TRANSCRIPT: 3 Ways to Bring Computer Science Concepts Into Your Classroom (feat. Kevin Santer from Michigan Virtual)
8:24PM Feb 8, +0000
Speakers:
Nikki
Kevin
Keywords:
students
computer science concepts
classroom
computer science
teaching
teacher
computer
algorithms
rules
thinking
debugging
recognize
bit
problem
idea
year
question
computational thinking
work
michigan
I think if you were to take a look at the computer science standards, you'd quickly recognize that they're bigger than just coding. They're bigger than just learning how to make program in language XYZ. In fact, I connected usually to probably the leading buzzword that an employer puts on a job posting, they're looking for critical thinkers, right. And I think computer science brings a set of tools and perspectives that let students become better critical thinkers.
I'm Nikki Herta and this is bright stories of hope and innovation in Michigan classrooms. A podcast where we celebrate our state's educators and explore the future of learning. Right is brought to you in part by Meemic insurance company, insuring the educational community for more than 70 years, teachers and school employees visit meemic.com/quote. To see how much you can save today's episode of bright AI chat with Kevin santur, a lead instructor for Michigan virtuals career and technical education online courses. Kevin was honored as our 2019 online teacher of the year, and recently served on a statewide committee to help update Michigan's K 12 Computer Science Standards. Kevin shares his journey and leaving a 20 year career in software development, to become a teacher uses the lens of computer science to explore what it means to think and ultimately to be human, and offers three ways to bring computer science concepts into the classroom. Well, Kevin, it's great to have you on the bright podcast today. Thank you for joining me.
Well, I'm glad to be here. Thank you. Thanks for thinking of me. Of course. Yeah.
So we're starting off season three, asking everybody the same question, which is, what is the most interesting thing that you're doing in your classroom right now?
Ah, you know, there's a few things to choose from one of the things that I'm very excited about is in my computer science principles course, it's an AP course. But it's designed kind of more for the non technical person. So rather than, like deep into programming is to give them a broad view of the field. And something they're looking at right now is big data and big data analysis and the ethical concerns that might come with it. And it's just, it's really cool to see young people, you know, being articulate and arguing passionately over something that is really kind of geeky underneath the hood. I'm like seeing that a lot.
Hmm, that sounds really interesting. So do you tend to attract students who might, you know, not have a ton of computer expertise? Or like coding experience? Do you get to see those lights turn on is they kind of realize the power?
Yes, I was a little surprised. So I've taught that I think it's my third year teaching this course, we just kind of revamped it for this year. And we give a mix, like there's probably I'm going to say 60% of students are like the ones you describe who are just kind of, you know, looking to broaden their horizons, and you know, getting those first exposures. And the others are often very deeply knowledgeable about it, you know, they know tons of coding, they know lots of these things, and they can bring lots of, you know, strong opinions and a lot of detailed information to the mix. So it's, it's, it's an unusual mix, I think of the of the inexperienced, and the and the very deeply experienced.
Right, cool, that sounds like a really awesome course. Alright, we're going to change gears a little bit, and I'm going to have you tell me about a time when you just vividly remember falling in love with teaching. So that could be you know, before you were in education, or it could have been something that happened while you were in education that reaffirmed that love for you.
Yeah, and kind of took that latter point, there are, there are moments all the time, if I take the take the time to recognize them, like what you described, where it kind of reinforces why you're in it and gives you that, you know, nudge to go on, there were a couple of early ones. So I worked as in software development for about 20 years, because before coming to teaching, and I had the opportunity when working in a large automotive company to become involved in their Six Sigma program, which is about quality control and process management and stuff like that, and, you know, went through training and became an actual, actually an educator for the, for that program within the company. And that was really my first semi formal taste of teaching. And it was really exciting, you know, to to kind of recognize that I like doing this and to feel like you know, I think I could be kind of good at this was so that was that was maybe my first like adult reflection what it might be like to be a teacher?
So it started with adults for you?
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I, you know, have a long history of educators in my family, I think you've probably heard me tell the story. But I counted up at one time and it was like 28, or something like that if I count, you know, grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, you know, who are some form of teacher. So of course, I was just surrounded by going up and, and heard the perspective, even his little guy of what it's like to be a teacher. So I don't think there were too many, like lightbulb moments, you know, it was more like a slow immersion in it. Yeah, that's why it went for me. But yeah, it was as an adult where I think, you know, I first considered you know, I really might give this a go.
Did you start teaching online? And did you start teaching face to face? No, I
taught about 10 years in the face to face classroom. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. So how did that I guess, you know, once you got into the classroom, what did you realize that you that you loved about it?
I hadn't anticipated. Really, how deeply connected I would get to some students, you know, I, we always talk about relationship building. And I didn't, I'm not like an empathetic, empathetic robot. But I was really floored by, you know, what a difference that would make. And even when students would articulate, you know, in whatever stumbling form a 16 year, 17 year old might be able to, you know, the difference that I had made, was really, that that tangible, you know, right there in your face. Validation and feedback, what you're doing is very different from when you get in a large corporate world, right, no matter how positive your yearly review is, it's not the like, it's not the like, those honest moments are the goofy ones, right? I, you know, I got to be, you know, a dorky math teacher, and basically tell Mad, Mad, you know, talk dad jokes, and get kids to laugh at them, and I, you can get a kick out of it. So, I think there were, there were unexpected rewards, along with the expected ones. And, you know, don't get me wrong, you know, just how exasperating they can be at times. But that's part of it, too, you know, you know, day in and day out that you had some impact, maybe not always good. But, you know, that, that you did something that day? Yeah,
thank you for sharing that. That's, that's great. And can you tell me a little bit about your journey into education, because you did have an interesting one.
Um, you know, as an undergraduate, I studied computer science and worked in that industry for about 20 years, got the chance to work for, it was kind of cool. A number of different sized companies kind of from quite small, to medium to large. So I got a real good perspective on, you know, what that business looks like, worked in a lot of different application fields, you know, finance, quality control, etc, etc. And at some point, I, you know, started thinking, Okay, well is this really, you know, what I want to do for the rest of my life, not that I was unhappy in any way. But you know, there's only so many windows that open after a while. So I, you know, shared the experience about my chance to teach a little bit in that in that role. And, you know, with the very brave and generous support of my wife and family decided to chalk that career go back to school. And I originally was a math teacher in the face to face classroom because they didn't offer any computer science courses, and was lucky to be able to develop, you know, at least the starting of that curriculum. So but but by the time I left, we had, you know, a fledgling little computer science program gone. And when I, when I reached the point where, again, looking for something new, after about 10 years that I, I was hoping to be able to kind of marry the two backgrounds in a certain way to be able to leverage more of my experience in software development in understanding computer systems and being able to, you know, the system's thinking training, I had to be able to kind of merge that a little bit more or leverage that side a little bit more. Well, and
I've heard, you know, really cool things about, you know, your contributions to as an online teacher, because you have that, you know, software background that you've helped, you know, build little Google extensions and different sorts of things to make online. Teaching easier.
You know, I think that background helped me a lot going into the face to face classroom or going into teaching in the first place. Rather than facing what I think I hear a lot of young instructors Express where, you know, they're like, I want her to teach because I really wanted to, but I've always wondered, should I have, you know, better writer should I have gone into, and I was lucky enough to have really two full careers beforehand and walk into this, you know, eyes wide open, handheld up and be able to bring all that experience. So I think I think I was able to bring a lot of credibility. When I talked about real world examples, I was able to, to know that I was doing what I chose to do, you know, both of those things together, were a big leg up for me as a as a beginning teacher.
Yeah, that's, that's really cool. I really like that story. So today, we're going to be talking about three ways to bring computer science concepts into your classroom. I'm wondering our first we can pause, unpack the wire a little bit. So I know that you've done a lot of work at the state level, to form the computer science standards. And I was wondering if you could just tell us a little bit about this work, and why it's so important. And this is indicated in those state standards, that all students have exposure to some fundamental computer science concepts.
Yeah. It was, it was really cool opportunity to be involved in working on those state standards, not just because it's valuable work, and I got to meet interesting people, but to help me, to force me to articulate to myself what I thought was important, you know, are all my pearls of wisdom in the final standards? Of course not. But you know, is it time to reflect a little bit? First, I'm going to take, I think, kind of the lazy answer to bring the bring computer science concepts into your classroom, I'm going to argue that they're there already. Right? And that it's more about recognizing them, articulating them and reinforcing them, right? We don't think about, you know, how am I going to bring reading into my classroom? I mean, we do, but we know it's there, right? Even in the math classroom, we know readings already there, it's a matter of bringing a focus to it, and you know, etc, etc. And I think it isn't a stretch to say the same things going off for computer science. Of course, there's all the hard technical skills, you know, every list of top jobs for the next X years is going to list computer programming and stuff like that. But by no means is every kid going to go into that? I hadn't forbid they would. That just seems that just seems brutal and boring. I think if you were to take a look at the computer science standards, you'd quickly recognize that they're bigger than just coding, they're bigger than just learning how to make program in language XYZ. In fact, I connect it usually to probably the leading buzzword that an employer puts on a job posting, they're looking for critical thinkers, right. And I think computer science brings a set of tools and perspectives that let students become better critical thinkers. So that's, that's my short answer to that. It's, it's a sore point for me the perspective that why do we need to add yet another thing? And I know you're not implying that. But so forgive me if I babble a little bit about
No, I, in this, I like to ask questions that make people just a tiny bit peeved, because that's where you get the that's where you get the passionate and interesting answers. So that was that was spot on. So thank you, you were talking about how you know, every job description nowadays talks about critical thinking. It's something that we hear about, whenever schools are putting out their, you know, portrait of a graduate, or whatever it might be. It's those critical thinking skills. And I was just wondering, you know, as somebody who might not have a deep understanding of what these computer science concepts are that we're talking about, can you just expand on that a little bit about how these things facilitate critical thinking? Yeah.
So one of the things that's been put forward in computer science education thinking in the past 1015 years, is this idea of computational thinking. So in addition to the, like, the more formal computer science theory, and the the hard techie, you know, coding skills. There's this other Yeah, I don't know if you can see my hands right now. But I'm making a little Venn diagram with the show, The Show the overlap, and there's this other region that is more broader computational thinking. And it's described many different ways with varying levels of academic rigor. The four pieces that I like to hold on to the four skills or approaches. The first one is called decomposition or functional decomposition, and it's divide and conquer, right, the ability to look at a large problem and break it down into smaller pieces to look at a system to break into its component pieces. The next is pattern recognition, you know, being able to identify Is this really a pattern? You know what I think this has happened again? And again, I wonder if I wonder if we're looking at a pattern, the idea of abstraction to say, well, you know, it looks like, this happens when I do that. And when I do it again, over here, it happens again, is there an underlying principle that I can abstract? You know, what is it, that Terrier and a poodle and a shepherd have in common that make them a dog, right. And this is a big part of something that kind of happened organically in the development of programming that we've recognized is kind of a philosophical underpinning. And the final one is the idea of algorithms, which I think most people are exposed to, at this point, the idea that you communicate a process the steps for a process in crisp, clear cut terms, you know, that can be executed and reproduced by a computer or another person or something like that. So I think those those four skills when combined, especially I think, the interplay between abstracting and decomposition, the kind of forest and trees back and forth, that's necessary for deep understanding, I think, to me goes a long way towards defining what critical thinking is.
I just had a little activity over here. And it's, I mean, you know, it's one that you've probably already had, but since I'm, you know, hadn't thought about these concepts in this way, before, I was like, wow. It's if, okay, so this is based on a very a pretty limited understanding of how computers function. But the whole idea of computers, right is teaching, you're teaching a machine how to think sort of right, especially with like AI and whatnot. So it does kind of make sense that in order to create a computer, you'd have to figure out what it is to actually, you know, think critically. And so humans can take those concepts and replicate them. They're also improving their own thinking, says, Oh, my gosh, there are machines that think that's
cool, I think. And, you know, the deeper philosophical waters, what does it mean to think, you know, when do how will we know when a computer is thinking? And that leads to, you know, not just this abstract sci fi topic, but what does it mean for humans to think, you know, what's, what's going on with various psychological processes? What happens to someone when they're stricken with Alzheimer's? And they slowly lose? You know, what makes them them? There's, there's, there's deep waters that you can quickly connect to? And it it's a lens, like so many others?
Yeah, and if this is maybe a separate discipline, but if computers can think, in some ways better than we can, what is it that makes us different? Or what what is it that makes us human? So yeah, there's some
cool softball questions. Yeah. So
one of the focuses of our conversation today is going to be about you know, bringing computer science concepts into your classroom. And so that to me, you know, begs the question, why is it that computer science should be cross disciplinary? What, what does that bring to it?
Yeah, and I think I can play the similar trick to what I did with the last question and say that already is cross disciplinary, right? There is a small corner of computer science that is strictly about computer science and the theory of computer science, right? That is, there is work that goes on there, but if you think about it, what do we use computers for? You know, we use them for research, we use them. We use them in the hard sciences for, you know, analysis, we use them in finance at Commerce, we use them in music, we use them in in film, you know, there it's it's a set of tools already directed towards other disciplines. Right. So I think in that sense, it is already cross disciplinary.
I'm Nikki Herta and you're listening to bright stories of hope and innovation in Michigan classrooms. Bright is brought to you in part by Meemic insurance company, insuring the educational community for more than 70 years. teachers and school employees visit meemic.com/quote to see how much you can save. today I'm chatting with Kevin santur, a lead instructor for Michigan virtuals career and technical education online courses, he left a 20 year career in software development to become a teacher. Up next we dive into Kevin's top three suggestions for bringing computer science concepts into the classroom. I think it's time for us to dig in to are your top three tips for bringing computer science concepts into the classroom. So can you kick us off with number one?
Absolutely. I can't. The first one, I think is the idea of debugging. I've run across it in a lot of literature. Since since The time this happened to me, but actually as a face to face math instructor accidentally one day, you know, students or couple of students were working on a problem on board, and you could see they've done it wrong. And I said, Well, you know, I think we're on the track here, let's we're on the right track here. Let's see if we can debug this. And I didn't even really think about it, it was just, you know, years of being a programmer, that's just a common verb I have in my head. And one of them especially kind of looked at me like, you know, side-eyed. But we got to the point that and moved on, but it made me recognize, and then I consciously started using it, this idea of looking at problems as something to be debugged rather than the strict wrong, right. It was most painfully aware in the math classroom, you got the wrong answer, done. Right, when of course, would ever want that, right. It's like, well, why did you get the wrong answer? And I think there's not just a liberating perspective there for students. But I think there are some pragmatic avenues that open up with that perspective. You know, being able to dissect a problem, that decomposition idea, break it down, it looks good up to here, let's get up to here. Oh, you know, this is where it goes wrong. This is where we need to focus our efforts. And that's important, you know, what is wrong with, with like, my internal representation of this, that, that I went awry, here, I think there's a lot of a lot of power there, you know, we talked about in students, you know, constructing models in their head or representations, and where they can fall short, been able to know, then when you actually have successfully debunked it. I'll, you know, taught taught with my fellow math teachers about, you know, students who will do a story problem about calculating a tip at dinner, and they'll come up with, you know, 28 cents or $3,512. I both immediately say, Gosh, I think there might be something wrong with that, we have to have a lot of context, right. This is the, you know, the students had never been to a restaurant where they had to pay, certainly, some of May, we've never been to a restaurant where there was tipping involved, right? So that, that idea of how do I know when I get the right answer? How do I convince other people, when I think those kinds of things really open up to social studies in English, the idea of convincing arguments, and, you know, being able to pose a counter argument, and you know, skepticism and so forth. And I think I alluded to this before, when you do debugging, you often have to move back and forth between scales, you have to move between the forest and the trees, you know, you have to look at Oh, did I do, you know, four sentences in this introductory paragraph? Versus does this topic sentence even make sense to me right now, there and I think students grownups aren't often adept at that, that kind of systems thinking have been able to hold the large picture in their mind at the same time is there diving into the details? And I think those are all those are all part of a debugging mindset. And especially when you frame it, as you know, why doesn't it work yet? I think there's, I think there's a lot of avenues.
I find it really fascinating. So I spoke with someone last season. Dr. Amin Yadav, few met him or heard of him before. Okay. And so he did talk a bit about debugging. And
he's a noted person on computational thinking. Oh, yes, yes. I'm grateful. You see the connections?
Yes, yes. And we talked a bit about, you know, how in the math classroom specifically, you know, using that as an example, and how that led to growth mindsets for students, right in math classrooms. But I find it really interesting the examples that you're telling me about, you know, the English classroom, because that's kind of what I was just wondering, too, is like, you know, what would that look like in the English classroom, but I like the example that you gave, you know, like, with a topic sentence, like, oh, the topic sentence isn't working, what exactly is going on, and then like pulling back into that big picture, and then zooming back in? I think that's a really neat way to think about it.
I think one of the places it shows up is in like peer reviewing stuff. In the coding world, we talk about pair programming, partner programming, you know, one guy is at the keyboard, and, you know, his partner is standing over his shoulder, you know, and they take turns back and forth. And so there's this give and take of what they're focusing on who was driving at that time. And I think the same kinds of things play out in in the peer review papers and even in a well run discussion, right there. If if there's a good Socratic guide or from the outside, I think you can pull those things out. You know what I think you can, you could pick apart problems and look at, you know, large and small scales.
That makes sense. All right, what? So that was number one, we've got, you know, bringing in the concept of debugging. What do you got for us for your second strategy,
rules, rules, Colin, where they come from and when to break them. So spoke about the idea of pattern recognition of seeing what something is recurring. And, you know, abstracting that out and saying, you know, what, this, this, I'm going to call this a hypothesis, I'm going to go so far as to call it a theory. Right? So clearly, we're already connected to the scientific method. But this happens, I'll use an English example, you're looking at a meter, meter and rhythm in poetry, right? And you can think about from as simple as a haiku up to a limerick, you know, through. I have a pentameter, you know, there's, there's these kind of rigid structures that we discovered people using or, you know, I'm not, I'm not enough of an expert to know where the chicken and egg is here. But at some point, people started recognizing, you know, these poems all have this in common, you know, what's going on with these. And so people started consciously using this as a set of rules, right? They recognize the pattern, they imitated it. And then of course, the next stages are, well, what else can we do with that? What if I vary this by doing that? What if I, what if I, all of a sudden have a poem that doesn't have words that rhyme? You know, you can blow with 3/3 graders mind with that. And I think this is something that the computer science just has done since its inception. Right? It's like you described tackling something as grandiose, as you know, what is human intelligence? Well, we're gonna make our best stabs at modeling it and describing the rules, if you will, the algorithms that that we use, and then we're going to see where the boundaries of that are. What circumstances does it work? In? What circumstances does it work in? What are the limits of the rules? How much they do? Do they depend on the context around? Are we recognizing rules that were inherently there? Or are we imposing some construct on there? Right, it's easy to go from there, again, to you know, more philosophical ideas, like the rule of law and human nature and, you know, fill your fill in the blank with, you know, your, your thorny political, social issue. I guess what I'm trying to do is connect the dots back to the critical thinker idea that this awareness of an ability to recognize these patterns to abstract and articulate these rules to formulate and communicate algorithms, but also to be very aware of their limitations, right. My wife tells a story, she works in nursing informatics to work many years as as hospital nurse in intensive care units, stuff like that. But anyway, computerized prescription delivery system, right, the computer told them told the nurse that she should be giving 10 milligrams of this drug. Well, it turns out that the the pills come in, like five microgram doses. So 10 milligrams, I may be exaggerating, the story is like 40 pills or something like that. And fortunately, someone stepped in. But you know, the poor person went so far as to like to dispense the 40 pills, and was like taking them to the patient before someone stepped in. And, to me, it's a classic example of while the computer told me to, which is funny and horrific. But it's something that I think happens all the time, you know, pick, like I said, picture, social issue. Well, you know, my parents always told me this, my society always told me this, or my English teacher always told me, I should, you know, have five paragraphs in a persuasive essay, you know, why wouldn't I do six? So, I don't want to overblow overblow that, but I think the idea of formal systems of identifying rules and algorithms and and playing around with them, knowing when you have to, when you have to make the changes when you have to adapt them.
So I'm very intrigued by what what you're saying here. And I guess one question that I have is, so if I think about like, what this looks like in practice, I'm asking myself and I can imagine you like having these conversations with students. And I get the feeling maybe you do, but I could be wrong about that.
You're on my best day. Right, right? Yeah, yeah,
I guess I could see the power of actually just talking like this with students, you know, and getting them to think about what are rules? And what are what does it mean to solve problems, and maybe using these computer science concepts is a framework and a way to say, Oh, well, this is how it works in computing. And this is how we teach a computer how to do this thing, you know, but just even getting kind of, it's kind of pulls you out of your like, you know, just default way of thinking, and it just pulls you back and makes you come up, stand above it, and look down and be like, yeah, what are you know, why do I listen to the computer? Why do where did this come from? Where, what makes a rule what makes you know, it's, it's more philosophical and abstract than I would have thought, you know, when I think of when I was thinking about this interview, even I was thinking, you know, like, I don't know where, like you said, more like,
I'm going to use, I'm going to use a spreadsheet to look at economic data, right. And those are fabulous ideas. And of course, students should be doing that they shouldn't, you know, but I do think there's, you know, an underlying depth, and that's where I'm attracted, right? That's the I love having frameworks to hang things on. One of the reasons that I was not probably the most rewarding student in high school was that I passively rebelled, when I didn't think something made sense, right? Or when, when someone couldn't explain to me, you know, why this mattered to me. And so, you know, I've probably does a bit of maturing since then. But I think that underlying, I really want to know, what makes this hang together is a big part of where I look. And I think it doesn't even have to get super philosophical, I think about, say, you're looking at, oh, I don't know, follow the Roman Empire. Right. And every, you know, ninth grade textbook is gonna give you the six reasons why the Roman Empire fell. Well, what if you looked at it instead, as giving the what if you gave the students instead the chance to look at, you know, possible candidate factors or data that might lead them to make these conclusions? Let them discover that pattern themselves? argue for or against it? Right, let them be part of the, the creative part of, of that, of that discipline, social studies, rather than just, you know, gobbling up with someone else already made? Right. I think, I think that shift of, of letting students discover it, I think most every teacher is going to say, Yeah, that's a good thing in my discipline, right? Instead of telling them the rules of what makes a sonnet, you know, let them discover that. Right? Let them argue for it, let them look at ones that kind of bend the rules, you know, and say, Well, is this still a sonnet or not? I think, I think there's, there's a lot of richness there, and, and certainly more rewarding activities.
I taught like a first year writing class in, you know, when I was getting my Masters, and one of my favorite, like, class periods that we had is one time we debated whether or not emojis were could be considered punctuation. And students came out of the woodwork on that one. You know, what? What is punctuation? Oh, my gosh, I don't know.
Yeah. And I'm gonna contend that is like a classic computer science argument. Right. And in fact, it could really have, um, you know, like software design implications, you know, when you think about the way symbols and stuff are encoded in the computer, right? There's organizations, international organizations behind the scenes that prove that the Unicode for the smiley face emoji is 00, you know, whatever those and it shouldn't be in the same categories of punctuation, those, those are real arguments that actually can really matter. And so getting a chance to play around with that approach in a lower stakes setting. No, that's, that's good stuff.
Let's, let's hear it your third strategy.
This one is a bit of a cheat, because I'm not entirely sure if it's a separate if it's a fully distinct one. But I'm going to refer to the idea of algorithms, right? So again, an algorithm and computer science can be defined variously, but it's a set of instructions, right, that are clear enough that whatever machine or person is going to execute them. They can do it without ambiguity, right? It could be you know, get out the two pieces of bread. Get out the knife, get out the peanut butter, get out the jam, right, it can include conditions. If you don't like jam, then put the jam back. You could say you can have what we call iteration. While the driveway isn't free of snow keeps shuffling, right? So those simple building blocks are used to describe virtually everything that goes on a computer, right at one level or another. We take advantage of that abstraction and measured mentioned before, so that we don't have to perpetually, you know, dig down to the lowest level of detail. Now, once I tell you how to shovel the sidewalk, you probably know how to shovel the driveway, right or with a few modifications, I can tell you that. So algorithms is early is preschool kids are taught procedures, classroom processes and routines, right how to line up for recess, how to get ready for snack time how to, you know, and that goes on through, you know, middle school, and after high school, really through college, right. There's the the process that you go through for signing up for classes, there's the process you go through for ordering your cap and gown. They're, they're everywhere. And I think one thing I propose is to recognize them and label them as algorithms from early on, so that you can then look at things like debugging, you know what, whenever we go get ready to go out to recess, we run into this problem, let's look at our algorithm and see if we can debug that. Right. I think that's a that's a valid framework. I think it's tied closely to an ability to communicate both verbally and in written terms. Right? Your, your goal is an essayist is to make your point cleanly, simply and elegantly, without ambiguity, right? I mean, if you perhaps if you're a fiction writer, you look at acuity but right, it's a, when an employer talks about good communication skills, it's often this kind of thing. Can you describe your process? Right? Act, the act of describing your process coders find early on walking someone else through their code, you know, oh, you know what, that doesn't do what I thought it did. That's where the problem is, right. And I think the same thing happens in debugging an essay in looking at a math problem with a partner, or, you know, whoever that I'm forcing you to articulate in a step by step manner to slow down, break it down and look at it is, is it really important skill? So I think, using the language and using that framework, from early on, is only a good thing.
Well, before we get going, there's two quick questions I'm gonna ask you. The first one is, can you tell me about a student who touched your heart and changed the way you teach?
Yeah, of course, there have been many, one. So midway through my face to face career, I was teaching AP Calc, first hour in the morning, which is just tough for high school juniors and seniors, and had some tardy problems in one, one scene in particular, man, just day after day, you know, a drift in five minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes late, and wasn't always doing great at keeping up on work. And so I think one day, I must have let like, let my facial expressions just kind of get away from me. And another student in the class who I happened to actually know a little bit better. I'd had an earlier year, she stopped after class, she said, I'm assuming you may want to just talk to him to see about what's going on. I won't use his name, but you may just want to just just talk to him, see if you can get him to share what's going on. Turns out, he's one of two kids, he has a younger brother, who was like eight, his dad had an opioid addiction. So most every night, he was doing something to take care of his dad, and then making sure to, you know, get his his brother ready for school, and walk them to school because he lives, you know, a bad neighborhood away from the elementary school where his son could where his brother could be dropped off early. And, of course, he didn't share this with me immediately. You know, in the course I was I was moved and it was like, Oh, God, you know, what can I do? And he said, Do you think I could just call you sometimes, you know, he says, I really want I don't know if I can pass this class, but I just really want to learn as much as I can. And I'm like, at this point, I'm, I'm nearly in tears. And so when you asked early on about, you know, the experience of transitioning or you know, what made me be a teacher or something like that. I mean, that moment is was just huge for me. And I don't know if it made me, you know, more open and receptive to every tardy student afterwards. But it was, it was a great reminder that there are so many stories out there. And you can always know him. And if you're lucky, maybe you can get them to share a little bit.
Yeah, and just the reminder that, even if it's not, you know, even on that scale, that's obviously a pretty significant disruption in a student's life. But you know, everybody has a story in it, you can never remember that enough times. You know, he had to go keep circling back to it and circling back to it and remind yourself, you know,
yeah, I mean, even just like, selfishly, it's kind of horrified. Like, what if I just been a jerk one day and really lit into him in front of, you know, the rest of the class, he would have just sat there and taken it, because, like, in his world, just wasn't that big a deal? You know, but I would have just felt so small.
All right, and can you tell me about a teacher who had an impact in your life?
You know, I told you, I come from a huge family. So in one sense, I've had a million teachers having an impact on the one that I thought of was a high school math teacher I had long before I even thought about this, Mr. codnor. And to start with, he was like, he was super cool. I mean, he was quiet about it, you know, it wasn't, you know, flashy or anything, but like, you know, he just had a presence, he didn't get slapped by kids. He could talk real easily with you. Um, but what I learned, only kind of in retrospect, you know, why he stuck in my head was he was the first teacher, I was really aware of how they planned out the moves, they would make how, you know, seemingly spontaneous questions that he would put in, you know, as a follow up, or the way, he built an explanation, showing demonstrating how to understand something for from two or three different directions. I mean, for the first time, I really got the sense of, like, the craft that went into it. And I don't, you know, couldn't articulate that is a 14 year old, but looking back, I'm like, really had game. I mean, he was really good at showing the reasons underneath something. And talking about multiple ways to get to the same right answer, just a lot more flexibility and, and freedom and, and fluidity, then then I certainly experienced, you know, this is a long time ago in education, where a math class would have been taught, for the most part straight out of the book, this is the example we'll do it on the overhead projector together, then, you know, you'll try one on your own, then you'll do the homework, you know, whereas Mr. Connor was, you know, he was he would build a model for you would have, you know, a chalkboard explanation, he would have other avenues into understanding things. And it was really it was really eye opening to me in terms of technique. But the overriding thing underneath it was that was it, he was cool. He was he, you could relate to him, you could talk to him, he knew you. Right. I wouldn't ask a question, because I was too cool to ask a question. But he would know, you know, if maybe I was struggling with something, and I would circle by my desk and check in on me. Right. Just just had a lot of stuff going on.
Do you think consciously or unconsciously that had an impact on the way that you teach?
Well, I think so. Yeah, I think I think I'm both right. I think there, there are times, I can think of a couple of his, you know, explanations, you know, for, you know, what makes a rhombus different from squares, something like that. I can picture him up in front of the classroom doing that. So I have some of those conscious memories. But I suspect that the seemingly effortless way he made connections with students and built relationships is something that's influenced me I can't claim his skill, but I it's something to aspire to.
You know, I recall, when you were the Teacher of the Year, the online teacher of the year in 2019, I want to say so right. I think so. Yeah. I remember reading a couple you know, just little tidbits that came from whoever nominated you. And hearing stories, what you relating to students and that echoed kind of the one that you just said said before about a student really opening up to you so I think you probably got some Mr. Mr. Kutner sister, Mr. Capra vibes going on to so well
thanks. Yeah, I think we opened you know with with the rewarding moments are almost opened with it. Um, and is what keeps you going right? That that, that you do get hit so that that that, that it mattered that it made a difference. And, you know, there's always that hope out there, you know, and there's nothing better than feeling.
Without a doubt, it's challenging work, to get students to think deeply about their own thought processes, and use concepts from the world of computing, to better understand both the technology at their fingertips and their own minds. But with leaders like Kevin, forging our path forward, there's one thing or certain have said the future is bright. You know, someone who's an inspiring Michigan educator who should be featured on our show, send us an email at Bright, Michigan virtual.org to let us know who they are, and why we should interview. Thank you for joining us for this episode of stories of hope and innovation in Michigan classrooms. This podcast is produced by pervy Gaylord is hosted by me Nikki herder, and is shaped by many of our passionate and talented colleagues. Big thanks to Cassie Harris, Krista green, and Brandon Battista for their contributions to this episode. Bright is brought to you in part by Meemic insurance company, insuring the educational community for more than 70 years. teachers and school employees visit meemic.com/quote to see how much you can save. The bright podcast is made possible by Michigan Virtual, a nonprofit organization that's leading and collaborating to build learning environments for tomorrow. Education is changing faster than ever. Discover new models and resources to move learning forward at your school at Michigan virtual.org. move learning forward at your school at Michigan virtual.org.