Dr. Emily Thomforde and Omar Shepherd, CSforAll Script workshop

We 'd like to begin by introducing our special guests. Dr. Emily Thomforde, computer science coordinator for the California Department of Education, and Omar Shepherd curriculum specialists, stem and career education for the Orange County Office of Education. They will be speaking with us today about our CSforAll script workshop.

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Transcript

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Sonal  00:03

Welcome to the SBCSS Digital Learning Bits and Bytes Podcast inspired by our dedication for equitable and inclusive educational technology and computer science. Today's digital learning team hosts are Sonal Patel and Dr. Sharisa Chan.

Sharisa  00:20

Hello, everyone. I'm Sharisa Chan. 

Sonal  00:22

And Hi everyone. I'm Sonal Patel.

Sharisa  00:24

We 'd like to begin by introducing our special guests. Dr. Emily Thomforde, computer science coordinator for the California Department of Education, and Omar Shepherd curriculum specialists, stem and career education for the Orange County Office of Education. They will be speaking with us today about our script workshop. Welcome, Dr. M. And welcome, Omar.

Dr. Em  00:44

Thanks for having us.

Sonal  00:45

Thanks. Okay. Okay, so let's start with a bit of fun to have Dr. Em First, please share one bit or bite that people may be intrigued to learn about you.

Dr. Em  00:55

So, a lot. A lot of people don't know that I was raised Quaker, I'm a pacifist. That's not the bitten bite. The funny thing is that I'm also secretly awesome at laser tag, which you would not expect from a pacifist. No, but yeah, I'm really good at it.

Sonal  01:10

Laser Tag. How about that? Oh, wow. So Oh, Ma, we surprised about that. First

Omar  01:15

of all, yes, definitely. Very surprised. I am horrible at Laser Tag.

Sonal  01:21

So same question to you. What's your one bit or bite?

Omar  01:24

Well, if you were looking at me, you would notice I'm bald. But one interesting fact is I'm actually a barber. I am a trained Barber. I learned to cut hair when I was a kid just because my uncle felt everyone should have a trade something that they could always be able to do and fall back on. And that's when I learned how to cut hair.

Sharisa  01:43

Great. Wow, that's amazing. So are you still cutting hair?

Omar  01:47

Yeah, I do. I've saved I would say 10s of 1000s. I have four sons. And they've never been to the barbershop.

Sharisa  01:54

That is amazing. Skills. Okay, here's a question for you both. Today, we had our very first script workshop. And it was just an amazing event. So my question for both of you is, what exactly is CS for all Script workshop? And what is the purpose Dr. M will begin with you.

Dr. Em  02:12

So script stands for strategic CS for All resource and goodness, I've lost our resource and implementation planning tool. Right? We like it because script is something from computer science to like, it's a little program you write. But also, it's like the script, right the plan that you make. So it's a it's a great resource developed by the CS for All organization that's national. And it's around making a strategic plan for computer science with a district team. And then I think the team part is really, really crucial about it, like having multiple educational partners together, coming and bringing their positionality and their experience and you know, their their power, really together to make plans that are equitable and sustainable.

Sharisa  03:01

Thank you so much. I love the play on the word script first off, I always love play on words, and it that it makes sense. And then also, the fact that you call out the need for a team and the power we can have when we work with this team of stakeholders together, and what we can do together. So thank you.

Sonal  03:18

And then Omar did you want to add anything else to the response?

Omar  03:22

Oh, no, I think Dr. Em really did a wonderful job of sharing a little bit about script.

Sonal  03:27

So the next question is for you. So you're one of the facilitators are here here today, along with myself. Dr. Chen, Heidi Bains from Riverside County Office of Education and of course, Dr. Em, you did a very important important visioning activity today, which I thought went really well, by the way, I really loved being there for that moment. Can you walk us through some of the key elements of that portion of the workshop and how it helps support the development of their vision statement for computer science in their district?

Omar  03:57

Thank you. Thank you. Well, as was shared, it really does take the team, but everyone on the team really has their own rationale and purpose that they see for education, part of the visions activity, ask them to begin to think about what is the purpose of education that they have and to consider their own rationales. rationales may be anything from equity and social justice. Or it might be something along the lines of citizenship and civic engagement, or even on economic and workforce development, we'll be giving them a chance to think about what were the things that brought them into education and sharing. While they all may be different, they're all a value to help us have a well rounded society. From their, district teams are asked to think about what are some initiatives we have going on in our district? Maybe we're focused on dual immersion. Maybe we're focused on language learners. Maybe we're focused on integrating our AVID program, we'll begin thinking about enlisting what those various initiatives are Well, from there, the district team will spend some time thinking about how do we consider what are our various rationales for education, and identify what are the top three for our team, using that information, alongside their initiatives to begin thinking about how can we use this to create a vision for CS in our district, it really isn't asking them to finalize and put a rubber stamp on that. But to begin the process of thinking about as a team, how do we bring together our collective rationales or collective values to really dream up a vision for our community?

Sonal  05:39

Absolutely. And one of the things that I noticed was the team's surprise in their overall impact areas that the you know, the that came up, they came up with the top three impact areas. So their overall surprise, and then how they were able to have this deep conversation regarding how each of the areas overlap with one another and how they really help to support the overall vision. I thought that was absolutely splendid. Dr. Em do you want to add anything to that.

Dr. Em  06:09

I love seeing the vision statements that the districts come up with and the diversity within them. Really, I like when each district reads out kind of in and puts their, you know, puts themselves out there, their values, their shared values, and especially looking at how those visions and aligned to the vision and mission of the school in the district itself. Because there's so many things we're already saying that are in common about why we would do computer science that compete, why we why we give this this this power, this 21st century skill, this, you know, workforce opportunity, the ability to empower kids to determine their own futures like that's, it so resonates with an educational philosophy of someone who's been in this for a long time, even if they're new to computer science.

Sharisa  06:57

Absolutely. I love that, especially the thought of being able to personalize and tailor a vision, specifically to your school for your students needs for all of your stakeholders needs like how do we get there? So I love that. Thank you for sharing. So this question is geared toward Dr. M, there are some important components that districts are asked to consider before creating goals. What are these? And what are some of the things you heard today from districts that helped them in form their goals that they the goals that they establish, based upon understanding where they are?

Dr. Em  07:30

Yeah, script has this really great structure around rubrics. So they give you a four point rubric on all of these different considerations. Some of the, some of the sections around it are teacher capacity and development, community partnerships, leadership, especially school leadership, material selection, and technology infrastructure, so all of the components that really go into being able to implement a CS plan. And it's I think it's amazing how many of these, you know, teachers, district teams will do a few. And then one will come up that's around like partnerships, and like, oh, yeah, I hadn't thought about partnerships, that's really important. So all of these six areas come together to really generate strategies. And I loved how, in our particular workshop today, we were able to have them put the strategies on the sticky notes, that then they could take and prioritize and combine. And they really helped them in their process towards turning strategies into goals and priorities.

Sonal  08:41

I thought that was wonderful. I mean, I thought how it all came together was you having them discuss informally, what was needing to be done. And then at the end, it was this huge aha, this is where our priorities lies. This is where we want to focus. And then they created a three month, six month and 12 month goal all in that in all in this one day. It was an intense workshop. But the conversations were just wonderful, you know, and people got so much out of that. 

Dr. Em  09:08

Yeah, I think the great thing about script is that these plans, and the goals and the strategies, the steps to take the ideas, they were within them the whole time, right and, and script is just the process of drawing that out as a team.

Sonal  09:24

Exactly. And not just drawing it out by themselves. But having a resource to be able to draw upon, right, we had a resource, which was the rubrics, and we also had some materials and some sample goals and sample items for them to lean in on and on top of that, they got to share with one another. You did some really wonderful activities where they got to learn from each other's goals. They got to learn from each other's priorities and so forth. So Omar, did you want to add anything to that?

Omar  09:54

Oh, no, I'm just really inspired by the day the opportunity to engage multiple educational partners in one space, and to hear their ideas, ways they're connecting their values to create an opportunity for CS for All.

Sonal  10:10

That was beautiful. You know, you know how I feel about that multi educational partnership approach. It's a huge part of my own research right now. And I think that that is that is really the overarching Aha, if we can't get the whole district working on this as a team, and we're not getting multiples perspective, if we can't get multiple perspectives on what is happening in each respective focus today, we had educators, we had counselors, we had people in supporting roles with superintendents in the room, we had site principals in the room, I thought, you know, it was just so great to see them all work together. So with that said, I'm going to end with a follow up question for both of you. So a lot of people left our workshop today. Very excited. If you were to send a follow up right now, what would you say? What would you say to them? With regards to, you know, continuing their plan?

Dr. Em  11:01

Yeah, I think the most fundamental thing is to show up for CS, when there are opportunities, even if you think maybe you aren't, you don't fulfill the requirements, or you have impostor syndrome about that is to fight through that and go anyway, there are so many free professional development and opportunities for teachers, for administrators, for out of school time, educators, just take advantage of the resources that are being offered to you. And if I could get a second piece of advice in here, I gotta say, it takes so much lead time to gain the expertise to teach computer science well, and to the standards. If you can do anything in your plan to make it so that you do not evaluate yourself or your program after the first year, leave it to the second year. Consider the first year like what we call in computer science year zero, right? We always start counting from zero. And we all start from zero. And so that first year that you're in it, that's the test year, that's the year to get things wrong to figure out what you need to do. And then in year one, then evaluate based on that, because no matter what you do, you're gonna, you're gonna look at that first, that first pancake right, as flawed. And then if you can't just throw out all pancakes forever, based on that one, computer science is definitely a process.

Sonal  12:14

Exactly. And then the other thing, thank you for that. The other thing I was thinking about was how many of those goals really were related to building the capacity of educators, administrators, and counselors, as well as other supporting roles? I know that there's some professional developments coming up that are bound to be very useful. And not only that a lot of people incorporated those those ideas into their goals. Omar, can you talk about some of the bigger projects that are happening in the computer science space?

Omar  12:42

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't want to miss an opportunity, though, to piggyback on what Dr. Em was sharing, to extend this notion that the work that they engaged in today was but a stepping stone in the process towards computer science implementation. As we think about this, one of the things that I would recommend our district teams to consider is to think about who else they might invite into the conversation, look at the rubrics that they've went through look at some of the rationales that they've identified as their top rationale, as they have new team members come on board are those rationale now the same three, there might need to be some revision to the vision to ensure it's inclusive of their entire school community. Now, as we think about what's coming up next, and admittedly, I'm very excited about it. It's opportunities for professional learning through our educator workforce investment grant. Through the Seasons of CS, we'll be able to engage educators, administrators, leaders, and begin to understand more about what CS might look like where they are, but also began thinking about ways they can be able to implement it in their districts in ways that give access to all students. One of the ideas about the Seasons of CS is each of the seasons will create an opportunity for an educator to engage in professional learning. As an example, in the winter of CS, we'll be engaging our administrators and our elementary teachers in a day of professional learning around computer science. Now, what we're planning is a hub and spoke model, whereby which our collaboration which spans the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, Riverside County Office of Education, the Orange County Department of Education, and the San Diego County Office of Education, to be able to provide access to all educators within those counties, to computer science, professional learning. So whether you're based in any of those counties, you will be able to access professional learning, facilitated by a computer science specialists where you are, and we're looking forward to sharing more about that after the Winter of CS, look ahead to the summer for the Summer of CS, where there'll be five days of intensive professional learning to support us in engaging our learners. Now, elementary teachers can expect to experience a three day intensive workshop, giving them ideas on ways they can integrate CS, into what they're already doing, our administrators, they'll be able to engage in some important extension of visioning work, not so much of the Script Workshop we engaged in. But something really more focused on equity, and ensuring access for all learners. Our counselors. What I'd say in some cases, the gatekeepers to computer science will have an opportunity to engage in some professional learning to understand how they can leverage their position to be able to give more students access to CS, I hope I did a good job of explaining the Seasons of CS and do know there's more information to come.

Sonal  15:58

Absolutely Omar you did a wonderful job explaining Thank you. And, you know, know that these opportunities are not just going to be open to the people that attended today, it is going to be publicly open to K 12, educators, administrators, counselors, and again, others that are in supporting roles around computer science.

Sharisa  16:18

Thank you both so much for sharing this valuable information with us. It's been a pleasure having this conversation with you today. It's always a pleasure having conversations with you any day. So thank you so much we learn and grow so much together working alongside of you.

Sonal  16:32

Yeah, thank you so much. Dr. Em and Omar, it's always a pleasure. And for those of you listening, be sure to follow Dr. Em @thegreen on Twitter and Omar at @doctorstem. That's D o c t o r stem on Twitter. Thank you all for tuning in.

Dr. Em  16:49

Thank you. Thank you CS is power.

Sonal  16:52

Join us next time for more bits and bytes of digital learning and computer science. And remember, if you're hungry for more, you can simply text dls news to 22828 or find us on Twitter @SBCSS_edtech