What does CSed Community 2.0 look like?

One of the main goals in our code.org PD is to build a CS community.  I think that happens at TeacherCons and at week-long PD.

But, the big question is, what next?!

1. How do we sustain this community?
2. Where do we continue to build these connections?  Twitter?  A forum?
3. What does the community need to be successful?
4. What are the goals of our community?

... alright, this is reminding me of KSTF's systems frame work...

(after a bit of Google Drive Digging)

I love the quote I got from a KSTF meeting a year back that "each system is uniquely designed to get the exact result it is getting".  I certainly need to unpack the system here for our CSed community on a national and local scale.  I'm writing that on my "blog-to-dos" now...

I still think the model of an inclusive ed community comes from MTBoS.  I really think the success of MTBoS has come from a few rock stars just rocking.  They blog and share their experiences really freely.  They take risks in their classrooms and share the results.

In talking with one of the participants at the Upperline Training, he mentioned that CSTA feels really inaccessible to many teachers.  It is expensive.  Even presenting at CSTA is cost-prohibitive for a lot of teachers which MAY result in having less strong sessions.

I look at MTBoS's solution to not having a space to celebrate their community in Twitter Math Camp.  It is wildly successful.  CS needs to get the right "whos" in place, but I think we could get there.

Right now, we are just trying to build capacity and get more CS teachers, but once we have CS teachers, how do we continue to support them?  It takes a bit of time, but how can we amplify voices of CS teachers and draw them into the community?

I would love to see CS have their own "CS" Twitter Camp as a place to build their national community.  I suppose the first place to start is local.  Right now, one other teacher and myself meet up monthly to talk about our classrooms. It is an awesome collaborative time.  I have learned a lot from him (and hopefully he has learned something from me).

My goal next year: To open this up wider.  Invite more teachers to grab a drink and talk about CS ed.  If I can do one in the fall and one in the spring, that would be awesome.  I think I want to focus on HS CS teachers at the moment, but I certainly want to grow it from there.

Norms at KSTF

At summer meeting this year, our cohort spent some time checking in with our cohort norms.  I don't know exactly what our norms are, I would have to look them up, but I do know that the norms work.  Another fellow mentioned that when he imagines his "ideal" interactions at his school, those interactions look very similar to the interactions he has at KSTF.  Norms are what help determine how these interactions develop.  For my #MTBoSBlaugust post over the next few days, I am going to share a bit about norms at KSTF, norms in my classroom, and consider how norms impact my educational communities.

Norms at KSTF were not determined over night.  In fact, I believe our first summer meeting was entirely devoted to developing norms.  Think about that... we were all flown in and spent 8 hours wrestling with norms.  I'll admit, there were one or two times I was a little "over" the norm discussion.  I felt good about them and didn't see the need to change them, or I felt indifferent to the changes proposed.  The fact that others felt the need to further discuss was indicative that more time was necessary to get everyone on board with norms.

Our norms officially are:

• Strive for equitable participation and sharing.
  
• Hold ourselves (individually and others) accountable to tasks and people.
• Seek meaningfulness in our work.

One fellow mentioned that, while she couldn't recite the norms herself, she felt like norms had been internalized by our cohort - we didn't need to know the "list of norms" to be able to participate in discussions because we had internalized them.

This was brilliant. This made me wonder, how can I get norms to be internalized by my students? Also, what norms are already internalized in my educational communities that perhaps aren't stated in a list of norms?

Additionally, while we had internalized these norms, re-visiting them each meeting was important to explicitly state the norms.

While I had to look these up, they were important for us to revisit and consider the impact of these norms. Specifically, we thought about how our norms helped us to work together successfully as a cohort and what areas do we want to strengthen our norms this year.

Being able to have scheduled time for these discussions are essential to the work we do at KSTF but I think it falls under the "important, but not urgent" work that teachers do. Moving forward, I am wondering how my school's meetings focus on "important" topics versus "urgent" topics. Is there a space to discuss norms in our department? OR how do PLC norms impact department norms?

Next up:

• Norms in my classroom
• Norms in my educational communities (MS)

4.