Heidi Baynes, Seasons of CS

We'd like to welcome our special guest, Dr. Heidi Baynes from Riverside County Office of Education. Dr. Baynes specializes in the integration of technology into classroom instruction, and is a strong advocate for computer science, education and the CS for All movement. Her experience in K 12 public education includes online blended and traditional classroom models, where she has taught multiple subjects and grade levels. Additionally, she is highly invested in the importance of the maker movement and looks for ways to merge the maker mentality with lessons designed to enhance the student learning experience. 

@baynesheidi
https://www.seasonsofcs.org/

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Music by ItsWatR from Pixabay - Wataboi Flavour

Transcript

Sonal  00:03

Welcome to the SBCSS Digital Learning Bits and Bytes podcast inspired by our dedication for equitable and inclusive educational technology and computer science. Hello, everyone, I'm Sonal Patel and I'd first like to introduce the newest member of our digital learning services team, Omar Shepherd, who is our computer science project specialist for San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. Omar, would you like to say quick hello,

Omar  00:28

Wow. Well, thank you. Thank you What an honor. I'm excited to join the team. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Omar Shepherd. I have the honor of serving as chair to Project Specialists here in computer science, working in education for about little over 20 years, I've made computer science part of where I've planted my flag to really find ways to build capacity across our great state and to give access to this great learning opportunity to students, especially here in San Bernardino.

Sonal  00:58

Thank you, Omar. And we're here today to talk about seasons of computer science. We'd like to welcome our special guest, Dr. Heidi Baynes from Riverside County Office of Education. Dr. Baynes specializes in the integration of technology into classroom instruction, and is a strong advocate for computer science, education and the CS for All movement. Her experience in K 12 public education includes online blended and traditional classroom models, where she has taught multiple subjects and grade levels. Additionally, she is highly invested in the importance of the maker movement and looks for ways to merge the maker mentality with lessons designed to enhance the student learning experience. Omar and I are very fortunate to be able to collaborate with Dr. Baynes on a regular basis. So welcome here today. Dr. Baynes.

01:46

Thanks for having me. It's really exciting to be here with you both. We speak to each other frequently. But this is this is a fun opportunity.

Sonal  01:54

Absolutely. ,

Omar  01:55

Okay let's start with a bit of fun. Please share one bit or byte, that people may be intrigued to learn about you. Now, since I'm new here, I guess I'll begin with a bit of a bio about myself. Fun fact, while I may be bald, I'm actually a professionally trained Barber. In fact, when I was young, 13 years old, my uncle who actually owns a Barber College believed that everyone should have a trade, something that you can always lean back on. And for our family, it was barbering and cosmetology. So now that I've shared a fun fact about me, Heidi shares one about you.

02:32

I don't know if my fact is as fun is that one, but something I share in these situations is that I was born on 3/27 at 3:27 in the morning.

Sonal  02:42

Oh, nice. I love that one. Thank you. Thanks. I'm going back to the barber. Barber thing. Oh my. Wow. That's really interesting. I'll be sending my son over to you for his haircut because haircuts are really expensive these days. Have you noticed that

Omar  02:57

I definitely. Especially having grown sons who males see this is an asset, one of my oldest son's popped by just last night to get freshened up.

Sonal  03:06

Wow. Wow. Great, fun facts. Thank you, both of you. I'm going to go ahead and jump into our first question about seasons of CS. Our counties are involved in a research backed professional learning model called seasons of CS, which stands for computer science. Heidi, can you speak a little bit more about what that is,

03:25

We're part of a group that's been awarded the educator workforce investment grant, and through that we've been able to build and organize the seasons of CS throughout the state of California. We work regionally as county office partners to offer professional development opportunities for teachers and para educators around computer science education. And much of what we offer has been to teachers that don't have previous experience with CS or teachers that were may be hesitant to bring computer science to their classrooms. And so we're, we're here to increase access and participation and computer science throughout throughout the state.

Omar  04:06

Thank you. Thank you. It's really exciting to hear about all the great opportunities the seasons of CS are creating for us. And I know that teacher and para educator capacity building is a significant part of the program. Can you elaborate on the seasons of CS workshops, and how they will build educator capacity in computer science? And what specific topics or skills will these workshops cover? And how they'll be tailored to meet the needs of the teachers in our various counties?

04:36

Yeah, so I touched on it briefly, a minute ago, but it's that idea that, you know, CS is for all students and Historically, it's been to, you know, really kind of select group of students who we either thought were interested or who we took time to recruit, but it's left out a large part portion of our population of students who Who can be and shouldn't be involved in computer science. And so building that capacity in our teachers and our parent educators helps expand availability to our students. Like I said before, some of the offerings we have are very beginning, right? Just teaching. Students how to code, maybe that's what block coding. Some of it is around equity minded computer science instruction, that's one of the workshops we'll be offering. So, you know, having teachers take a close look at their computer science classes, and what it looks like to teach those from an equity mindset. We had offerings last summer in data science, and you know, there was offerings around algebra, computer science and in other parts of the state last year, but it's, it's the idea of offering multiple venues and multiple avenues for teachers to engage with engage with computer science, professional development, so that students no matter where we where they are in their journey, we can meet them there and bring them along.

Omar  06:03

Yes, yes, yes. And I am really excited to hear about all the ways we're thinking of meeting the needs of all the learners in our community, both our educational learners, our educators, as well as the students will be serving. Interestingly, those listening in may know this, but in 2018, we actually adopted K 12 Computer Science Standards right here in California. And one of the cool things is from the very beginning, it makes a statement like this, that all teachers can teach computer science, and all students can learn computer science. And I just love the way that you speak to all the different subject areas that they can intersect with. In fact, in our standards, it actually speaks to some of that intersectionality. And I'm looking forward to seeing all the weight learning opportunities that that creates.

Sonal  06:50

Absolutely, thank you so much for mentioning standards, because that's, I mean, that's a huge part of this work. And each of our workshops have really thoughtfully been been designed around the standards, and about the vision around equity. And you've already you've actually already shared lots of strategies on how you might do this. Other ideas might revolve around ensuring that there is a cultural responsive and stating pedagogy approach into having these computer science opportunities for students. But more importantly for us at seasons of CS and the workshops that we provide that that is the thought approach when when designing those workshops, right, people are thinking about the taking that approach, Kapoor Center has an amazing framework called the cultural responsive sustaining framework for computer science. And each of our providers for these workshops are encouraged to think really carefully about that framework as it's been designed. So we are excited that the professional development experience is being provided through seasons of CS, not just through the summer opportunity, but all of the onboarding workshops that are happening before that the onboarding workshops are specifically to get interested get educators and power educators interested in computer science and, and the opportunities that are available to them for professional development. So I'm just excited about the all of the efforts moving forward. You mentioned equity minded instruction in computer science, that was one of the ones where we integrated the people center framework. And we thought about bringing in universal design for learning experiences. And we thought very carefully about the pedagogy involved in even just modeling that experience within that workshop. Are there any other strategies you think, might be relevant to scaling equitable computer science implementation?

08:38

Well, I think you both mentioned, you know, in addition to providing access to our students is providing that space for teachers to feel safe to feel like they can come in and learn about CS, right? Because in the standards, it says all teachers can teach it. But I don't know if all teachers necessarily believe that they can teach it right, it can seem like a really intimidating subject, it can seem a little scary. And so providing these opportunities in a low stakes, but really supportive environment where teachers feel like, you know, I'm gonna go in and try that, right, where there's, there's no fear of failure, there's no, you know, fear of walking into a space that you don't belong, because all of our teachers belong in these in these workshops, right, there's a space for everyone to come and learn about computer science and bring it back to their students. And we've taken great care to make sure we're providing that for our educators

Sonal  09:27

And we're meeting each of their needs. Beautiful. Thank you. Wow,

Omar  09:29

this is really exciting to hear and, excuse me, as a member of our collaborative, it's been really exciting to see some of the ways that we are looking to meet teachers where they are, and support them and building their capacity. And we're learning it's all about collaboration. It's the key to success. So as our regional representative here for Region seven leading the charge across our regions, how will the program work with others counties, schools, districts and other educational partners to ensure its impact. It's far reaching.

10:06

Great question. And, yeah, partnership and collaboration has been huge with the seasons of CS. Here in Southern California, we are region seven, or at least part of Southern California, we are region seven. And we are made up of Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, San Diego, and Imperial Counties. And so our five counties work together as region seven, to offer opportunities for educators to engage in PD, throughout the region. And, you know, in our planning, we take care to offer different things in different places, so we can reach as many educators as possible and meet those needs as best that we can. And because we work as a region, you know, it's it's really nice to have partners that are working toward a common goal. So we don't feel like we're out there alone. Right? It's it's been wonderful to have both of you and our colleagues in San Diego and Imperial as as thought partners, right. And so we're not looking at it from just, you know, one county view or one myopic view, we're looking at how do we increase access and participation throughout this this region? You know, we have students, particularly here in Riverside and San Bernardino that move between our two counties quite a bit. And so it's important that we work together to make sure that those students have access, no matter where they go, whether they're in Riverside, or San Bernardino, and making sure that that continues.

Omar  11:35

That's really exciting. And I would add that one of the exciting pieces of being a part of Regis region seven is the opportunity to collaborate across the counties and shameless plug, I myself, along with Mark Landsberger, from San Diego, are helping to bring workshops called Getting ready for CS EdWeek. That's right. You may not know this, but December 4 through 10th is CS EdWeek. And in our workshops, we invite educators to join us, well, we engage in an hour of code as learners. In fact, there's a series of lessons that have been created called AI for oceans and other creativity with AI. And we're bringing educators into our space, learning about how we can bring them in our classroom, and supporting them with bringing an hour of code to their students during CS EdWeek. And I know we'll be hearing more about our collaboration. But it seemed like a great opportunity to share what we're doing right here in Region seven.

Sonal  12:34

 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for bringing that up. I'm excited about the fact that this is a regional effort. And one of the things that I appreciate the most and you alluded to that earlier, Dr. Baynes is that we're all bringing in our own unique perspectives with the things that are taking place within our own respective settings. And I think together, we can drive such beautiful outcomes. I know that last year, we had over 250, educators participate in our seasons of CS summer of CS workshop in some version, yeah, one of the workshops. And it was a really, it was a great number, we exceeded our goal of having 100 educators initially. And you know, and that was that was primarily because this was a team effort. What do they say teamwork makes the dream. Yes. So thank you for that. So my next question for you is related to the advancement of technologies. As we know, technology is constantly evolving. How will the program stay up to date with the latest trends and best practices in computer science education? In your opinion?

13:38

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. Because, you know, one thing that we are all immersed in is AI right now, and, and trying to stay up to date or ahead of it is a very lofty goal. And so, you know, as we, as we continue to plan and to develop and design these workshops, we want to take in, you know, the current trends of computer science, what is what is industry need, what is higher ed, looking for making sure we're designing things that set up students, whether it's on a track for an actual, you know, computer science pathway, or education, or whether or not they're sparking some other interests through code or through being exposed to other ideas and technology, these, you know, these are the things that we want to continue to bring to our participants so that we do stay on the cutting edge because it is it is moving quickly. And it is it's a challenge to make sure that what we're designing now is still relevant even six months from now, right. It's just it's ever changing, and it's constantly moving. Yeah,

Sonal  14:42

I agree. And actually, what I know from state down, people are grappling with how to bring AI into education in the most impactful way. And I know that one of the areas that California Department of Education is working on or should I say Catherine Goyet the computer science stat coordinator is this whole idea of demystifying AI. And we as a team are really thinking carefully about how our workshops can bring an element of AI in and really thinking about that demystification of how AI is developed in the first place and are looking under the hood. Yeah, right. Yeah. Bringing in the machine learning aspect. And and oh, my, if you wouldn't mind just speaking to CS as well. your CS Ed efforts, the onboarding workshop you were talking about and how you integrated AI into that. And then tell us more about CS ed week?

Omar  15:33

 Absolutely, yeah, well, one of the cool things are working with providers as partners such as code.org, which actually created a wonderful AI for schools toolkit that's been great to support us and getting ready to bring AI to our students both teaching with AI and teaching about AI. And helping students know, it isn't really magic, it's machine learning. And they can learn how to program machines to learn to. And then some of the lessons that they've created, students are able to have more creativity, as well as demonstrate their own personal interests through learning about AI. And just to make sure I'm sharing about all the opportunities right here in Region seven, across Imperial County, and Riverside County, San Bernardino County, Orange County, and Riverside County. I've already said that one. I invite you to take a look at seasonsofcs.org. On November 14 will be in person and Imperial County on November 16, will be in person at Riverside County. And then on November 30, we'll actually have a virtual workshop targeting teachers grade six to 12 to show them how they can engage their students during cs EdWeek. That's right at seasons of ces.org.

Sonal  16:53

Of course, thank you so much, Oh, am I remembering the website completely forgot. And I'd be remiss if I didn't also call out our statewide partners, including CDE, Sacramento County Office of Education UCLA Research Center, at UCLA Center, X Research Center, and CDE F Foundation, who are all working very hard to lead this grant work with a lot of amazing partners such as Kapoor, center CSTA, give a shout out to ca CS for All CRCA , CS for CA Oh, yes. CS for CA as well there are so many incredible partners that are involved in this work. And we're hoping this is just going to get bigger and better and stronger.

17:39

Yeah, thank you for mentoring mentioning the partners. You know, I we talked about collaboration, and that's the thing or region seven, but there's six other regions that also Yeah, yeah, that we collaborate with, along with our state team. Yeah, so really so many 

Omar  17:55

That's really fascinating. And I mean, an interesting part of the project is you learn that there's actually 58 counties here in the state of California. And our regional organization in seven regions, allows each of our regions to really meet the unique needs of the learners and educators in each of the regions that we're serving.

Sonal  18:15

Thank you. So Heidi, Dr. Baynes. I get to call her Heidi because I've known Heidi for so long. She actually lives only about 12 minutes away from

18:25

if we could walk if we had to walk if we had

Sonal  18:27

to. But Dr. Baynes, thank you so much for all this wonderful information. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us as we wrap up today?

18:35

Yeah, you know, one of the things we have coming up, we've talked about our onboarding workshops, right. Omar and Mark Landsberger from San Diego will be hosting our onboarding workshops, one in Imperial, and one in Riverside County next week. But as we move through the months of the school year, we'll have other onboarding workshops throughout the year that we'll continue to announce. We'll have things in the spring. And all of those are leading up to our region seven summer of CS event. That will be in June. Those dates are coming soon. So be sure to keep an eye out on the seasons of CS website for those dates. And that regional event will eventually lead into a statewide computer science Professional Development Week, which will be in July July 22 through the 26th where educators will have the chance to participate in a statewide PD week. So we have a lot of really exciting opportunities for professional development. So whether it's whether it's regionally or whether you know it's during the summer of CS, we have autumn ces right now we have winter of CS coming up. We'll have spring of CS and then culminating in the summer.

Sonal  19:46

And let's not forget there are multiple educational partners involved in this work around expanding computer science access and capacity building opportunities for our for our educators and our students. And with that said, we have several different workshops happening not just for educators, empower educators, but also for administrators and counselors. But the best thing for about seasons of CS in general and the workshops that we have to offer is as I'm gonna let my share this is

Omar  20:16

is that a stipend is available to you. Whether you're joining us for one of our onboarding workshops, or looking forward to joining us this summer. It's an opportunity for you to be able to build capacity and earn a stipend .

Sonal  20:29

Awesome, So again, yeah, yeah, thank you Dr. Baynes. It's always a pleasure. Thank you all for listening. You can be sure to follow Dr. Beans on Twitter @baynesheidi, on Twitter, or x, whatever you want to call it. Thank you all for tuning in. Join us next time for more bits and bytes of digital learning and computer science. And remember, if you're hungry for more, you can simply text DLS news 222828 Or find us on Twitter at SBCSS@edtech