conversations and whatnot and i'd
analyze them what worked about this what
didn't work about it and try and get
better at it so
i second that and like really like that
again it relates back to what i
mentioned earlier
a simple thing that educators can do is
having kids when they come up with a
question something that they're
interested about you know again have
them write it down
it's that same thing i'm curious how are
you taking care of yourself in order to
prevent
like the burnout and just like the
overwhelm
that is 2020 or just teaching in general
because you've been doing this for a
while
and a lot of educators usually end up
leaving the field after just a few years
so what have you done
in the long term and now in 2020 to
prevent that burnout
yeah a great question jared number one
you gotta make sure you spend time
with your family your friends your loved
ones just make sure that you're just
spending that good quality time with
them play games
call grandma call grandpa call whoever
you know use that use that phone for
something besides you know chatting and
texting and tick-tocking but honestly
the biggest thing that keeps me going as
an educator
is being part of a team being part of a
team of educators
now right now my school is 100 virtual
and so
trying to connect with my fellow
educators it's a little bit more of a
challenge but
we have a group text we have microsoft
teams
we have all these different ways that we
can just stop and ask each other
questions when we're struggling
and ask those other teachers around you
are you struggling you know hey can i
help you with anything how's it going
you know you're a first year teacher
how's it going
that's such a powerful question that any
educator that's been teaching a while
can ask that's probably the most
important question
and then also like just today i posted i
posted in our microsoft teams i was like
hey it's friday you know it's so great
working with all of you
you know just keep up the good work and
enjoy your weekend did i have to do that
no
did anybody tell me to do that no i just
did it because hey i'd want someone to
do that for me
and number two knowing that i did that
also i think
reminds me that i'm doing a good job too
and we can all encourage each other so
that's the biggest thing if we can just
keep on encouraging each other
and again especially look out for those
new teachers those young teachers
and things like that that resonates with
some practices that i've been doing like
ever since i got into the classroom
i realized that when a kid would just
like say thank you hey you had an impact
i really appreciate it like
i realized i never voiced that enough to
some of the teachers who had such a
profound
impact on my life and have like since
that reflection like
and like okay whenever i do like a
gratitude meditation i'm actually going
to go and reach out to that person that
are thinking about hey i'm really
grateful that i got to know you
et cetera it's a powerful practice or
actually one of the things that i
learned while writing a book when you
write that acknowledges page
that's something that every teacher
should do all the time like
think about who are those people that if
you were writing a book today who would
go on your acknowledgements page
and don't wait until you write a book to
say thank you to those people so one of
the
things that has been brought up in a lot
of the interviews and like some of the
articles that i've unpacked in the
podcast is
there's an equity and inclusion issue in
cs and stem and whatnot
i'm wondering if you have any advice on
how to
improve those areas you know we talk
and the research is out there on you
know helping helping every kid to be
able to
to engage in the stem opportunities and
it's going to take some time i think
for us to see those things especially we
look at job numbers when we look at
career numbers how many people are
in particular fields those things aren't
going to change and we almost as
educators can't worry about those
numbers right now
what we can worry about is the 20 the 30
kids that are in my classroom right now
if i'm making sure that i'm engaging
every single one of those kids and again
you know i love sports but if all i did
was ever share sports examples
connecting to my subject
and making it relevant by saying oh this
was cool i saw this
and only talking to you know engaging
those athletes in my classroom
then i'm missing out on all those other
kids with the other interests so
yeah again i think that focus on kids
interests and passions
has the ability to completely erase any
levels
any boundaries from any kid engaging in
stem learning i think that's the
critical way that we can all
get every kid to be excited about
whatever it is that we're learning
again whether it's the stem field or
whether it's computer science whether
it's
anything if we can just help kids
connect with their learning
their passions their interests that to
me is what's going to do it and again
also the more that we can help parents
and families at home
support education and you know what that
might end up being one of the biggest
things that happens
in education through 2020 and all the
distance and remote learning
parents taking a bigger chunk of bigger
interest in their kids education because
right now they get to see it up close
and you know firsthand and realizing how
important that education is yeah that's
a good point and i like that you focused
on the individual how can you make
things more relevant
for each student rather than focusing on
the broader demographics that's a very
important point because again we've
always said it every kid is unique
every kid is special every kid is so
incredible i think back to what my
interests were
would a teacher have caught all those
interests and inspired me i don't know
you know like you said jared like
certain teachers that just really
resonated with you
really connected with you and oftentimes
it's because they took
an active notice of what our interests
were yeah even if i ultimately
did not go down that particular field of
study like just to be able to connect it
with my areas
that i was interested in it made me had
a better appreciation for like both
disciplines or subject areas what do you
wish there's more research on that could
inform what you do in the classroom or
with kids honestly
if there was better research on that
home that family connection
and that could even be something that we
as educators can do each and every day
you know it's one of the things that i
pointed out in my book
just like survey the parents in your
school and whether that's a formal
survey like sending out a google form
or whether that's just asking all of
them when they come to your parent
teacher conferences you know
what kind of things you do with your
kids at home hey would you like some
more ideas
how good do you feel like you are as a
math or science student you know because
i've for years had parents show up to my
parent teacher conferences and they say
oh i was a terrible math student and
that's why my kid isn't a good math
student no it's not genetic
you know it's not like you passed it on
like you know some sort of you know
widow's peak on your hair you know it's
it's not the same thing so don't
transfer that on to your kid
every parent wants their kid to be a
great reader you know nobody says oh i
wasn't very good at reading so my kid
can't read
you know nobody would say that but if
they say it about math they seem to
think it's okay we need
to help parents realize no talk about in
a positive way say you know i might not
have been good at math
but i want to get better and i keep
getting better and i know you can be
good
at these subjects so and especially then
you know which parents maybe to give
more encouragement to
if you have some idea of which ones
maybe feel confident with stem
subjects or with whatever subject it is
that you're teaching yeah
that definitely resonates with me like
the overall
like approach that you use with daily
stem and connecting things to the real
world and the everyday and whatnot i
could see that
being extremely helpful especially for
parents who have that more of that fixed
mindset of like well i was always bad at
this
and then they have a kid who's coming in
like hey i want to do this thing at home
by connecting with the real world into
simple
everyday things that you engage in i
could see that
really kind of winning people over and
going oh this is something that i can
learn alongside with my kid
yeah we can mix up the recipe for
chocolate chip cookies
we can double the recipe and we've just
done multiplication you know
but you're doing multiplication with
fractions because everybody knows
there's fractions when you're measuring
things out in a recipe
and just reminding parents that that's
what it is and to give a little
nod of encouragement to that and again
parents families will start to realize
hey that's something i can do are there
any questions that i haven't asked that
you want to talk about you know if i had
to say one last thing to just remind
educators just try something new today
try something new this week
and whether it fails or whether it
succeeds
your kids are still going to learn from
it and if you're willing to accept a
little bit of failure and
along with the success then that's also
an important skill that those kids are
going to learn
as well with you so where might people
go to connect with you
and check out all the free resources
that you create your resources are at
dailystem.com
and if they go on twitter instagram or
facebook it's dailystem
and i'm always happy to help i
especially love it when people have
questions
i love being able to help people because
again
i can talk about all sorts of great
ideas but they may not work in every
single context
i think that that's also making stem
just practical and relevant
that's also the power that it has to
help kids in every single context
and with that that concludes this week's
episode of the csk8 podcast i hope you
enjoyed this interview with chris
and i hope you take a moment to check
out all of the free resources that chris
provides on his website
as well as his new book seriously
there's a ton of content on there
stay tuned next week for another
unpacking scholarship episode and stay
tuned two weeks from now for another
interview
i hope you're all staying safe and are
having a wonderful week
Guest Bio
Chris Woods has been inspiring kids as a math teacher for 20+ years. In addition to his work in the classroom, Chris wrote the book Daily STEM: How to Create a STEM Culture in Your Classrooms & Communities, shares free STEM resources on his website dailystem.com and @dailystem on social media, and is the host of “The STEM Everyday Podcast.”
Chris loves finding creative ways to inspire students, especially by adding STEM to the everyday classroom & making STEM accessible to families at home. He believes that STEM is not a class we teach, it's a culture we build.
Chris has been happily married to his wife Sue for 21 years & has 3 great kids.
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
Applications of Affinity Space Characteristics in [Computer Science] Education
In this episode I unpack my (2020) publication titled “Applications of affinity space characteristics in music education,” which has twelve characteristics of informal learning spaces that I will discuss in relation to computer science education.
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.
Lessons Learned from (In)Formal CS Education with Grant Smith
In this interview with Grant Smith, we discuss the importance of continuing to learn from other educators, what informal and formal learning spaces can learn from each other, how COVID has impacted Grant’s teaching philosophy, our preferences for in-person or virtual professional development and classroom instruction, lessons learned from entrepreneurial adventures in CS education, learning by jumping in and trying new things, heuristic-based learning, and so much more.
Lessons Learned Researching Computational Thinking with Stacie Mason and Peter Rich
In this interview with Stacie Mason and Peter Rich, we discuss recommendations for introducing and integrating computational thinking in the classroom, the importance of contextualizing computational thinking within coding practices, peer and family influence on learning to code and to think computationally, lessons learned by researching coding and computational thinking, our perspectives on whether computer science and coding should be a mandatory subject, and much more.
Open Way Learning with Ben Owens
In this interview with Ben Owens, we discuss Ben’s transition from working as an engineer to working in K-12 education, opensource as a metaphor for teaching and learning, various stakeholder reactions to opensource resources and learning, bridging the gap between out-of-school and in-school learning, iterating on teaching and learning, and so much more.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
This episode is the start of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 1, which discusses how oppressors maintain control over the oppressed. Following unpacking scholarship episodes discuss what this looks like in education and how educators can adopt a “pedagogy of the oppressed” to break cycles of oppression.
This episode is episode two of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 2, which discusses the “banking” approach to education that assumes students are repositories of information, and then proposes a liberatory approach to education that focuses on posing problems that students and teachers collaboratively solve. If you haven’t listened to the discussion on the first chapter, click here.
This episode is episode three of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 3, which discusses the importance of dialogue when engaging in liberatory practices. This episode builds off the previous unpacking scholarship episodes on chapter one and chapter two, so make sure you listen to those episodes before jumping in here.
This episode is the final episode of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 4, which synthesizes the concepts introduced in the previous chapters and discusses the difference between anti-dialogical and dialogical practices in education (and at large). This episode builds off the previous unpacking scholarship episodes on chapter one, chapter two, and chapter three so make sure you listen to those episodes before jumping in here.
If my dissertation sounds interesting to you, here’s a link to a free copy
Connect with Chris
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter
Free CS Resources I Have Created
More Content
