Lessons Learned From CSTA Chapters Across the United States with Jason Bohrer
In this interview with Jason Bohrer, we discuss lessons learned coming into computer science education from another subject area, lessons learned working with CSTA chapters across the country (and during a pandemic), how CSTA has impacted the field and continues to evolve over time, how Jason continued to learn about CS without getting burned out, considering equity and inclusion when recruiting for CS education, CSTA’s new CS Teacher Standards, and much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
this week's podcast is an interview
and the interview is with jason bohr
who's the chapter relations manager
at computer science teachers association
or csta
in this particular interview we discuss
lessons learned coming into computer
science education from another subject
area
jason was a former english educator we
also discussed some lessons learned
working with csta chapters across the
country and during a pandemic
we discussed how csda has impacted the
field and continues to evolve over time
how jason continued to learn about
computer science without getting burned
out
considering equity and inclusion when
recruiting for cs education classes
csda's new cs teacher standards and so
much more
we do mention many different programming
curricula
and organizations as well as many
different resources provided on csta's
website
and i include links to those in the show
notes which you can find at
gerardleary.com
and clicking on the podcast tab or by
simply clicking the link inside of the
app that you're listening to this on
with all that being said we will now
begin with an introduction by jason
hi my name is jason bohr i'm the chapter
relations manager
for computer science teachers
association and before this
post i was a high school computer
science and english teacher
for 12 years in northern california can
you tell me the story of how you got
into computer science education
i started as an english teacher my
degrees in english literature
and so i got hired to teach more english
senior english things like that
and school i worked as a small about 600
students kind of
semi-rural northern california high
school teachers often taught outside of
their subject area
we had a class that all freshmen took
called frosh tech and it was really just
kind of a hodgepodge it was a
semester-long class that kind of
other side of the required health class
that all california students have to
take
well there wasn't really any curriculum
the teacher that i took it over from
said oh you can use what i have or you
can create your own stuff you know
and so what started as kind of an
applications course i thought a lot of
microsoft office some photoshop things
like that you know
just to get kids used to being on the
computer we were still working with
computer labs you know the school wasn't
one-to-one
or a code came along and i thought it
would be kind of cool to do some coding
i had never done any coding so i started
there with students
they really liked it and asked if we
could do more like that and so
it was really kind of cool to be in a
course where i
yeah we can do more like that i just
have to find it you know
you remember code academy i remember
getting on because it was free
make student accounts we went through
some units together found some web
design
stuff that i did with them but they
really liked it you know such a
difference in attitude in the course you
know kids were coming in excited
what are we gonna do today can we do
more of this can we do more of this
and i didn't know at the time but this
was when
exploring computer science that course
kind of getting developed and ready to
launch
it maybe been out for a year so my
principal very forward thinking
got it on our books at the school you
know so we offer it as a course got it
approved by
whoever it needs to be approved by and
asked me if i wanted to teach it
sure why not you know students like this
is kind of fun
so i got on to teach that at the same
time
the new ap csp course was being launched
and so
taking my principles lead i got that on
our books we had these two cs courses
nobody enrolled or anything yet you know
because this is early in the process
one of the classes i taught was
sophomore honors english
it just so happened that this year my
oldest daughter was in that class
and i had coached her athletic teams
mostly basketball for many years
so there was a group of girls that i
said hey we're going to have this new ap
course this brand new course
and i think you guys should take it and
i looked at my daughter i said well you
are taking it so
you should recruit your friends if you
want them in there with you
so i was able to get a bunch of the
students from the
honors english class to take this apcsp
course i think i had 10 out of the 12
varsity girls basketball team members in
there for the first year
the exploring computer science class we
opened up to all grade levels even
though it's
probably better for you know like eighth
ninth grade we open it up for everybody
and there was a lot of excitement we
were able to fill both courses
i went to trainings for both ecs and csp
that summer
and that was it once we got it in the
school and got it on board
it was really easy to kind of keep the
momentum going
yeah i like that you were able to
essentially recruit from other subject
areas to
do computer science classes i've done
that before in some
undergraduate classes that i was doing
and it works out well
do you have advice for a cs educator who
might not have that opportunity like
they just teach computer science all day
long
and they don't teach another subject
area how would they recruit to get
a more diverse class or population i
think honestly one of the best things
you can do especially if you're at like
a middle school or high school that has
outside activities is go to some of
those other events
you know go to a band concert go to a
girls soccer game
you know and let those students kind of
see you there first of all they always
appreciate that but that's you know
where you can get it grouped you know
it's hard to recruit one by one
but if you can recruit two or three at a
time you know
hey why don't you both take this class
check it out you know you'll like it you
know
you know i see you out here it's fun
watching the game
you know we were lucky we had kind of a
quartz preview day
where students kind of got to go around
and see little three four minute
presentations
but i always had the students give the
of course overview wasn't me i would
just take my seniors or juniors or
whoever was in the class at the time and
say
tell them what you like about the class
tell them you know tell them why they
should give it a shot
yeah i really think the way to recruit
is to get out to some of the other
events
yeah that's a good point that's a really
good idea i'm curious like
i've had a lot of great experiences
education but also some
really bad experiences in education
where i learned like what not to do as
an educator
so i'm wondering for you can you tell me
a story about an experience in education
that continues to impact you today
positively or negatively
yeah i think about the time where again
it's tied to teaching computer science
where it was so different from how i
taught my english class
i was very strict and structured in my
english classes you know we're going to
read this amount and we're going to
discuss
these things and we're going to do some
writing or take a quiz or whatever that
look like
and the computer science classes both
you know the exploring computer science
training i went to
and i used beauty and joy of computing
for my ap csb
class the curriculum out of berkeley and
so they're not tied to one another at
all but
a lot of you know give students time let
them explore
you know building time for failure
building in that time and not being so
strict with we have to get through
chapter four today
we have to get through chapter eight by
the end of the week you know of course
you don't want to spend weeks on
something that you plan for two days but
i think we often as teachers i know i
did was overly concerned with sticking
to my schedule
i should have been with giving students
time to explore
and did that also carry over into the ap
course as well
and i asked that because that has like
certain constraints in terms of like the
things that you need to
be able to teach or learn or experience
in order to
do well on the test like that's kind of
essentially the end goal
in one of those kind of classes it's
harder to do that in those ap courses
to give the kind of time like that the
exploration time but i think
if you do more of that up front you'll
find you can move faster
later on if students get in the habit of
exploration start to ask them to explore
outside of class you know you can start
to say hey you know we're going to spend
this amount of time in class but you
know
if you're going to need more time you
know come see me during the study hall
or so we could set up some lunchtime
sessions things like that you know
and they were pretty good about getting
together on their own really
and working through some of these things
but yeah it's definitely
different in an ap course for you
outcomes are more rigid i guess
right you're trying to teach the
exploration and
the experience but you know the end
result like you said is the test and
getting
that's the test how did your approach to
teaching change over time
and i'm curious because like also being
somebody who came
from a subject area that wasn't computer
science and then shifted into it
my approach shifted pretty dramatically
just from that experience alone but also
like year to year just constantly
iterating on things and just like my
first year of teaching
in general was very different than the
last year my first year of teaching
computer science was different than my
last year so
how has your approach changed over time
great question
and when i was looking through this
earlier really got me thinking about
how things changed and i think the
biggest change was
like you said coming from outside of
computer science i didn't take a single
computer science class in high school or
college
and so i had to learn all of that kind
of from the ground up
whereas you know being an english
teacher i was rereading books every year
i was reading secondary sources in my
english classes i felt like
i have to be able to answer every
question a student asked me
you know i have to have the answer i'm
the one with the knowledge
and what the computer science classes
taught me was that i'm often not going
to be
the one with the answer in this class
there are students that are light years
ahead of us
in what they can do and what they've
been doing you know students that come
in with
you know vast programming experiences
that they've done on their own even with
things like minecraft and things like
that you know
they're playing and coding long before
they take these classes some of them
and so what i learned was you know i can
learn along with them you know i could
take that
lead learner kind of role that's not to
say you know
you shouldn't have any knowledge of the
subject going blind but
the first year i did almost every
assignment along with the students
i would put my screen up on the board
which you know
makes being vulnerable they would giggle
with glee
when i royally screwed things up
right their favorite moment hey mr boy
you should run that right now
run that see what happens you know it
laughed
what i think it did was it showed them
like you know there were students in the
classroom like me
you know who were getting lost and if
i'm lost and they're lost then
it gives them hope and it gives them
kind of a safe space to be like okay
he's lost too so i don't feel bad
and on the other end it gave those kids
who could look at the screen and tell
already what i was doing wrong before i
ran it it gave him a real
sense of like empowerment to be like oh
wait i really do get this
you know like get this even more than he
gets it
and so you know they were able to really
kind of become classroom leaders
we had a joke my first year it was fan
and hunter and it was always
ask ben and hunter
ask ben ask connor you know things like
that so i thought
that was something completely different
from my english classes that really
transformed the way i thought about
teaching that you know i don't have to
have all the answers and
students don't have to get all the
answers from me i thought ap literature
as well
and that was a very like sage on the
stage kind of class you know i would
talk about what they should see and i
would ask them what they did see
and when starting with the computer
science class it ended all of that i
hardly ever stood up in front of my ap
late class i put them in groups
i would give them the things to look for
they would spend time together in their
group looking for it then they would
share
you know with other groups or we'd do a
class discussion where the groups stared
out you know
it really it changed everything i did in
all my class yeah that really resonates
with me so my experiences and background
in education and specifically music
education like music educators
to get into like the kind of music
education program i was in you had to be
a phenomenal performer like sometimes it
only led in one person
out of all the people who would audition
just for that particular section to get
into the group
so just to become an educator of music
you had to be a phenomenal performer and
so when you were teaching students
whether it's one on one or in a group
setting
you could play everything like really
well and you had all the answers because
you could play it really well but then
when it came to computer science classes
there's a lot of questions that kids
would ask me and be like i don't know
the answer to that yet let me take a
a moment to think about it or let me get
back to you tomorrow etc and it was good
to do that and then it was also
good like you mentioned with the
basically sharing the mistakes that you
made like every thursday we would talk
about
like here's a bug that i had over this
last week or here's a bug that like a
famous game developer
studio had and here's how it like really
messed up their game
let's talk about this how it applies to
the things that you're creating i really
like that
aspect of computer science how it
basically highlights yes you're gonna
make mistakes and that's okay whereas
other subject areas like it's not okay
to make a mistake
it's really like freeing and terrifying
at the same time
you know freeing and then
you know i didn't have to go out and pre
find
all of these answers but you know also
again like vulnerable and terrifying
there were days i never got to the right
answer it was
you know ask connor ask ben
have them show us so it really
changed how i thought about teaching all
together i hear exactly what you're
saying
when you left the classroom and you
joined csta full-time
what has changed since then so you've
worked with
chapters across the country and i'm
curious how has your understanding
continued to evolve
with getting all these different
perspectives learning from all these
different cs educators
i think it's really helped me to see
what a tight-knit community
cs ed is you know i taught
english courses for over 10 years and i
taught
science courses for four and
i never felt as connected to a larger
english teaching community the way i
felt connected to csta
and that's not today i was part of you
know the california association of
teachers of english and the national
council of teachers you know as part of
these organizations
but there's such a different feel in
csta
one of the things i like is that we have
these pillars for chapters where you
know we talk about
building community providing pd and
support
and the connection to a national
organization you know that's kind of a
chapter pillar
i don't think it's an accident that
build community is the first one
you know i think the building community
is what cst is about
and you know when you build that
community you're gonna find the
professional development it's out there
you know it's just finding where it is
you're gonna get the support from
you know other chapter members and other
csta members as
computer science educators seem so
willing to meet to share
with one another i think some other
subject areas are a little more
protective of the things they create
we'll share them but they don't want to
just put them out there forever
and so i think what i've noticed in
attending these chapter meetups all over
is that
it's really the same you know i mean
it's different there's different
struggles there's different policy
there's different certifications
but i see over and over again teachers
helping each other
i see teachers willing to go above and
beyond like here i created this whole
thing you know have it use it you know
this will help you
that's such a cool thing to see i really
feel lucky getting to see that because i
don't think people see it
probably don't see it enough yeah on
that note like
one of the things i think it was 2017
when i
first started getting involved with csta
and i've noticed
significant changes since then like
positive impact on the community on the
field etc
i'm curious from like an insider
perspective what are some things that
you've noticed that have had
a positive impact on the field that like
people might not be aware of
or if they're unfamiliar with csta like
how has csta kind of helped the field
from your knowledge since joining a
couple things that people probably don't
know about is that
while we focus on community and
professional development
we're involved in research and policy is
probably the people are unaware
we've supported cape more center entity
survey you know we helped to get that
out and collect
data on you know how computer science
teachers view themselves you know
and what builds a strong computer
science identity and how that affects
their teaching we also were able to
organize at last year's
conference the virtual conference some
capitol hill visits
we were supposed to be in virginia and
these hill visits were supposed to be in
person it was going to be a day
because everybody shifted we were able
to offer chapter leaders a way to talk
to their
legislators on capitol hill and i
thought that was really cool
and probably something that you know a
lot of people don't know that csta is
involved in you know that
all its policy and research we do
so much of our time and energy is you
know is dedicated on the other
avenues of community building and
professional development what about
some changes that we can anticipate or
look forward to
one thing is i know that in the past
csta has always been kind of
girlfriend said but we were able to
pilot this last year
some summits some one-day events you
know one each quarter basically so the
conference is the summer event
but we were able to host a topic
conference
in the fall this year we did it on
virtual teaching since that was the
topical
thing at the time a future of cs summit
in the
winter in january where we talked about
you know emerging
fields in cs education like cyber
security and ai
and an equity summit this spring they
were well attended we were able to reach
over a thousand
unique registrants it wasn't you know
just the same people
attending over and over so that was
really cool and so we're going to
continue those in the future
so those are going to become a mainstay
like the conference
that's something to look forward to
we're also
doing some other virtual events we do a
engage meetup every month we call csta
engage
and it's a shorter you know hour and a
half where teachers can get together we
do some networking
where teachers can meet people from all
over we've had people from
you know not just the united states but
the philippines and nigeria
join us and canada of course meet some
teachers you know and
share some insights we always have a
featured pd session
you know so there's a takeaway so
teachers have something they can take
back with them
and then some time for breakout rooms
you know like
sometimes we do it by great bands
sometimes we do it by topic you know but
just a way for teachers to connect
we know a lot of times you know teachers
they're the only cs teacher
or i had an english department of seven
or eight
had a cs department of me right
so these engage meetups are just a way
to kind of
can you create a small plc or at least
maybe you find somebody
you can connect with and share resources
you know i think that that's the things
to look forward to and anticipate is
just more ways
to connect the sta you know through
these summits
through these engaged meetups these
professional learning series that we've
been hosting as well
and you know more ways to connect and
engage where it's not just the
conferences
and how have you seen the chapters kind
of pivot in response to
covid over the last year so i'll say
especially because
i started here in february of 2020 so
just about a month before
everything changed in fact i got hired i
was attending the winter
pathfinders institute in rhode island i
was scheduled to go to sigsi up in
portland and then everything
locked down and so
the one thing else the silver lining of
code i think has been
an uptick in chapter participation
when everything locked down teachers
needed a way to connect still
get ideas to share resources to grow
and chapters and chapter leaders really
took advantage of it and did some
amazing work regular activities from
chapters went
up membership in chapters has gone up
every month
in the last year you know more chapter
members overall we're at close to 10
huge and so i would say that that's the
positive pivot has been you know that
there's really been an uptick in
activities and participation and like we
said i
get to go to all these meetups all over
in this virtual world and
you know people like being there they
like seeing each other they like
talking and sharing and it really gives
them an outlet
what are some of the things that the
different chapters have learned as a
result of this
like i'm imagining that some chapters
are looking at this and going oh
this has allowed us to better connect
with like real
chapter members who if we were having an
in-person meetup or something
now because everything's virtual we can
actually connect with more people like
what are some of the positive and
negative things that
chapters have learned yeah i think
that's a great
thing to point out right off the bat is
i can't say how many times i've heard
chapter members in these virtual meetups
say well i never get to go
when it's in person because i live two
hours away
driving two hours one way on a thursday
night
you know it's just not what i'm gonna do
it really gives them wider coverage you
know especially the statewide
chapters you know when there's one
chapter in the state and
you know your state covers so much
ground
geographically i hear many of the
chapters say they're
going to try to keep some kind of
virtual component and moving forward
even when things do go back in person
you know
if it's every meeting stays virtual or
you know
maybe only have one in person meet up
per quarter you know
that's the negative is people like
getting together and seeing one another
right you know connecting that way but
chapters really
are taking advantage and harnessing this
virtual
world you know in all kinds of ways
chapter meetups
their own summits and professional
development opportunities
really exciting how are chapters
combating like the zoom
fatigue like if teachers have been on
screen
all day like okay maybe i don't want to
attend a
something on a thursday night if i've
been doing that all week eight plus
hours
a day like are you noticing any of that
or are teachers just like
no this is something that's separate and
i want to be here because of the
community
i think there's some both of that going
on i think one thing chapter leaders
have done
is be really understanding of the zoom
fatigue
they record their meetups and they share
them out okay we'll record it and if
there's something in there
we think you know that you think you
want to see you know scan it
you know go through it you know check
this or that out and you know get what
you need
they're really understanding about
people joining late
leaving early it's a little different
than when you know you walk into a room
full of people when there's something
going on that's already starting
kind of puts you like uh you know but
you know
popping in a zoom window doesn't seem so
bad the window just kind of pops in and
if they're at a lull they say hi
and if not they just kind of keep going
and i think it's helped everybody kind
of you know be flexible in their
teaching
you know like here we are the educators
learning
to be flexible with one another with all
these demands on us
and then you know kind of paying that
forward to students you know
understanding that they have a lot going
on
you know maybe they're not in the best
space today and maybe they have zoom
fatigue as well
i think it's helped teachers be more
fitting you know
in this virtual world thinking broadly
either just like education as a whole or
specifically within
cs education what's holding back
educators
or the field and what can we do about it
another possible silver lining of this
covid world has been the teachers have
kind of gotten the freedom to try
some new things some things that just
aren't the status quo
i think a lot of schools are looking at
four day school weeks
you know in the future i know some
schools that have done it throughout
covent the four day school week and
questioning well maybe you know maybe
this is better you know maybe we
students have more time outside of class
to connect with family
and you know there's not so much
pressure so i think things like that
just
being willing to take some chances and
try some new things i think we could see
some real
innovative teaching strategies come out
of this
i don't think there is a huge rush or at
least i guess i kind of hope
there's a huge rush just go back to
everything the way we used to do it
right i understand of course wanting to
get back in the classroom
but you know i mean instead of canceling
school
for a day you could go virtual for a day
you know if you have something come up
things like that i think we could see a
lot of in the future and
so hard to say what's holding us back
you know i mean it's such a big
structure
i think the structure itself holds it
back that the enormity of it you know
and
if the chain from the ground up but
everything comes kind of top down
so right you know finding that place in
the middle where you can meet and make a
change
but i think we're going to see some of
that because i think teachers have been
piloting
new curriculum new ed tech resources
new ways to connect with students of
course teachers and students are excited
to get back
but i think they're going to be excited
to try some of this in a new way
to kind of rethink the system yeah and i
feel like
especially the new teacher standards
that have been released
on cst's website i feel like csta is
providing some guidance
for teachers administrators etc to kind
of dive into these new areas that may
have been under
explored or previously unexplored yeah
on the computer science side
specifically
we've had a lot of interest in these yes
teaching standards
uh we're doing a series for chapter
leaders right now uh deep dive into the
standards
you know and kind of packaging that for
chapter leaders so they can take it back
to their members
we're hoping to see chapter leaders you
know to take this guidance and
bring it back to their members and then
you know everybody can kind of
pass it on and move the needle that way
administrators as well
in connecting more with administrators
we created administrator track at the
conference even
they're going to reach out to
administrators here's how you can get
involved with us
you know at the administrator level and
you know help you
implement cs ed in your school and show
you
rules that have and teachers have and
what they do and what it looks like
curriculum available and all those
questions that
starting from scratch can be daunting
now when you already have a full plate
and already have so many requirements
when you're adding something
we want to make that lift as light as
possible right
yeah that's smart to have that admin
track curious to see like what the
response
surveys will be like after the close of
the conference yeah we're excited about
it we're putting it out there and
getting ready for national principles
day coming up on may 1st i think
and you know kind of reach out that way
and you know share
that we have this available and get them
involved you know
how do you practice or iterate on your
own abilities whether as an educator
in computer science or like through your
role through csta
when i was an educator i was a big
believer in summer pd
you know when i taught english i would
go to the ap ranks the dukes for english
every year
you know just try to get something new i
always want to teach
at least one new book every year you
know that was important to me because
it's so easy to
kind of get stuck in that routine it's
safe right
you know the assignments you know what
the essays are going to look like you
know
in that world i would iterate that way
in computer science it was also
new that you know like you said earlier
never the same year to year
you would find assignments and things
that you wanted to spend more time on
you know as students you know if
students struggled this past year with a
topic
you could build that in okay definitely
more time with this
things like that in my job here at csta
we actually spend a lot of time after
every event we have kind of a debrief
session where we
break down the various components of the
event where we just kind of say here's
what we think about each of these things
and everybody gets a full voice and then
we go back through each one
we share you know why we put that or you
know we expand on that
and it's really helped us move forward
and say okay you know find things
work find things that need refinement
and
really find the places we missed you
know find things we missed and we you
know we didn't even think about this
and it came up and so now we'll make
sure that you know we put some
importance on this moving forward
it's really interesting it's something i
didn't do very often as an educator i
never sat down with my english
department and
went through and said what worked what
didn't you know it was more individual
but what i found as an educator you
don't really have time to do that during
the school year
if you finish up unit one you're on to
unit two you know the next day
you know or after the weekend so it's
been
eye-opening here at csta where we'll
take that you know after last year's
conference it was
maybe the next wednesday that we got
together right away while it's still
fresh
and already you know putting plans into
effect for a whole year away
based on that so it's a great way to
iterate and get better
so how did you choose for yourself
or how did you figure out when to dive
deeper into something that you already
knew and when to explore something that
you haven't done yet so like if you
weren't doing these like
reflections with the department to like
hey how do we improve this particular
thing how did you know which books to
read or which pds to attend over the
summer for your own
personal professional development great
question a lot of it would come
from conferences from you know attending
a conference and
finding a session and getting some
resources and you know getting excited
about
this one underrated aspect of a
conference
or any pd really is to build that
excitement
yeah about whatever it is about a topic
of the session or the book
or you know this one assignment or this
new
you know pedagogy people feed off that
excitement if you're excited when you're
teaching your students get excited it's
regardless so you know
one of my good friends an english
teacher named matt bishop
told me real early on my first or second
year he said just teach the books you
like
because if you like them you're excited
then the students are gonna like and get
excited you know
we can find there's a million books out
there you can find ones of literary
merit you know
that you like you're not tied to
anything i think that's true in cs it's
even more broad
you could use different languages you
could use you know
all kinds of different assignments and
different ways to get those
computational thinking practices yeah
that makes sense
i like that answer so most teachers
when they choose to leave the profession
it's something like in the first three
to five years
and it's like over 50 i forget what the
actual stats are but
how did you take care of yourself and
continue to take care of yourself to
like prevent that burnout that is
pretty pervasive among the field of
education at large
i think for me we talked a little bit
before about you know being workaholics
and i was involved in so many different
things you know i taught
english i taught computer science i
coach some years three different sports
you know it might look like you're
spreading yourself thin
but in many ways was if i was feeling
burnout in my english classes
computer science classes would give me
back up you know get me excited
particular
sport wasn't doing too well you know we
weren't having a great season
was you know the next sport coming up
getting excited about that so i think
you know it's a balance for sure to find
you know how much you can do
and how much what your capacity is but i
feel like that's what helped me was
being involved across multiple fronts
you know and if i wasn't having a good
day here i could still have a good day
over here
you know that kind of approach right
yeah i think it was the interview with
dan schneider i think he gave a similar
answer to that
for me that also resonates as well it
made sense like
when i was doing music i was teaching
elementary school during the day high
school
percussion at night and then on the
weekends i was teaching private lessons
which was like a range from elementary
through
like undergraduate students and because
like each of those was so different
in different ways like if i was getting
burned out with one well
okay the other one i really enjoyed and
it kind of cycled through them
yeah 100 yeah it was always a psych very
cyclical
like year by year semester by semester
book by book in english you know
or is it bird by bird is that the famous
writing book
yeah whereby bird
we talked a little bit about how you
like recruited some girls into your
classes
what would you recommend for improving
like equity and inclusion in cs
education
well here's a great call back to a
earlier
discussion we were having about those cs
teaching standards
second standard in there is equity and
inclusion so i think that's a great
place to start because it identifies
five kind of key areas you know where
you know it says effective cs teachers
you know examine issues of equity
yes you know so it takes i'm examining
those issues
minimizing threats to inclusion you know
make your
room a safe space our school was pretty
white
we weren't very diverse racially but to
try to make sure i always had
girls in the cs classes in different
schools are different about this our
school was pretty open about the master
schedule when they were creating it
and we had a dance class that was
probably 99 girls and one guy
and i would go and make sure that the cs
classes weren't the same period as the
dance classes
you know to try to make sure that at
least i could clear that barrier
you know because a lot of the girls are
going to get siphoned off that period
for the dance class
and wouldn't be available for this class
you know subtle changes like that you
know
minimizing those threats to inclusion
being mindful about the curriculum and
representing diverse perspectives
in the class there are plenty of
resources highlighting
achievements of people of color in
computer science
we can use and should use even though
many of the
early curriculum didn't include that
iterative process we were talking about
you know now you know is the time
in highlighting these resources you know
they're easier to find
i think and they're more readily
available and so really there's no
excuse anymore to not
you know represent diverse perspectives
in your classes using data
not just drive instruction but to
improve equity you know yeah
that can be tougher in some schools
depending on the data you collect
and depending on if you have had a
person who helped you with that you know
it's a tough ask for teachers to all of
a sudden become
data analysis people but you can
certainly look in your classroom and see
if your classroom represents the
population of your school overall
you know and try to make steps to make
it look the same in your room as it does
in the quad
and then using accessible instructional
materials i think
this another kind of benefit of covet
has been
you know the closed captioning something
i never thought about
when i was showing videos in class or
you know any of
those resources but you know bro got
brought to our attention at last year's
conference where's the closed caption
and so you know making those materials
accessible
i really think those cs teaching
standards are a great place to start
just those kind of five pillars or you
know five
kind of ways to get going if you're not
already going
and then you know if you are you can
dive deeper
you have resources available and other
teachers are great resources what other
teachers are doing
and the way like i said cs educators are
happy to share and want to share
so i think that's probably where i would
start yeah and i'll make sure to include
a link direct link to that
in the show notes so people can can go
to that those are some excellent
recommendations
your first main point about the like
when a class appears on the schedule
that really resonated with me like
thinking back all the way as early as
middle school
even up through my doctorate like there
were many times where it's just like
i want to take this course but i can't
it conflicts with something else that i
already am obligated to or i'm required
to attend or whatever
yeah and you can't get around that
sometimes at a smaller school but
if you're just mindful of it you'll find
you can
you know clear that hurdle something you
know and that's just one way
to make sure yeah and even like what
type of class it is like with computer
science at the high school level like
are you going to make it an ap class is
it going to be a cte class
is it going to be a class open to
everybody like the kinds of classes
that it's associated with or the
department that it's associated with can
have a huge impact on who's going to
want to do it because some people might
see ap
and go okay i'll take it cause it's ap
and other people might look at it and go
why would i take an ap course yeah that
was one of my favorite things about
apcsp
i used to tell students this is kind of
the ap course
if you're not oap student one of my
favorite stories about that
actually was i had a student there who
was easily one of the best programmers
in the class and
understood everything that was going on
going above and beyond all the lessons
and didn't sign up for the ap test and i
said well why aren't you signing up for
this day you're going to crush it like
you will crush this
test oh i'm not really an ap student and
i said well you planning on going to
college next year right he was gonna go
to one of the local community colleges
and i said you might as well take it
i said you know if money's an issue
we'll get it paid for you know that's
said but why don't you go ahead and take
it just give it a shot he took it got a
four
you know was super excited the only ap
class he ever took the only ap
test he ever took and you know knocked
the dial apart it's one of the great
like kind of victories of that class i
thought that's one layer
of inclusivity there removing that
border of kind of
you know ap students only what do you
wish there's more
research on that could inform your own
practices
recently we've been talking here about
the value of being
and this is totally centered on my role
here at cga
but what is the value of being a chapter
member
versus just being a csta member you know
is there added value
for everyone and only people who go to
all the chapter meetups and chapter
events is that who
gets value so we're actually gonna
launch kind of a
chapter survey to collect that data
because
it would be nice to have you know some
numbers
analytics that show you know an increase
in
cs identity or feeling supported i'm
curious about that you know what
members see the value of chapters versus
what we would call csta freelancing i'm
really interested in that what's a
problem that you're working on or a
question that you have that
maybe a listener could really help with
like if somebody's listening
and they could just solve the greatest
dilemma you're trying to work through
your greatest challenge
like what would that be i would say the
number one again very specific
my role here is finding chapter leaders
you know people willing to you know give
more of themselves so you know
it's kind of layered you know you're
joined csta okay you come to the
conference you can go to summits
the next kind of step would be you know
getting involved in a local chapter and
now you're kind of
you know localizing your csta journey
and i would say the next step there
would be you know
a chapter leader and helping
together resources and materials and
organized
events for chapters and i think where we
run into problems
is that most cs educators didn't start
off as cs educators
you know they come from they're an
english teacher they're a music teacher
they're you know a math teacher probably
more than anything else
and so you know it feels weird to be a
leader of something that you don't have
the deepest understanding of
and so kind of communicating that you
know being a chapter leader doesn't
mean you have to know everything about
you know computer science pedagogy
and computer science curriculum it can
be more organizational
you know helping bring people together
you know that's a skill a lot of
teachers have you know building
communities they build communities in
their classrooms
every day every year you know so
bringing that talent
to leadership organizing events teachers
are
master organizers you know whether
they're you know putting together a
schedule for
instruction or coaching schedule
for their cross-country team you know it
can be the same thing in a csta chapter
while i certainly understand the
hesitancy and you know the fact that
if you're a cs teacher you're probably
teaching something else as well so
you're already wearing multiple hats
and to you know try to get involved even
deeper here with csta that can seem
daunting i think but that's probably
what i hear more than anything from
chapter leaders is how do we get more
people involved
leadership role i'm wondering like is
there an equivalent to like the csta
equity fellows like if there's a way to
help cultivate a future set of leaders
that could start filling those positions
like i think it was a year ago
at the virtual chapter leaders summit
there's like a session on how to
cultivate future leaders and whatnot
like i'm just wondering if it's like
there's a way to expand that kind of
like the equity fellows
yeah we've talked about trying to figure
out how to
like a chapter leader boot camp or
something and i'm like
right you know we started in fact at the
we had that mid-year chapter leadership
summit in january we extended an
invitation if you're interested in
chapter
you know you can join us and so i'm
thinking maybe doing more things like
that you know
maybe opening the chapter leader
learning series up you know if you're
interested in chapter leadership you
know don't join us
and take a look because i think the
chapter leaders we have really enjoyed
it
it becomes kind of a plc you know for
the chapter leaders we have a temporary
leader committee
we have 11 chapter leaders on a
committee that i meet with once a month
you know to kind of go over all things
chapter
and they really value that experience
and
you know but we talk about the same
thing how do we broaden participation
because there's really no limit on
what a chapter could have as a leader
you know some chapters have
three and some chapters have ten you
know based on their skill sets and
you know if your web design or like
playing on
you know we have a chapter website here
you can tool around with and see what
you can make
it do you're good at organizing events
you know
you'd be the chapter leader that helps
organize our next event
you know or just be a rep a k5 rent or a
in that grade
you know so it's really i think some of
it is about getting the word out
and some of it is about making sure
people understand i
understand a hundred percent this is a
volunteer position
and it's extra duty and i try really
hard not to
ask much not to you know i send one
email a week
you know try to not not overburden the
people who are already overburdened
yeah the nice thing is like you can
start small with it so like from my own
experiences like i started attending
csta conference and then i started
attending some
of like the non-summer related stuff so
like a webinar and then started
attending like the
chapter meetings and just checking out
the community and whatnot and like now
i'm a treasurer so like it was a gradual
process that
related to how much time i had and
whatnot and that's an approach that you
can also use
yeah i think that's a great way i've
heard some chapters
you know because we're kind of in that
election cycle now april and may where
people are closing out
the 2021 year getting ready for 21 22
and you know really saying if you're
interested let us know you're interested
in
we'll work to find a position that you
know
is manageable for you and i think the
way we've been able to connect this past
year with leadership summits and the
sessions
that are available i think chapter
leaders are getting a better idea of
you know what the roles and
responsibilities are and they're better
able to tell
you know prospective chapter leaders
here's what i do you know so if you're
interested in doing this
this is what it looks so where might
people go to connect with you
and the organization that you work with
well i will say
hi as i am the best way to connect with
me
is by joining a chapter
if you're not a champion member already
love
to you know bring you on board if you
don't know how to find your local
chapter i can help you do that
it is on the csta website but i'm happy
to connect you with the
leaders of your local chapter i can
connect you directly with them
or just point you to their website so
that you can connect that way
i also host little csta engaged meetups
i was talking about so that's a
i think a great one of those steps we
were talking about you know going to
chapter meetings and then you know
the csta engages 90 minutes once a month
and you know there's no expectation that
you come to all of them or
you know you know when they fit they fit
they're usually the first
week of the month or so and you know
join us for any of it or all of it or
some of it you know whatever if it's
your schedule
like i said before there's time to kind
of network at the beginning
we use that hop-in platform that we use
for the conference has that kind of
that style roulette you know you get
paired up with someone randomly which
you know if that's okay with you then
you can do that but if that gives you
anxiety then of course don't you can
just you know kind of connect in the
chat with people
we have a short pd session that's only
about 25 minutes
so it i'll use teachers primes in the
evening and you know it's not meant to
be a deep dive it's meant to be kind of
an introduction to something you may or
may not know about
and then we have those breakout rooms
after the pd that
often there's kind of a meet the speaker
room that you can go into and ask any
additional questions
and then teachers i found really like to
meet by great band and just kind of talk
about what's going on
you know with their gray band at that
time i've noticed that
interesting as you go month by month how
the conversations
you know like thinking the high school
level you know right now it's going to
be talk about
ap testing you know things like that
where in october that certainly wasn't
the phone
always interesting to see kind of those
another way
to reach out and get involved is we're
going to have some
community discussion boards launching
very soon
it's going to be by grade band at first
but every chapter is also going to get a
discussion
board we're going to launch kind of do a
rolling launch on those so it's not all
at once but
you've updated your profile with the
great bands that you teach you'll be put
into one of these
discussion groups and they're really
extensive they look really nice i've
seen kind of the back end
they have places resources so there'll
be a library of resources if you
add to and pull from you can thread your
conversations so
you can have different topics where
people share specifically
with one another you can do it via email
you can turn the emails off so you don't
get a bunch of emails
but if you don't want to go to the
website you can also reply via email
that's easier for some people as well
so i think these are going to be a great
way for people to connect because it's
kind of a two-way conversation
you know where right now chapter leaders
can connect and reach out but that's
kind of just one way
you know the czech repeater here's
what's available you know or here's an
email to reach
where this will be very interactive i
think we'll see a lot of activity there
so i think those are
great ways to connect with us and
connect with me at csta
and with that that concludes this week's
episode of the csk8 podcast
i hope you enjoyed listening this
episode and i really hope that you
connect with jason
and potentially your local csta chapter
which by the way if you don't have a
local chapter you can actually reach out
to csta using the links in the show
notes
which includes some suggestions on how
to create your own chapter
i personally have very much so enjoyed
my time working with
csta both as a member and as somebody on
a board
for the arizona chapter so i highly
recommend it for anyone else who is
interested
if you enjoyed this episode please
consider sharing or providing a review
as either of those options really help
other people find this content
thanks so much for listening i hope
you're all staying safe and are having a
wonderful week
Guest Bio
Jason is responsible for the growth, success, and management of the more than 90 local CSTA chapters across the United States, Canada, and the Philippines. He believes wholeheartedly that regional chapters are at the core of CSTA's mission and is excited to support these chapters with leadership and quality programming for chapter members.
Prior to joining CSTA, Jason taught CS and English in the Northern California foothills for more than a dozen years. Before his career in education, he served in the United States Marine Corps for nearly a decade. As an educator, he helped develop a CS pathway in a Title I district that hadn't previously offered CS courses. He emphasized closing the gender gap and engaging more female students in CS coursework, and in 2018, his work garnered the College Board AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award. Passionate about CS education, Jason strives to empower teachers, schools, and districts in bringing the myriad of wonderfully developed curricula to life and to inspire teachers with how the design of computing and computational thinking can be part of every classroom.
Outside of work, Jason is an avid sports fan, relishes opportunities to travel, loves to cook, and can often be found watching original content on any of several online streaming services.
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