1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:11,999
This is episode 258 of IDRA Class Notes.
2
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:49,999
Yo, you could just see they became
comfortable at making mistakes, trying
things out. And so much of computer
science is, I just got to try this out,
see what happens. And then the other
thing about their shift has to require
them to present about their game to a
person, to the class, and then too at
the showcase a group of peoples, just
that kind of confidence that being okay
in your skin at presenting what you did
is invaluable.
3
00:00:50,000 --> 00:02:08,999
Welcome to the IDRA Class Notes podcast.
Today, we're talking about the IDRA
Vision Coders Program and how game
design can be a powerful pathway into
computer science learning. I'm joined by
my friend, Dr. Carol Redfield, who has
partnered with me for the past five
years in developing and refining the
Vision Coders curriculum. She serves as
a Professor of Computer Science at St.
Mary's University in San Antonio. I also
lovingly refer to her as the CS Queen
everywhere I go. I'm Dr. Stephanie
Garcia, IDRA STEM Education Specialist,
and I've had the privilege of serving as
the Project Director for Vision Coders.
If you aren't familiar already, Vision
Coders is modeled after our flagship
program, the IDRA Valued Youth
Partnership. It's a cross-age mentorship
program where students who are
considered at risk for dropping out of
school, they're all involved in this
year-long elective course where middle
school students serve as game designers
as they code math and reading games for
their buddies in their elementary
schools that are a part of their feeder
pattern. So just really exciting
program. Dr. Redfeld, people often think
computer science is just coding. Why did
we choose game design as the vehicle for
teaching these concepts?
4
00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:46,999
Well, one thing is most people like
games, playing games and gaming. So
there's automatic interest in that. The
other thing, though, I like about what
we've developed is it really does put
the kids through the whole software
development process from analysis,
design, coding, testing, getting
feedback from your users. It puts them
through all those steps. And if you
think about it, that involves a lot of
things, some problem-solving and
critical thinking, and you have to be
creative because you're creating
something from nothing, a game from
nothing. And of course, computational
thinking, which we talk about
specifically in the curriculum.
5
00:02:47,000 --> 00:03:32,999
Absolutely. And I feel like all of that
really drives the student engagement,
right, really hits that inquiry-based
learning that we all want to have that
approach in our classrooms. We've worked
with many students over the years in San
Antonio, and you have a role in many
other programs and work in the
community. What do you think makes
vision coders different from a typical
coding program? Usually students are
consumers of technology, but in this, it
reverses that, it flips it around to
where they're the creators, right? So
talk about that change and that learning
experience and what you think sets
vision coders apart from other typical
coding programs.
6
00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:52,999
Yeah. And one thing I want to add to
what you said before is it's a lot of
active learning. It's much easier for
any one of us to learn from. And as part
of that, the process that they learn is
iterative to make a game and test it out
with getting feedback from their
buddies. Actually, first, they interview
their buddies to find out what--
7
00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,999
Yeah. They get to know who's playing the
game, right?
8
00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:52,999
--we want to work on from letter
recognition to adding two-digit numbers
to whatever their buddy likes and wants
to work on. And a lot of times they find
out what kinds of characters they like.
And so the eighth graders will put those
in the game. Like I saw mermaids. So
using that information from the buddies
that they have and then putting that in
the game, making the game, going through
that whole process, and then getting
feedback again and even making changes
on it. So that kind of iterative
approach was just how a lot of software
is developed. It's called the agile
development process. So they really are
doing that whole thing and getting the
feedback from their users, which so many
times in programming classes, we just
don't do that. It's like, "Program this.
[inaudible]. Yeah. Did you do all that?"
So those are the things I like to say
about it.
9
00:04:53,000 --> 00:05:21,999
Yeah. Absolutely. You're so right about
how it's game design, it's computer
science, it's computational thinking.
It's that design thinking, right? That
empathy factor is really driving the
whole process for them. They have that
relationship with their buddy, and that
really drives them every day to want to
give their best in the game that they're
designing, right? They get so excited
when they get to have their buddy visit
and show it to their buddy and have
their buddy play their game. They're
very proud, right? It's a sense of
ownership.
10
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:36,999
That was one of my favorite things was
watching those sessions because the kids
are sitting whatever direction on the
floor, but they are playing this game,
and they are learning something or
practicing something. So it's pretty
cool.
11
00:05:37,000 --> 00:06:48,999
And I think it's through that Keystone
part of the program that you start to
see the development of the middle
schooler where they start to see
themselves differently, right? I'm
thinking about this quote. I'll read it
so I don't-- I don't want to mess it up
because it's so good. A vision coder
student wrote this down in her-- she's
one of the winning reflections that she
submitted that shared more about her
experience in the program. And she said,
"Vision coders help me believe in
myself. I've realized that I can do hard
things as long as I don't give up. It's
inspired me to keep exploring
technology, and I'm even thinking about
a career in coding now." So I think it's
that big shift that you start to see,
especially from the fall to the spring
semester, you really start to see a big
change in students and how they see
themselves. I know Dr. Redfeld, you and
even some of your undergraduate and
graduate students that are CS majors
would come and spend time with our
students and our teachers. What kind of
changes did you observe in students and
maybe even teachers throughout the
program?
12
00:06:49,000 --> 00:07:15,999
Yeah. Well, one thing about the teachers
is the teachers came from all different
disciplines. So not only in their
training that you all do with them, but
also in the program, really feel
confident and feel like they could learn
a new technology and be able to teach
the kids at the same time, that
confidence really of, "Oh, it's okay to
not totally understand this for us to
learn together," right? And as we're
going along. That's what I got right
now.
13
00:07:16,000 --> 00:08:26,999
Yeah. Yeah. I think that confidence is
key. That's definitely one of the
changes I've always observed in the
students. And you're so right about the
teachers. Like you said, they might be a
math teacher in sixth grade, or they
might be a science teacher in eighth
grade, and they're teaching a year-long
elective course of vision coders. And
it's something new. I was a middle
school teacher. It's a new experience.
But IDRA, we really come alongside and
coach and mentor our teachers just as
our elementary and middle school
students are being mentored, right? And
it makes me think of another quote from
a student I want to share from a poem
that she wrote for her reflection
submission. She said, "I learned that
mistakes are not the end. They they are
clues. They are lessons. They are proof
that I am learning instead of standing
still staring at that same dang problem
over and over again. And so I'd love for
you to talk about that problem-solving
transformation to how students are
really working through those problems
and sticking to it and not giving up.
That's a huge life skill that they're
learning throughout VisionCoders.
14
00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:28,999
Yeah. And to know when to get help too,
right, is a part of that.
15
00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:29,999
Yes.
16
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:52,999
Not when you're staring at something,
and my undergraduate and graduate
students could relate to that. They were
always impressed, by the way, by what
the students were making. And loved
helping them and supporting them. You
could just see they became comfortable
at making mistakes, like trying things
out. And so much of computer science is,
"I just got to try this out, see what
happens." Try this out.
17
00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:53,999
Exactly.
18
00:08:54,000 --> 00:09:24,999
So much trial and error as many creative
things are. And then the other thing
about their shift, I think, has to
require them to present about their game
to another person in their class, to the
class, and then to too, at the showcase,
a group of people. So just that kind of,
again, confidence that being okay in
your skin at presenting what you did is
invaluable.
19
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:55,999
Absolutely. It's so true. And in
thinking ahead of this program, even
just from five years ago, I've seen so
many changes in the field. I mean, even
from our state standards, now we have K8
STEM standards in Texas. And just in the
lifespan of this grant that we had in
this program, I've seen so many changes.
And now AI, thinking about as AI and
technology continues to evolve, why do
programs, Dr. Redfield, like this remain
important?
20
00:09:56,000 --> 00:10:01,999
Wherever AI goes, we're still going to
need to be able to understand how code
works.
21
00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:02,999
Yes.
22
00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:59,999
There will be pieces of things that AI
produces that maybe we can use and maybe
pull off the shelf, although that
promise has been around since computers
have been around and it hasn't come
true. But whatever we get to, say, use
that already exists out there, you're
going to want to modify it or it needs
to be modified. And so you have to
understand how the code works or how
coding works in general. So a lot of
these students will have an idea of what
it takes to write code in general. [Not
a?] specific language or specific tool
necessarily, but they have a sense of
what it takes in a very small scale. So
in this larger scale, when AI is going
to be around more and more, I hope that
we don't take the human out of the loop.
And that's a whole other issue. But that
as long as we human beings are pulling
things together to create a solution,
we're going to understand how coding
works, how things can be put together,
what things are going to work, what
things aren't going to work.
23
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:40,999
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And all those skills
that they're learning through this
program will prepare them for any career
path, really. When you think about these
transferable skills, when you think
about computational thinking skills,
pattern recognition, decomposition,
breaking a big problem down in a smaller
problem. So that's all human-centered
problem solving, like you talked about,
that we're still going to need, no
matter where technology is a few more
years from now, or what career pathways
are actually opening up even that we're
preparing our students for by the time
they graduate. So these are still really
strong future-ready skills that we're
developing with our students, right?
24
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:45,999
[You didn't?] mention the other two
parts of computational thinking, the
abstraction.
25
00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:46,999
Abstraction.
26
00:11:47,000 --> 00:12:00,999
You know what one is, but you can't
point to one. There's not a thing that's
one. You can point to one of something.
But one is an abstraction, and
understanding what that is and what that
means is a very human thing
27
00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:02,999
it is. It is. It's so true.
28
00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:07,999
Important things and seeing, yeah, what
counts.
29
00:12:08,000 --> 00:13:19,999
Yeah. Absolutely. You've been our
embedded content expert, our champion,
our advocate through five years of
building this program. And we've seen
how this program can demonstrate that
when students are given opportunities to
create, design, and solve problems
through technology, I think the main
message today is they're not just
learning computer science. They're
discovering their own potential as
innovators, as leaders. And so I just
want to end today's conversation with a
couple things. If you are interested in
bringing vision coders to your school
community or one that you know about,
let us know. Contact us here at IDRA. We
can definitely talk about how to start
up this year-long elective course there
in your school community. We would love
to help support that cross-age
mentorship, that STEM and college
readiness there in your community feeder
pattern. And also we need funding to
keep this going. So adopt a school is
what I would definitely say to any folks
who want to invest in our schools,
invest in our students and our teachers.
We really need your help. So we would
love for you to adopt to school.
30
00:13:20,000 --> 00:14:08,999
Our teachers love this program. Our
principals and counselors love this
program, and this is a year-long thing
where we're in there coaching and
mentoring our students and our teachers.
And we would love for you to be a part
of that. So thanks again, Dr. Redfield,
for joining us and sharing your
experience as one of our so supportive
partners through this whole process.
Thank you for everything you've done to
invest in this program and in the lives
of students and teachers, and appreciate
all the expertise that you bring and all
of your students that have been a really
key cornerstone of the program too. So
thank you again for joining me today,
Dr. Redfield. And stay in touch,
everybody. We would love to bring this
program to your school. So reach out to
us. We'll talk soon. Thanks again.
[music]
31
00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:14,999
Thank you for listening to IDRA class
notes. For more information on IDRA and
other class notes topics, go to
www.idra.org. You can also send us your
thoughts by email to podcast@idra.org.
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:11,999
This is episode 258 of IDRA Class Notes.
2
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:49,999
Yo, you could just see they became
comfortable at making mistakes, trying
things out. And so much of computer
science is, I just got to try this out,
see what happens. And then the other
thing about their shift has to require
them to present about their game to a
person, to the class, and then too at
the showcase a group of peoples, just
that kind of confidence that being okay
in your skin at presenting what you did
is invaluable.
3
00:00:50,000 --> 00:02:08,999
Welcome to the IDRA Class Notes podcast.
Today, we're talking about the IDRA
Vision Coders Program and how game
design can be a powerful pathway into
computer science learning. I'm joined by
my friend, Dr. Carol Redfield, who has
partnered with me for the past five
years in developing and refining the
Vision Coders curriculum. She serves as
a Professor of Computer Science at St.
Mary's University in San Antonio. I also
lovingly refer to her as the CS Queen
everywhere I go. I'm Dr. Stephanie
Garcia, IDRA STEM Education Specialist,
and I've had the privilege of serving as
the Project Director for Vision Coders.
If you aren't familiar already, Vision
Coders is modeled after our flagship
program, the IDRA Valued Youth
Partnership. It's a cross-age mentorship
program where students who are
considered at risk for dropping out of
school, they're all involved in this
year-long elective course where middle
school students serve as game designers
as they code math and reading games for
their buddies in their elementary
schools that are a part of their feeder
pattern. So just really exciting
program. Dr. Redfeld, people often think
computer science is just coding. Why did
we choose game design as the vehicle for
teaching these concepts?
4
00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:46,999
Well, one thing is most people like
games, playing games and gaming. So
there's automatic interest in that. The
other thing, though, I like about what
we've developed is it really does put
the kids through the whole software
development process from analysis,
design, coding, testing, getting
feedback from your users. It puts them
through all those steps. And if you
think about it, that involves a lot of
things, some problem-solving and
critical thinking, and you have to be
creative because you're creating
something from nothing, a game from
nothing. And of course, computational
thinking, which we talk about
specifically in the curriculum.
5
00:02:47,000 --> 00:03:32,999
Absolutely. And I feel like all of that
really drives the student engagement,
right, really hits that inquiry-based
learning that we all want to have that
approach in our classrooms. We've worked
with many students over the years in San
Antonio, and you have a role in many
other programs and work in the
community. What do you think makes
vision coders different from a typical
coding program? Usually students are
consumers of technology, but in this, it
reverses that, it flips it around to
where they're the creators, right? So
talk about that change and that learning
experience and what you think sets
vision coders apart from other typical
coding programs.
6
00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:52,999
Yeah. And one thing I want to add to
what you said before is it's a lot of
active learning. It's much easier for
any one of us to learn from. And as part
of that, the process that they learn is
iterative to make a game and test it out
with getting feedback from their
buddies. Actually, first, they interview
their buddies to find out what--
7
00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,999
Yeah. They get to know who's playing the
game, right?
8
00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:52,999
--we want to work on from letter
recognition to adding two-digit numbers
to whatever their buddy likes and wants
to work on. And a lot of times they find
out what kinds of characters they like.
And so the eighth graders will put those
in the game. Like I saw mermaids. So
using that information from the buddies
that they have and then putting that in
the game, making the game, going through
that whole process, and then getting
feedback again and even making changes
on it. So that kind of iterative
approach was just how a lot of software
is developed. It's called the agile
development process. So they really are
doing that whole thing and getting the
feedback from their users, which so many
times in programming classes, we just
don't do that. It's like, "Program this.
[inaudible]. Yeah. Did you do all that?"
So those are the things I like to say
about it.
9
00:04:53,000 --> 00:05:21,999
Yeah. Absolutely. You're so right about
how it's game design, it's computer
science, it's computational thinking.
It's that design thinking, right? That
empathy factor is really driving the
whole process for them. They have that
relationship with their buddy, and that
really drives them every day to want to
give their best in the game that they're
designing, right? They get so excited
when they get to have their buddy visit
and show it to their buddy and have
their buddy play their game. They're
very proud, right? It's a sense of
ownership.
10
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:36,999
That was one of my favorite things was
watching those sessions because the kids
are sitting whatever direction on the
floor, but they are playing this game,
and they are learning something or
practicing something. So it's pretty
cool.
11
00:05:37,000 --> 00:06:48,999
And I think it's through that Keystone
part of the program that you start to
see the development of the middle
schooler where they start to see
themselves differently, right? I'm
thinking about this quote. I'll read it
so I don't-- I don't want to mess it up
because it's so good. A vision coder
student wrote this down in her-- she's
one of the winning reflections that she
submitted that shared more about her
experience in the program. And she said,
"Vision coders help me believe in
myself. I've realized that I can do hard
things as long as I don't give up. It's
inspired me to keep exploring
technology, and I'm even thinking about
a career in coding now." So I think it's
that big shift that you start to see,
especially from the fall to the spring
semester, you really start to see a big
change in students and how they see
themselves. I know Dr. Redfeld, you and
even some of your undergraduate and
graduate students that are CS majors
would come and spend time with our
students and our teachers. What kind of
changes did you observe in students and
maybe even teachers throughout the
program?
12
00:06:49,000 --> 00:07:15,999
Yeah. Well, one thing about the teachers
is the teachers came from all different
disciplines. So not only in their
training that you all do with them, but
also in the program, really feel
confident and feel like they could learn
a new technology and be able to teach
the kids at the same time, that
confidence really of, "Oh, it's okay to
not totally understand this for us to
learn together," right? And as we're
going along. That's what I got right
now.
13
00:07:16,000 --> 00:08:26,999
Yeah. Yeah. I think that confidence is
key. That's definitely one of the
changes I've always observed in the
students. And you're so right about the
teachers. Like you said, they might be a
math teacher in sixth grade, or they
might be a science teacher in eighth
grade, and they're teaching a year-long
elective course of vision coders. And
it's something new. I was a middle
school teacher. It's a new experience.
But IDRA, we really come alongside and
coach and mentor our teachers just as
our elementary and middle school
students are being mentored, right? And
it makes me think of another quote from
a student I want to share from a poem
that she wrote for her reflection
submission. She said, "I learned that
mistakes are not the end. They they are
clues. They are lessons. They are proof
that I am learning instead of standing
still staring at that same dang problem
over and over again. And so I'd love for
you to talk about that problem-solving
transformation to how students are
really working through those problems
and sticking to it and not giving up.
That's a huge life skill that they're
learning throughout VisionCoders.
14
00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:28,999
Yeah. And to know when to get help too,
right, is a part of that.
15
00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:29,999
Yes.
16
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:52,999
Not when you're staring at something,
and my undergraduate and graduate
students could relate to that. They were
always impressed, by the way, by what
the students were making. And loved
helping them and supporting them. You
could just see they became comfortable
at making mistakes, like trying things
out. And so much of computer science is,
"I just got to try this out, see what
happens." Try this out.
17
00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:53,999
Exactly.
18
00:08:54,000 --> 00:09:24,999
So much trial and error as many creative
things are. And then the other thing
about their shift, I think, has to
require them to present about their game
to another person in their class, to the
class, and then to too, at the showcase,
a group of people. So just that kind of,
again, confidence that being okay in
your skin at presenting what you did is
invaluable.
19
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:55,999
Absolutely. It's so true. And in
thinking ahead of this program, even
just from five years ago, I've seen so
many changes in the field. I mean, even
from our state standards, now we have K8
STEM standards in Texas. And just in the
lifespan of this grant that we had in
this program, I've seen so many changes.
And now AI, thinking about as AI and
technology continues to evolve, why do
programs, Dr. Redfield, like this remain
important?
20
00:09:56,000 --> 00:10:01,999
Wherever AI goes, we're still going to
need to be able to understand how code
works.
21
00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:02,999
Yes.
22
00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:59,999
There will be pieces of things that AI
produces that maybe we can use and maybe
pull off the shelf, although that
promise has been around since computers
have been around and it hasn't come
true. But whatever we get to, say, use
that already exists out there, you're
going to want to modify it or it needs
to be modified. And so you have to
understand how the code works or how
coding works in general. So a lot of
these students will have an idea of what
it takes to write code in general. [Not
a?] specific language or specific tool
necessarily, but they have a sense of
what it takes in a very small scale. So
in this larger scale, when AI is going
to be around more and more, I hope that
we don't take the human out of the loop.
And that's a whole other issue. But that
as long as we human beings are pulling
things together to create a solution,
we're going to understand how coding
works, how things can be put together,
what things are going to work, what
things aren't going to work.
23
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:40,999
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And all those skills
that they're learning through this
program will prepare them for any career
path, really. When you think about these
transferable skills, when you think
about computational thinking skills,
pattern recognition, decomposition,
breaking a big problem down in a smaller
problem. So that's all human-centered
problem solving, like you talked about,
that we're still going to need, no
matter where technology is a few more
years from now, or what career pathways
are actually opening up even that we're
preparing our students for by the time
they graduate. So these are still really
strong future-ready skills that we're
developing with our students, right?
24
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:45,999
[You didn't?] mention the other two
parts of computational thinking, the
abstraction.
25
00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:46,999
Abstraction.
26
00:11:47,000 --> 00:12:00,999
You know what one is, but you can't
point to one. There's not a thing that's
one. You can point to one of something.
But one is an abstraction, and
understanding what that is and what that
means is a very human thing
27
00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:02,999
it is. It is. It's so true.
28
00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:07,999
Important things and seeing, yeah, what
counts.
29
00:12:08,000 --> 00:13:19,999
Yeah. Absolutely. You've been our
embedded content expert, our champion,
our advocate through five years of
building this program. And we've seen
how this program can demonstrate that
when students are given opportunities to
create, design, and solve problems
through technology, I think the main
message today is they're not just
learning computer science. They're
discovering their own potential as
innovators, as leaders. And so I just
want to end today's conversation with a
couple things. If you are interested in
bringing vision coders to your school
community or one that you know about,
let us know. Contact us here at IDRA. We
can definitely talk about how to start
up this year-long elective course there
in your school community. We would love
to help support that cross-age
mentorship, that STEM and college
readiness there in your community feeder
pattern. And also we need funding to
keep this going. So adopt a school is
what I would definitely say to any folks
who want to invest in our schools,
invest in our students and our teachers.
We really need your help. So we would
love for you to adopt to school.
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00:13:20,000 --> 00:14:08,999
Our teachers love this program. Our
principals and counselors love this
program, and this is a year-long thing
where we're in there coaching and
mentoring our students and our teachers.
And we would love for you to be a part
of that. So thanks again, Dr. Redfield,
for joining us and sharing your
experience as one of our so supportive
partners through this whole process.
Thank you for everything you've done to
invest in this program and in the lives
of students and teachers, and appreciate
all the expertise that you bring and all
of your students that have been a really
key cornerstone of the program too. So
thank you again for joining me today,
Dr. Redfield. And stay in touch,
everybody. We would love to bring this
program to your school. So reach out to
us. We'll talk soon. Thanks again.
[music]
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