What initially sparked your interest in Computer Science education?

During my 6th grade year, I got in trouble at school and was sent to time out in a room that had a couple of computers in it. I got to play around with one of the computers and was intrigued. To foster my interest, my parents purchased a Commodore 64. The problem was, I didn’t know anyone else that had one or was interested in learning how to use it; so I mainly just played a few games and used it for word processing. In college, I found another kindred soul and we began curating projects that students could use the computer to complete. These were mainly projects that used the programs already on the computer. Again, I ran into issues when the schools at which I did my student teaching did not have any computers. Once I became a teacher, I was excited to have a computer lab at my school, so I utilized it as much as possible. This led me to earn a Master’s in Instructional Technology. I practiced my skills on my students and started an after school club for those students that were interested in learning more than we could incorporate into our science lessons. It wasn’t until one of the students in my after school club asked me about Scratch that I began to get into other aspects of computer science and programming. I stopped teaching science and became a technology teacher and haven’t looked back since.

What have you been challenged by as a Computer Science teacher? What are you proud of?

I am fortunate enough to not have a specific curriculum that I have to teach. That is very liberating and also very daunting. When I first began teaching computer science, I knew I wanted my students to do more than learn how to type documents and create presentations, but had a hard time finding a curriculum. I spent many years piecing things together. Now there are several curriculums available. I am proud that I have been at the forefront of bringing many of these curriculums to my district. What’s even crazier is that I get to teach others how to use these curriculums. Another thing that I am proud of is helping my district to begin to establish a K-12 computer science pathway. Working with others who are dedicated to ensuring students in our district are exposed to computer science throughout their education has been both exciting and frustrating; but definitely worth the fight. There have been some challenges in my career as a middle school computer science teacher. There are still people (other teachers, mainly) that think the purpose of my class is to help students type research papers and create presentations for their other classes. I feel like I have to prove that the things my students are learning are worthwhile and related to the real world. I can’t tell you the number of times someone has looked at something one of my students has programmed and described it as “nice”. They have no idea how much work goes into planning, coding, and debugging a program. Another frustration is not having another teacher in my building with whom I can plan lessons. There is no one to bounce ideas off, join in on my victory dances, or stop me when I am going off the rails. When I work with non-computer science teachers I can see their eyes gloss over when I get into the specifics of a project. All-in-all, however, the victories outweigh the challenges and that is what keeps me moving forward.

What’s going well for you now?

There are so many positive things happening in my classroom. During the third quarter, my students got to test out a new device that is not on the market yet, the Paper:Bit created by Chibitronics founder, Jie Qi. It was a great opportunity to help my students explore how a product comes onto the market. They got to speak with the designer about her inspiration, vision, victories, and challenges and to give feedback on what they liked and improvements they would make. My students are excited to see if any of their suggestions will make it onto the final version of the device. My seventh grade classes are studying artificial intelligence. We just had a lively discussion on how AI is used in the camera app of many cell phones and whether or not cell phone pictures should be used as evidence in court cases. Now, many of my students are actively seeking out articles to discuss in class. This was not something I assigned them to do, but something they enjoy doing. The students find the articles and I give them 10 minutes at the end of class to discuss it with their classmates. Many of you would be surprised at how deeply middle school students think about current events. My 8th grade students are learning Python by programming the Micro:bit. At the end of class, I have to kick some of them out of the room because they want to stay and continue working. Their eyes light up when they get a program to work and they are great about helping their peers whenever they have an issue. I am now teaching them how to help each other without just giving the answer. So I have implemented a “No Hands” policy. Whenever they are assisting another student, they can only ask questions and they cannot touch another students' device. One thing is for certain, many of them now know from first hand experience that they do not want to become teachers, but there are a couple that are interested. Either way, I can’t wait to see what the future holds for my students.