#CSTA2020

I did some things at CSTA2020. If you attended any of my sessions: thank youuuuuuuu!! and hope it was worthwhile. If you couldn’t make it, but are a CSTA+ member, you can watch the sessions when they’re released online. What follows below are some additional resources and shoutouts.

Session: Git & GitHub in 3 Lessons

I co-presented a session on Git & GitHub with Jeff “Jolson” Olson as part of a GitHub Education sponsored session (disclosure: I’m a GitHub Campus Advisor, which is a cool thing GitHub does to train teachers on their platform). We focused on the why of teaching Git & GitHub to students – our classes are already jam-packed with content, so how does Git & GitHub fit in?

I won’t post the slides because, honestly, it’s better to just read Jolson’s 3-part blog series about this topic, including the lesson frameworks he uses (and I used as well after reading his posts) for using Git with students:

• How to Teach Git Commits & GitHub to Teenagers
• Teaching Git & GitHub to Teenagers: Branching and Merging
• Teaching Git & GitHub to Teenagers: Collaborating

I also highly highly highly recommend Jolson’s session at the PyCon Education Summit titled “FOO and BAR must Die” (which is a reference to pretty much any “beginner” Python tutorial out there). It’s similar in tone and values to this session, especially in discussing how students can be made to feel intimidated or unwelcome in computer science, and how we CS teachers have the power to change that in our classrooms.

Session: Collaboration Strategies in CS Classrooms

I co-presented this session with Kelly Lougheed (also on Medium) on 3 different collaboration strategies:

• When Learning code: PRIMM
• When Practicing code: Pair Programming
• When Assessing code: Harkness Discussions

PRIMM Resources:

• Pretty solid overview of PRIMM
• My own blog post about trying it out with a specific Javascript lesson
• Here’s the Research behind PRIMM, and here’s the #talkcsed chat about this article
• Check out the recorded presentation to see this in action – we do a live PRIMM demonstration during the session.

Pair Programming Resources

• Kelly and I claim that a successful culture of Pair Programming doesn’t happen automatically – it happens with purpose and intent early in the year as we build a culture of collaboration. With that in mind…
• Read Kelly’s article about Collaboration in a CS Classrooom
• Post norms in your classroom that explicitly encourage collaboration – here are what some of mine look like
• Here’s a list of Improv Games that are fun to do at the start of the year to build a culture of mistakes and silliness before pair programming
• Have you seen the new K-12 Pair Programming Toolkit? It’s my new favorite resource, and also has collaborative-culture building strategies

Harkness Resources

• This part of the presentation was basically taken from my blog post on Student Centered Discussions in a CS Classroom. Lots of additional resources, and links to actual conversations, are listed in that post
• This section was also inspired by Kelly’s article on Collaboration in a CS Classroom. It’s the same article linked above, but it’s so good it deserves to be read twice.
• If you decided not to re-read her article above, I recommend checking out this one on helping students debug code instead. It doesn’t have to do with Harkness, but it’s still full of great tips.

Looking forward to CSTA next year. Big thanks to Kelly & Jeff for co-presenting with me.