Empowering K–12 Students with Disabilities to Learn Computational Thinking and Computer Programming
In this episode I unpack Israel et al.’s (2015) publication titled “Empowering K–12 students with disabilities to learn computational thinking and computer programming,” which is a short article that provides some strategies to increase access and engagement among students with disabilities in CS education contexts.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each episode of this podcast is either a
solo episode where i unpack some
scholarship in relation to cs education
or an interview with a guest or multiple
guests
in this week's particular episode i am
unpacking a paper that is by maya israel
quentin werfel jamie pearson
sardine shabab and tanya tapia
apologies if i mispronounce any names
this particular paper is titled
empowering k-12 students with
disabilities to learn computational
thinking and computer programming
if i were to summarize this particular
paper into a single sentence i'd say
that this short article provides some
strategies to increase access and
engagement among students with
disabilities in cs education context
this particular episode pairs very
nicely with the episode that released
last week which was the interview with
jesse rathgeber as well as the episode
that unpacks the udl framework which is
the universal design for learning
framework and then even the interview
with andreas steffik i include links to
all of those in the show notes and if
you click on the links to the article
citations in the show notes it'll take
you directly to this particular paper as
well as to the google scholar profiles
of the authors on this particular
publication you can find those by
clicking the link in the description of
the app that you're listening to this on
or by simply going to jaredlery.com and
clicking on podcasts while you're on my
website you'll find hundreds if not
thousands of free resources for cs
educators and scholars including a link
to bootuppd.org which is the free coding
curriculum that i create for scratching
this crash junior all right so at the
start of this particular paper the
authors mentioned that there is a push
for stem related fields
at least at the time of this publication
which was 2015 and computer science in
particular because there are many open
jobs that are unfilled at this moment so
many people are encouraging computer
science in k-12 context in order to fill
these unmet jobs now the authors also
mentioned that there are many other
important reasons to engage in computer
science that are outside of just wanting
to get a job such as increasing
collaborative problem solving building
higher order thinking skills increasing
positive attitudes about computer
science and computing skills and then
creating real world contexts in which
you can actually apply mathematics
algorithmic problem solving
collaborative inquiry etc now they cite
several different authors on page 45
related to each of those so if you're
interested check out those particular
publications by those authors so because
in the last few years computer science
has a big push and many educators who
don't have a background in computer
science are beginning to learn computer
science the authors argue that many
teachers just simply don't know well
what is computational thinking and
computer programming and in particular
to this article how do you teach
computational thinking and computer
programming to k-12 students who have
disabilities here's a quote from page 46
quote for example students with
disabilities may struggle with abstract
computing processes such as a multi-step
procedure for using if then commands and
with new vocabulary such as algorithm in
quote a little bit further down on page
disabilities must now consider how to
best support their learners within these
inclusive educational environments so
that they can meaningfully engage in and
benefit from computing education in
quote so to address this the authors
provide some strategies to increase
access and engagement in computing
education so the first one that they
mention on page 46 is teaching competing
through the udl framework and again i
include a link to a podcast that i did
that unpacks that framework in more
depth so make sure you check that out in
the show notes however here's a quote on
page 46 that very briefly summarizes it
so quote universal design for learning
udl is an instructional planning
framework for meaningfully engaging a
range of learners including students
with disabilities by proactively
addressing barriers to learning in quote
so in this article they mentioned three
particular principles that are central
to the udl framework so the first one is
that there are multiple means of
representation so here's a quote from
page 46 that kind of summarizes what
this looks like in k12 cs context quote
depending on their needs students can
observe the teacher model the use of
computing software such as scratch or
alice see the code that the teacher
created afterward watch videos and demos
of that code used online or break apart
existing code that their teacher modeled
in quote so the second principle that
they mentioned for udl is that there are
multiple methods of action and
expression here's a quote that kind of
summarizes this from page 47 quote there
is not typically only one way of coding
or demonstrating understanding of that
code students can use programming
software in different ways including
creating their own projects replicating
the teacher's program expanding on the
teachers program or using templates that
the teacher created with partially
created codes they can also explain how
they designed their program and provide
directions to help peers replicate their
programs end quote then the third
principle of udl is that there are
multiple ways to engage students so the
authors recommend providing choices for
students that involve like the same
skills that you would learn but allow
you to engage with those skills in
different ways and they recommend
encouraging collaboration now on page 48
there is a chart that talks about the
udl framework in terms of each one of
these three principles and in that
particular chart they have different
categories under it so for example under
multiple means of representation they
discuss providing options for perception
providing options for language
mathematic expressions and symbols and
providing options for comprehension and
for each one of those three they include
multiple suggestions on how you can do
that they do the same thing for the
second principle which is the multiple
means of action and expression so they
discuss how to provide options for
physical action options for expression
and communication and options for
executive functions and then they do
that for the third principle multiple
means of engagement so they provide some
options for recruiting interest
sustaining effort and persistence and
then for self-regulation so for each one
of those they have two to three
different suggestions in there so i
recommend taking a look at the
publication itself so you can take a
look at each of those suggestions so
hopefully that served as a teaser to
actually go and read this particular
article and if not maybe these other
suggestions will encourage you to do
that so the next thing that they
recommend is to balance out explicit
instruction with open inquiry activities
so they point out that some students are
really good at following multi-step
directions within some kind of a complex
task or project while others are less so
here's a quote from page 48 quote
explicit instruction can reduce students
frustrations in computational tasks
because each step is explained concisely
and monitored until students have
mastered the step allowing students
ample opportunities to develop and
practice skills that have been taught is
an essential component of delivering
effective instruction with that said it
is important to balance explicit
instruction of discrete skills with
open-ended inquiry for students to have
the opportunity to use skills learned
through explicit instruction to engage
in open-ended problem-solving computing
tasks in quotes so i've mentioned many
times on this particular podcast i
really like the approaches
around rhizomatic learning around
self-directed etc making it so that it's
open-ended kids can explore their
interests
however some students don't do very well
with that they prefer to have explicit
instructions while other students don't
do well with explicit instructions so
one of the things that i do with boot
ups curriculum that i create is make it
so that you can go with explicit
instructions where i walk you through
step by step how to do something with a
video or through a visual guide or even
through text for educators or you can do
more open-ended you can like reverse
engineer a project or you can just look
at it and go um okay i want to create my
own version that is like a variation on
this theme so we encourage that in the
lesson plans this is a great form of
differentiation and because the
resources are readily available there if
somebody is like midway through like an
open-ended project and they're stuck on
like i don't know how to do this thing
you can give them an explicit
instruction or a video resource or a
visual guide or whatever to help some
kids out so rather than buying 100 into
a particular method or approach or
pedagogy it's instead looking at each
individual student and where they're at
in that particular moment and trying to
find a pedagogy that best aligns with
that so instead of saying i'm a 100
constructionist i will never do explicit
instruction you could say well yeah i
prefer constructionist and it works well
for most of my students but some
students in particular moments of time
it does not work well for them for
whatever reason and if you want to hear
a little bit more about that check out
the interview i did with john stapleton
which is titled cs educator as dungeon
master with john stapleton or check out
the unpacking scholarship episode that i
did titled on methodology and computer
science teaching as critical and
reflective praxis those are both very
relevant to what i just mentioned now on
page 49 they provide some examples of
explicit instruction in computing
education so you can check out that
particular table or figure to get some
more ideas now one of the interesting
things that they note about like
explicit instruction and open-ended
projects is this particular quote from
page 49. quote it should be noted in
computing students will know if they
used code as intended based on whether
the inputted code produces the expected
outcome this is different from other
areas of instruction such as writing a
grammatically correct paragraph because
in traditional instruction the students
may not always know if their work is
correct end quote that's an excellent
point so if you are unsure about
engaging in some kind of open-ended
projects and you are new to computer
science know that students are
constantly getting feedback every time
they run or compile their program
because they'll immediately be able to
figure out oh did it work as intended or
not all right so the next strategy that
they recommend is encouraging students
to actually collaborate with each other
and engage in cooperative learning now
here's a quote from page 50 that
explains why they recommend this quote
it requires active student involvement
and relies on student interaction as a
primary means for promoting complex
reasoning critical thought and the
development of problem-solving skills it
can span across all grade levels from
elementary through high school and it
fits well with the context of computing
education for example teachers can form
groups and assign roles for students to
program roles could include animation
leader content leader coding leader and
sound effects leader in quote now the
author has mentioned that this is
important because some students might do
really well in one aspect of programming
but might struggle in another aspect and
that goes for anyone not just students
with disabilities so it's just good
pedagogical practice so if students are
able to work together in groups with
complementary strengths and weaknesses
in terms of understanding or abilities
in programming or computer science this
can kind of help out some students who
might struggle in some areas while
others might excel in those areas and
the next strategy that they recommend is
student-to-student help seeking so
having it so that students are asking
each other questions and getting help
from each other is a really good
strategy that i recommend for example i
had a thing up on the board that for
every class that said your first thing
to do when you need help is to check the
resources so if like if there was a help
section or a manual or something like a
tutorial or a guide to help you check
that again see if it answers your
question the next two steps were to ask
two different peers in the class or some
assistance and then the final step was
to ask myself if they needed some help
often when they would ask me a
particular question that i knew another
student can answer i would pair them
with it be like oh you want help with
player controls okay well suzy over here
is really good at player controls so
susie can you help out johnny over here
with this particular problem that
they're having however one of the things
that the authors mention and then i
really resonates with me is that you
need to encourage some kind of
collaborative discussions and maybe even
some prompts or some like frameworks for
how to engage in this student-to-student
peer-to-peer learning and sharing in
particular pointing out like hey don't
just go over and solve the problem for
them walk them through how they might be
able to solve this so ask some questions
and things like that so the authors
mention a particular framework by park
and lash and so this particular
framework asks some questions so here
are the four questions and this is from
page 50 quote what are you trying to do
what have you tried already what else do
you think you can try and what would
happen if dot dot in quote so having
students ask those questions to their
peers can be really beneficial and it
encourages collaboration and discussion
around competing in computer science all
right so the last strategy that they
recommend in this particular article is
to experiment with different software
and hardware to increase accessibility
there's a bunch of different assistive
devices and technologies that can be
used to help out students like for
example in the interview with andreas
steffek we talk about assistive
technologies for voters who are blind
but this particular article provides
some suggestions for some tools that
might assist with fine motor challenges
memory challenges and complex problem
solving challenges they recommend taking
a look at the bottom right corner of
page 51 to check out each one of those
all right so this particular paper ends
with a very short closing on some of
their final thoughts which leads me to
segue into some of my lingering
questions or thoughts after having read
this particular short article so the
first one that i have is what strategies
did jesse rathgeber mention in the
previous podcast that might work well
with the strategies mentioned in this
particular article so if you haven't
listened to that particular episode it's
about two-thirds of the way through i
believe that jesse starts mentioning
some strategies in particular that are
really beneficial for working with
students with disabilities however jesse
didn't mention everything and the
authors didn't mention everything that
might work really well so another
question that i have is what other
strategies have you tried that worked
well with the students that you work
with and how might you be able to share
those with other cs educators in the
field whether it's presenting at csta or
a different computer science conference
or sharing it on social media or in some
kind of a group like csta's community
community that they are continuing to
develop etc how might you be able to
share those particular strategies and
engage in a discussion on computer
science and students with disabilities
and the last lingering question that i
have that i kind of hinted at earlier is
how might these strategies benefit all
students so in other words i'm at these
strategies benefit students not just
students with disabilities when reading
through this i was like yeah this is
just really good pedagogical practices
that are great for individualized
learning and not just students who might
have a particular iep 504 plan or
whatever so one of the things that i
would recommend when ever reading an
article like this or listening to
somebody talk about any kind of a
framework that is geared towards like a
particular group or demographic or
marginalized identity or whatever is try
and think of how might that strategy
just be beneficial for a broader context
than a specific demographic so in other
words how might you create like a
pedagogical toolbox that you can draw
from for any given moment to assist
students when you are working with them
or facilitating some kind of learning
experience as not every single tool is
going to work for every single student
or every single context so you might
have a strategy that worked well for a
student then you come back a week or two
later and you try that strategy again
with the same student and it might not
work well because the context is
different alright so those are some of
my lingering thoughts i hope you enjoyed
listening to this particular article i
do recommend reading it and i include
links to it directly in the show notes
at jaredaleri.com if you enjoyed this
episode please consider sharing it with
somebody or providing a review on
whatever platform you're listening to
this on i ask that because it simply
helps others find it as it gets promoted
more on whatever platform you're
listening to this on stay tuned next
week for another episode and thank you
so much for listening to this week's
episode i hope you're all staying safe
and are having a wonderful week
Article
Israel, M., Wherfel, Q. M., Pearson, J., Shehab, S., & Tapia, T. (2015). Empowering K–12 Students with Disabilities to Learn Computational Thinking and Computer Programming. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 48(1), 45–53.
My One Sentence Summary
This short article provides some strategies to increase access and engagement among students with disabilities in CS education contexts.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
What strategies did Jesse Rathgeber mention in the previous podcast that might work well with the strategies mentioned in this article?
What other strategies have you tried that worked well for the students you work with?
How might these strategies benefit all students (i.e., not just students with disabilities)?
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
Accessibility and Inclusion in CS Education with Maya Israel
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Accessible CS Education through Evidence-based Programming Languages with Andreas Stefik
In this interview with Andreas Stefik, we discuss the importance of using evidence-based programming languages, problems with the lack of replication in CS education scholarship and academia in general, the importance of designing for accessibility and disabilities, lessons learned designing Quorum (an accessible programming language and platform), and much more.
CS Educator as Dungeon Master with Jon Stapleton
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