On "Methodolatry" and [Computer Science] Teaching as Critical and Reflective Praxis
In this episode I unpack Regelski’s (2002) publication titled “On ‘methodolatry’ and music teaching as critical and reflective praxis,” which problematizes the lack of philosophy, theory, and professional praxis in music education. Although this article is published in a music education journal, I discuss potential implications for computer science educators.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week alternates between an
interview with a guest or multiple
guests
and a solo episode where i unpack some
scholarship
this week's particular episode is going
to unpack a paper by thomas rogelski
and the paper is titled on methodology
and music teaching as critical and
reflective praxis
now in this episode i'm actually going
to modify it in relation to computer
science
education because that's kind of the
point of this podcast but i will say
that this is actually something i
brought up in multiple
interviews already including the
interview that released last week with
gt roble since i've mentioned in passing
multiple times i figured i should
probably do an unpacking scholarship
episode to actually dive into this a
little bit more
as always you can find a link to the
actual article in the show notes which
you can find
in the description of the app that
you're listening to this on or by
visiting jaredoleary.com
where there's nothing for sale no
advertisements nothing like that when
you go to the show notes for this you
can click on the title of this paper
and it'll take you directly to a link to
this where you can obtain it or you can
click on the author's
last name and it'll take you to their
google scholar profile in case you want
to read more by this particular author
now this particular paper does not have
an abstract however if i were to give a
one sentence summary i would say that
this paper
problematizes the lack of philosophy
theory
and professional practice in music
education however in this episode i'm
going to discuss the parallels
or a blind faith in methods discussed in
computer science education
so this paper begins with rygelski
describing how sociologists consider
teaching to be
a semi-profession and suggests that one
part of the problem is that teaching can
lack underlying theory
and accepted practice based knowledge
that originates from that theory
so here's a quote from page 102 quote
the theory serving as the basis of any
profession is not a matter of simple
speculation
it is rooted in research and theoretical
principles fundamentals that
importantly include commonly recognized
and accepted action ideals of the
profession's ethical
and other guiding philosophical
considerations end quote a little
further into that particular paragraph
roguelski says quote
as a result there are no standard
results for any practitioner or for the
overall profession
furthermore there are no standard
methods just standards of care
rooted in the profession's theoretical
and ethical premises
end quote again also from page 102 okay
so why does this matter
so here's a quote from page 102 that
kind of addresses this
quote without professionally based
consensus on ends
no stable criteria exists for selecting
means and evaluating results
and thus no ethic of accountability can
apply as a consequence
results are considerably unpredictable
and not infrequently negative
and the appropriateness and usefulness
of much what is taught and learned
is regularly disputed end quote so
rogelski mentions that that this isn't a
knock on
individual teachers but is a critique of
the overall structural weakness
in the field of music education which i
would argue
is a parallel weakness that i've been
observing over the past several years
working in computer science education
so in particular rygulsky mentions that
success as a field remains
vague because we lack consensus on the
direction as a field
hence the unpacking scholarship episode
by resnick and rusk
where i talk about the coding at a
crossroads article
as well as the couple of episodes on the
cs4all's
visions framework that i'll talk about a
little bit more later on in this episode
okay so this intro is basically saying
like hey as a field we don't really have
any philosophies
theories or practices that kind of guide
us
and we're not necessarily treated as
professionals because of a lack of those
theories and philosophies
and practices okay so the next section
of paper titled philosophy
theory and professional praxis so in
this section roguelski
suggests that we can become more
professionalized by
engaging in quote critical reflection
and progressive consensus on what social
political and economic ends should be
rightfully served by schools and thus by
teachers end quote from page 103
so for example we might use the cs
visions framework to determine
the vision for a particular program now
if you haven't listened to that episode
it was a while ago
episode 20 was an unpacking scholarship
episode
that's a discussion on this particular
framework and that particular
episode is titled cs for what diverse
visions of computer science education in
practice
and then the episode that is immediately
after that episode 21 is an interview
with
two of the three authors for this
particular framework
and that particular episode is titled
the cs visions framework and equity
centered computing education with rafi
santo and sarah vogel
so i highly recommend checking out those
two episodes i will be referring to them
frequently and i will link to them in
the show notes
just to make it easy okay so rygelsky
suggests that teachers
should engage in more philosophical
study
on the philosophies and theories of
education
as they can inform not only how to teach
or facilitate
but the is behind using one approach
over another
in addition roguelski suggests that if
we are not overtly
exploring the philosophical
underpinnings of our own practice
we will implicitly and uncritically
engage in what rogelski refers
as a weak philosophy so in other words
we will unknowingly model philosophies
of education without understanding the
rationales and research that supports or
criticizes
such approaches so to be extremely
explicit with this
computer science educators might be
engaging in constructionist practices
or constructivist theories or approaches
without even knowing what
constructionism or constructivism
is these are just two of the many
different theories or philosophies that
can guide
computer science education now this
becomes problematic when we don't know
why these theories are important or when
they are intended to be
used so to combat this roguelski poses a
strong sense of philosophy here's a
quote from page 104 that kind of
elaborates on this
quote philosophy in the strong sense in
contrast
requires familiarity with the discipline
of philosophy
that body of knowledge in literature
resulting from the critical
logical and reasoned examination of
fundamental philosophical issues over
history
it requires further a properly
philosophical application of this
knowledge in the service of a critical
or analytical attitude
towards current issues particularly in
the kinds of unexamined beliefs
and uncritical opinions that constitute
the weak sense of philosophy
in the absence of such a critical
attitude many of the most cherished
beliefs and convictions of computer
science educators
go unchallenged and not philosophically
clarified despite the fact that so many
issues facing computer science
teachers are much more complex richly
textured and multifaceted than their
common sense or weak philosophy can
accommodate
in quote now in this quote and in the
quotes that i'm going to
read later on in the episode i change
music teachers or music educators to
computer science teachers or computer
science educators so just as an fyi
slight modification otherwise all the
other words are the same so in addition
to engaging in
a strong philosophy roguelski suggests
that educators
should engage in praxis which is the
quote
practical knowledge for helping people
in quote that involves
phronesis which is quote the need to
observe standards of care in quote those
are both from page 104
okay so a quick summary of this
particular section in the paper rygelski
is basically saying that we
as a profession need to engage in
philosophy more
and think more critically about the kind
of philosophies that we are
explicitly or implicitly using in our
classroom
which is something that i've mentioned
in previous interviews whether you want
to
or not you are engaging in some kind of
learning theories or philosophies
and it is much better to be explicit
about them and understand them
so that way you know why and when to use
particular philosophies over others
okay so the next section of this paper
is titled training in music teaching
as a technology or craft so in this
section of the paper rigalsky
argues that colleges of education tend
to focus on training teachers as if they
were engaging with
a technology or a craft so in other
words
learning what to teach and how to teach
but providing less focus on why
or when so for example limited
discussion on curriculum theory
or sociological and philosophical
underpinnings of different approaches
but instead just demonstrating how to
teach a lesson or how to use a platform
or tool in the classroom quote as a
result
most new teachers being taught no
alternatives blindly
accept and adopt the particular method
at stake
end quote from page 105 quote
in consequence various tacit informal
unvalidated theories and assumptions
held to be practical led to a technicism
of teaching
teaching is a kind of assembly line
technology that very often falls short
of being pragmatic
the primary concern of such teacher
trainings is with practicing and
mastering the techniques
that is technique associated with one or
more methods as
technologies which i call technicist
methods thus with virtually no
understanding
quote education concerning the ethical
basis provided by philosophical and
curriculum
most new computer science teachers begin
to practice the bag of tricks
and other various techniques and
strategies imparted by their computer
science education professors
cooperating teachers and early
on-the-job mentors
one aspect of such technicist methods is
that they
are typically presented as teacher proof
and as transferable from one school
situation and teacher to another
these technicist assumptions are
erroneous and are widely seen as
responsible for the disempowering
de-professionalizing and de-skilling of
computer science teachers
end quote from page 105. so in other
words to summarize that long quote
we learn the tools of teaching without
critically reflecting on the purposes
and philosophies behind those tools and
therefore
the research on the why is often viewed
as irrelevant for teachers looking for
the how
or what to teach so a quick summary of
this particular section in the paper is
basically saying
that roguelski argues that we focus too
much on the what and the how and not
enough on the why
of teaching and learning okay so the
next section of the paper is titled
relevance of the research base
so roygelski notes that graduate
programs tend to fall
into two different categories one that
continues the how to
approach and another that prepares
students for doctoral studies
in order to engage in research even
within these programs that focus on
doctoral studies
there is a tendency to focus on the how
for doing research rather than the
critical reflections on the why
of different research approaches to
further complicate things there is also
often
a focus on knowledge for knowledge's
sake without practical application or
use
so vergelski suggests that engaging in
applied research might help
however because educational research
can't definitively
and objectively come to a conclusion on
a topic in all use cases
the underlying mantra that more research
is needed
can make applied research appear as
impractical for teachers
so in other words the point of this
particular section is saying like hey
graduate programs tend to focus on two
different things and within those
categories the people who are engaging
in research
are often doing in a way that is not
practical or useful
and when they are because this research
is being applied in
learning environments where it's not
necessarily applicable outside of those
learning environments teachers might
look at the research and go okay yeah
that's great for the kids that you
worked with but how would that work for
the kids that i work with
which is a very valid argument to think
through and critically analyze and
reflect on so the next section of the
paper
which is titled towards critical
teaching praxis it's basically a very
quick overview of changes in philosophy
over time
and it ends with a discussion on the
importance of critical theory to
challenge the quick fixes that are
focused on by research
that tends to focus entirely on the how
and what without critical reflection
now i'm not going to summarize this
section more it's uh interesting read if
you're interested in getting nerdy about
philosophy so i highly recommend reading
it if you want to learn more
but for this particular episode i'm
going to try and narrow the focus to
focus
specifically on actionable things or cs
educators or things to at least
think through and reflect on so the next
section of the paper is titled
methodology in music education
so one of the traits of critical theory
that rygelski mentions
towards the end of the previous section
is that it is critical of any quote
philosophy or theory that cannot be put
into practice in quote from page 108.
in other words it's not philosophy just
for the sake of
thinking but it's for the sake of
actually doing something with it which
is reminiscent of the discussions that i
had
on paulo freddy's book pedagogy
depressed if you haven't listened to
those four episodes i highly recommend
it
okay a second trait of critical theory
is quote
that true knowledge must take into
account historical
social subjective contextual personal
interpretive collective and situational
factors
and no less so in educational and
computer science matters
than in any other human undertakings
humans are not simply things
they formulate purposes and goals in
terms of perceived needs that are always
uniquely situated
having such intentionality they are thus
agents who can't act rationally toward
fulfilling those needs
humans and their situations namely
teachers students and schools
are not interchangeable they vary
according to different needs
goals and intentions and unique
restraints and local opportunities of
the governing situations
for example the many situated variables
governing computer science teaching
end quote from page 109 now also from
page 109 rogue notes that research that
ignores
these aspects of humanity quote reduces
students and teachers alike to
abstractions that are unreal
any knowledge gained from researching
them as though they are things
amounts at most to theoria that as pure
knowledge or impersonal technique
cannot apply directly to the important
variables of human praxis
and between people unquote so to engage
in a critical theory of education we as
educators need to be critical of
research that
reduces people to abstractions while
also being critical of the practical
knowledge we use in the classroom
that positions teaching as a craft where
quote
the teacher is more like an assembly
line worker in a factory
than a creative and critical
professional end quote from page 109.
one thing that roguelski mentions is
that teachers tend to not
think beyond the scope they are teaching
because there is little consequence for
engaging in uncritical reflection
and practices here's a quote from page
quote teachers are typically in touch
only with their own teaching
circumstances
their own computer science sub-specialty
their local teaching circumstances
their own computer science sub-specialty
in their school and their personal and
teaching paradigms
thus each does his or her own thing with
little understanding or concern for
differences among other teachers
from the perspective of critical
education and curriculum theory
then teachers tend to air as much in the
direction of unwarranted subjectivity
as positivists do in the direction of
false objectivity
end quote in other words we need to find
some kind of a balance between
positivist research that tends to treat
people and learning as abstractions
and the more practitioner side of things
that is often shared where there's
little critical thinking
of the why when where etc
of a particular learning experience or
approach so rogelski notes that from
a curriculum standpoint there is often
an assumption in teaching
that the tools are not the problem it's
the delivery of the tools that's the
problem
so in other words the tools are viewed
as the curriculum themselves
and it is up to the teacher to
effectively deliver the curriculum
as designed and without critical
reflection on the tools themselves
because the curriculum is considered to
be designed by people who are knowing
and are being implemented by people who
are unknowing in other words
we as curriculum designers have a
background in computer science
therefore we know more than you who is
the computer science educator
now that is extremely problematic and
you'll hear in some of the interviews
that i've done and some of the upcoming
interviews why this is problematic in
particular check out the interview
that's coming up with joanna goode
now that being said one of the things
that we need to consider is there are
many different types of curricula to use
in cs and we as professionals need to be
able to critically reflect on which
curricula serve different visions or
purposes
in cs education again thinking back to
the cs visions framework that i
mentioned previously
and is linked in the show notes now when
engaging
with curricula we need to be aware of
whether the intended and assessed
outcomes are quote
relevant only to the classroom rather
than to the world outside of school
end quote page 110. so to elaborate on
that rygelski provides a carpentry
analogy
quote the situation can be compared to
teaching the concept of sawing
hammering chiseling and routing as
isolated
activities or skills leaving students
totally unable and uninterested
in ever building anything for use in the
real world outside the classroom
end quotes from page 110. now in the
professional development that we do
with boot up pd one things we like to
talk about with project based learning
is how you could teach kids how to
measure things how to
cut things how to use a hammer
and nails etc and you can make them all
discrete isolated tasks
or you could engage in project-based
learning and have kids build a treehouse
or a birdhouse or something like that
which takes all those understandings and
skills and applies it into a situation
in which kids create something
so that kind of basically summarizes
what roekelski is saying like look we
can't just do things for the sake of
doing them we need to situate them
within real world application
now in computer science education we can
question whether the curricula we use
actually develops concepts practices and
skills that are useful
outside of the classroom space or if
they're only useful for
meeting particular standards now one of
the interesting things that rogelska
also knows is that we need to
critically reflect on conferences in the
field so for
example reflecting on if sessions are
focusing primarily on the what
and how of teaching something without
critically discussing the theories or
philosophies behind such approaches
so far too often there are sessions that
focus entirely on what you can do
tomorrow in the classroom without
engaging in a discussion on why
you might or might not replicate a
lesson with the kids that you work with
this focus on education often equates
experiences with learning
without critical reflection on where and
when such learning
experiences make the most sense for the
different cs visions or purposes people
might have
with a given program or class here's a
quote from page 111
quote the blind faith in and devotion to
a technicis method is what i have chosen
to refer as methodology
the unreasonable reverence and blind
faith that amounts to idolatry end quote
so in other words when engaging in some
kind of an approach whether it's like
project-based learning or
constructionism or constructivism or
attending a conference session or
whatever
we need to engage in some kind of a
critical reflection on when
why how we might use these different
approaches in different contexts
it's not enough to simply say okay i'm
going to buy in the grip mindset or
growth mindset or
project-based learning without
understanding why those are useful and
helpful and when they might not be
useful or helpful
so moving away from what roguelski
refers to as methodology
where we blindly idolize some kind of a
method or approach
all right so the next section of this
paper is titled empowering critical and
reflective teaching praxis
rogowski suggests that we need to begin
by critically reflecting
on the field and ask what any particular
field is good for
again this relates to the cs visions
framework which guides people through a
process of thinking through the purposes
of cs education
and using that as a lighthouse that
guides decisions on implementing
a program in your state district school
class et cetera
so rogowski suggests that as educators
we need to engage
in an autobiographical approach with
critical reflection
here's a quote from page 112 summarizes
this
quote an autobiographical approach to
ideology critique
involves self-critical evaluation of the
various forces
influences institutions and paradigms
that have conditioned the teacher's own
beliefs and assumptions and that
continue to influence teaching
it amounts to asking how did i acquire
my guiding beliefs and convictions
and why do i hold them so strongly and
what factors and influences in my own
history have narrowed my thinking
particularly important to ask how much
of what and how i teach
have i uncritically accepted on the
basis of how i've been taught
the mantra teachers teach as they were
taught is a truism
and is arguably the single most
important variable for the lack of the
kind of progress
in teaching that has characterized other
professions unquote
so i started teaching percussion and
drumline my senior year of high school
and one of the things that i had to
learn early on is that the approaches
that worked really well for me
weren't going to work for everybody else
and this is something that i've
engaged in many discussions on with
undergrad and even graduate students
in music education programs in
particular in those discussions one of
the questions that i like to ask
is if the approaches that were used in
your music classes worked so well
then why is it that you became a music
educator and your peers did not
why is it that you continue to make
music and your peers do not
what percentage continues to engage in
the subject area
after the end of the class so a question
that i can ask for you the listener
is to think through why is it that you
went into computer science education
what about that teaching approach worked
really well for
you but why didn't that approach work
really well for
other students in the classes that
you're in if you were in computer
science classes
or speaking more broadly why did you go
into education
now tying it into the philosophy and the
actions what philosophies
resonate with you but might not resonate
with other people or might not work in
other situations
but having worked with every grade k
through 12 undergraduate and graduate
students
in a variety of contexts and classes and
subject areas i'll be the first to say
that
some approaches work really well with
some students in classes
and work not so well with others and it
depends on a lot of factors that we need
to consider
so we can't just go into education or
more specifically cs education and go
this worked really well for me when i
was a student therefore i'm going to
replicate it in any other context that i
work in as a
educator now another thing that is
important to reflect on
after engaging in an autobiographical
reflection is to continue to reflect on
whether our actions in the classroom
actually align with our vision
so for example when i first started
working in k8 coding classes
i was in awe of the amount of
problem-solving that kids were engaging
with
through the puzzle-based platform they
were using if i had continued on this
approach
i would have been happy kids would have
been happy administrators were unhappy
so why change it however while
critically reflecting on what was
working well in those classes
and what was missing i realized the
platform we were using did not align
with my focus on creativity and
self-expression
so we ended up switching coding
platforms and expanding to several
different platforms
now by engaging in this reflective
process we were able to better align
with the philosophies that
inform my own approach to education
while maintaining a high degree of
problem solving through creating
and this new approach worked even better
for myself
for the kids and for administrators so
when making a switch
like this rigalse suggests that
educators need to develop
what he refers to as communicative
competence
in order to not only critically think
but engage in
communicative processes that can
critically argue rationales and choices
to other teachers
administrators and community members and
to clarify
by the way quote arguing in this
constructive sense is not a matter of
bickering and debating but a reasoning
offering evidence and otherwise
attempting to reach a mutually
satisfying agreement or resolution end
quote from page 113
now this is important practice to
develop because not
all teachers administrators community
members are going to take a
multi-perspectival approach to teaching
in other words some of them might be
hung up on well this other approach
worked really well for me so why aren't
you doing that in your class
so we as educators need to be able to
communicate the rationales behind why
we're doing what we're doing
and i will say that power dynamics can
come into play here
so when i just had my bachelor's degree
administrators
listened to me significantly less than
when i was
one paper away from a doctorate even if
we're saying the same thing
there's different weight that is
involved in that kind of social capital
that comes with
advanced degrees presenting publishing
etc
so when engaging in these discussions
with other stakeholders
in addition to thinking through the
rationales behind what you're doing and
trying to communicate
also consider the different power
dynamics at play that can work
in favor or against you and by the way
this approach of the autobiographical
approach applies not just to k12
educators but to teacher educators in
higher education as well
it's something i did when i worked with
undergraduate and graduate students and
something that i did when working with
k-12 students
and now it's something that i do
overseeing professional development and
curriculum
at boot up okay so a quick summary of
this particular section is basically
the author is arguing that hey we need
to critically reflect on
our practices by thinking through what
worked for you
in the past and why and how it may or
may not work
in the present and we need to learn how
to critically reflect and we need to
learn how to
be able to share our reflections with
various stakeholders
alright so the next section of the paper
is called action-based music curriculum
so in this section rygelski describes
the importance of creating curricula
that is based on action
and critical reflection in particular
the vision or goals that you set for
a program should include actions that
strive to reach those ideals
or at the very least improve on those
goals along with ongoing and critical
reflection on how to
continue to improve in those areas so to
do this roguelski
recommends that every teacher treat
every lesson or class as an experiment
that tests the effectiveness of a
particular curriculum or
learning experience although the results
of such experience aren't generalizable
they can assist with planning for
learning in the near future
with the kids we work with by developing
an individualized approach
or style that works best for the kids we
work with now the way i did this in the
classroom
is i would videotape my lessons and i'd
go back
and watch them and in each one of them i
would change something in
a different way or focus on something
whether it be changing the
expressiveness
of my body motions or the expressiveness
of my voice
or explaining a concept in one way or
whatever
and then going back and analyzing the
recordings and critically reflecting on
what i can do to continue to improve the
learning experiences in the classrooms
that i was working with
so you don't have to present on your
findings you don't have to publish your
findings you just need to
experiment in your classes to try and
continue to improve things
and if you listen to the interview with
dan schneider he talks about the
importance of doing that like if you
have five classes in a row that are all
doing the same lesson
don't teach it five times the same way
like try five different variations and
see which ones work best and why in
different scenarios
and times of day and if you want more
awesome advice like that check out the
interview with dan i'll link to that in
the show notes
now this section of the paper ends with
a discussion on
how the imposition of standards on
teachers can assist with the
professionalizing teachers and how we
can address some of those concerns by
engaging
in action research so if you want to
learn more about that check out the
last couple of paragraphs of this
section of the article or you can learn
more about
some of the problems that i have with
standards by listening to the pedagogy
of the oppressed unpacking scholarship
episodes
i mentioned previously alright so the
article concludes with a brief summary
and some suggestion next steps
but i'm not going to summarize them here
all right so each one of these unpacking
scholarship episodes i'd like to share
some lingering questions or thoughts
that i've had i would recommend that you
think through
so one of them is what research practice
or theories inform your own
approach in cs education so i've been
sharing many of the theories and
research
in these unpacking scholarship episodes
that have formed my own approach
at least a small sampling them so far
but i'm curious
about what theories practices and
research has informed your own
experiences either explicitly or
implicitly
in particular what theories resonate
with you and what theories do you
disagree with
and why is that what theories inform the
theories that you
resonate with or disagree with this is
something that i continue to do
with each paper or scholarship or
suggestion that i
come across and it's something that i
highly recommend that you
also engage in because it can really
help with continuing to refine your own
practices
in formal and informal learning
environments i hope you enjoyed
listening to this episode and
thinking critically about the different
theories and practices
that you engage in implicitly or
explicitly and i hope you take the time
to reflect on it as it can be really
beneficial for
the kids that we work with as a friendly
reminder you can click on the link in
the app you're listening to this on or
going to jaredley.com
to find the other podcasts that i
mentioned in the show notes
if you'd be so kind please consider
sharing this with somebody who would
benefit from hearing this particular
discussion
or take a moment to provide a review on
whatever platform you're listening to
this on
as it helps more people find this
content i hope you stay tuned next week
for another interview
and two weeks from now for another
unpacking scholarship episode
i hope you're all staying safe and are
having a wonderful week thank you for
listening
Article
Regelski, T. (2002). On “methodolatry” and music teaching as critical and reflective praxis. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 10(2), 102–123.
My One Sentence Summary
This paper problematizes the lack of philosophy, theory, and professional praxis in music education; however, in this episode I discuss the parallels for a blind faith in methods discussed in CS education.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
What research, practice, and theories inform your own approach in CS education?
What theories resonate with you and what theories do you disagree with?
Why is that?
What theories inform the theories you resonate with or disagree with?
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
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