Discussions

Hi Everyone.  I would love to dive in more on the content from the recent ATLIS Summit on "Empowering Students through STEAM and Computational Thinking".  Some of the main points highlighted at the Summit were:

• 9:06 - Donna Muller discusses the concept of computational thinking through a computer scientist lens. She covers the need to start creating problem-based/project-based situations for our students to give them computational thinking skills from an early age, and build upon these skills through their curriculum as they grow.
• 27:07 - Jason Innes demonstrates KIBO, and how it teaches the youngest students coding and programming skills through storytelling and play. He also covers the importance of bringing STEAM tools to children at the earliest stages to improve equity for future careers in STEM.
• 38:12 - Pati Ruiz discusses the research being done by Digital Promise to integrate computational thinking early on in curriculums, as a way to build more equitable pathways to computer science.
• 48:13 - Pati discusses her research to understand the implications and to support the effective use of AI in the classroom and future technologies.

Some questions/thoughts/insights that I would love to discuss are:

What model of instruction have you implemented at your school to achieve some of these objectives?  I'm thinking of this in 3 groupings such as P-2, 3-5 and 6-8. (St. Anne's in Denver is a P-8 so the High School level doesn't pertain to us but others may want to discuss this level as well).  By model of instruction, I'm thinking of whether you have a tech coordinator/teacher push into classes in the homerooms? do you have electives that teach these subjects? are the main teachers tasked with these topics? do you approach these topics in a maker space?

I'm sure there are other thoughts/questions/remarks and I would love to hear it all.

Thanks!

Glen Worthing
St. Anne's Episcopal School - Denver, CO - PS through 8th
Director of Technology 
#TeachingandLearning

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Glen Worthing
Director of Technology
St. Anne's Episcopal School
------------------------------

Hello Glen - Thank you for the recap of the summit! We appreciated you being on the call and look forward to hearing from others and the answering of your questions.

Should you need any other information from Jason, he can be reached at jason@kinderlabrobotics.com. He has been on vacation since the Summit but he will be back in touch here with his perspectives and what he has seen in terms of successful implementation/use models of KIBO robots with young learners.

Thanks again,
Christina Nawn
Director of Marketing
KinderLab Robotics

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Christina Nawn
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-15-2022 11:43 AM
From: Glen Worthing
Subject: For those that watched "Empowering Students through STEAM and Computational Thinking"

Hi Everyone.  I would love to dive in more on the content from the recent ATLIS Summit on "Empowering Students through STEAM and Computational Thinking".  Some of the main points highlighted at the Summit were:

• 9:06 - Donna Muller discusses the concept of computational thinking through a computer scientist lens. She covers the need to start creating problem-based/project-based situations for our students to give them computational thinking skills from an early age, and build upon these skills through their curriculum as they grow.
• 27:07 - Jason Innes demonstrates KIBO, and how it teaches the youngest students coding and programming skills through storytelling and play. He also covers the importance of bringing STEAM tools to children at the earliest stages to improve equity for future careers in STEM.
• 38:12 - Pati Ruiz discusses the research being done by Digital Promise to integrate computational thinking early on in curriculums, as a way to build more equitable pathways to computer science.
• 48:13 - Pati discusses her research to understand the implications and to support the effective use of AI in the classroom and future technologies.

Some questions/thoughts/insights that I would love to discuss are:

What model of instruction have you implemented at your school to achieve some of these objectives?  I'm thinking of this in 3 groupings such as P-2, 3-5 and 6-8. (St. Anne's in Denver is a P-8 so the High School level doesn't pertain to us but others may want to discuss this level as well).  By model of instruction, I'm thinking of whether you have a tech coordinator/teacher push into classes in the homerooms? do you have electives that teach these subjects? are the main teachers tasked with these topics? do you approach these topics in a maker space?

I'm sure there are other thoughts/questions/remarks and I would love to hear it all.

Thanks!

Glen Worthing
St. Anne's Episcopal School - Denver, CO - PS through 8th
Director of Technology 
#TeachingandLearning

------------------------------
Glen Worthing
Director of Technology
St. Anne's Episcopal School
------------------------------

Hi Glen:

Just wanted to say thank you for opening a discussion on some of these points. I agree, it was a really interesting panel and covered a lot of great material. A few responses to your questions:

* Re groupings: I think your groups (PK-2, 3-5, 6-8) make a lot of sense developmentally. You may be interested to look at the K12 CS Framework (https://k12cs.org/) and the CS standards that the Computer Science Teachers' Association built based on the framework (https://www.csteachers.org/page/standards). These standards also group instruction by the bands you identified (K-2, 3-5, 6-8). The thinking that went into these frameworks and standards are very thorough -- and KinderLab's co-founder Dr. Marina Bers contributed to the early childhood perspectives in the K12 framework so I'm biased. :)

* If you're interested in equity in STEM, another researcher who was instrumental in the development of KIBO is Dr. Amanda Sullivan. She has a great book called "Breaking the STEM Stereotype" which is all about how to understand and overcome barriers to girls' participation in STEM. http://bit.ly/stemstereotype

* I hope you'll come to tomorrow's webinar about KIBO too! Two independent school technology/makerpace teachers, Kim Walker and Dan Riles will talk about their experiences! https://atlis.memberclicks.net/index.php?option=com_jevents&task=icalrepeat.detail&evid=667&Itemid=115

Looking forward to hearing what others' think about the points you raised.
Best
-Jason



Original Message:
Sent: 04-15-2022 11:43 AM
From: Glen Worthing
Subject: For those that watched "Empowering Students through STEAM and Computational Thinking"

Hi Everyone.  I would love to dive in more on the content from the recent ATLIS Summit on "Empowering Students through STEAM and Computational Thinking".  Some of the main points highlighted at the Summit were:

• 9:06 - Donna Muller discusses the concept of computational thinking through a computer scientist lens. She covers the need to start creating problem-based/project-based situations for our students to give them computational thinking skills from an early age, and build upon these skills through their curriculum as they grow.
• 27:07 - Jason Innes demonstrates KIBO, and how it teaches the youngest students coding and programming skills through storytelling and play. He also covers the importance of bringing STEAM tools to children at the earliest stages to improve equity for future careers in STEM.
• 38:12 - Pati Ruiz discusses the research being done by Digital Promise to integrate computational thinking early on in curriculums, as a way to build more equitable pathways to computer science.
• 48:13 - Pati discusses her research to understand the implications and to support the effective use of AI in the classroom and future technologies.

Some questions/thoughts/insights that I would love to discuss are:

What model of instruction have you implemented at your school to achieve some of these objectives?  I'm thinking of this in 3 groupings such as P-2, 3-5 and 6-8. (St. Anne's in Denver is a P-8 so the High School level doesn't pertain to us but others may want to discuss this level as well).  By model of instruction, I'm thinking of whether you have a tech coordinator/teacher push into classes in the homerooms? do you have electives that teach these subjects? are the main teachers tasked with these topics? do you approach these topics in a maker space?

I'm sure there are other thoughts/questions/remarks and I would love to hear it all.

Thanks!

Glen Worthing
St. Anne's Episcopal School - Denver, CO - PS through 8th
Director of Technology 
#TeachingandLearning

------------------------------
Glen Worthing
Director of Technology
St. Anne's Episcopal School
------------------------------