Social discussion of CS in K-12

[Charles Schultz <sacrophyte AT gmail.com>]

Good morning, Shifters!

I had a chance to catch up with my brother this weekend after he attended the NAEA National Convention ("the world's largest art education convention") in Chicago, and I was pleasantly shocked to learn about many of the sessions he attended that have a lot of overlap with things we discuss here.

For instance, instead of a strict disciplinary approach to assessment, there was an emphasis on a more organic approach through portfolio-based assessment, which my brother says he experimented with this past semester and found to be very helpful. He also attended a session that gave him more ideas of what a "teacher as a facilitator" looks like (ties into organic assessments), and another on allowing more students a greater degree of agency especially in regards to choosing their own projects and learning paths. We even talked about the possibility of online digital badges and how that can augment simple certificates, especially in regards to art-based online portfolios. To me it seems all of these efforts are aimed at increasing a student's love of learning, and facilitating an environment where a student inadvertently gets hooked, via inquiry and reflection, on their passions.

What opened my eyes is that it seems these are natural evolutions of educational philosophy; there wasn't a big revolution, nor a big-name sponsor with deep pockets hawking a product/method, but rather normal every day people (if teachers can be described as thus *grin*) coming together to share what works best for them. And yes, this convention was focused on the arts, but I fully believe it crosses over into all other aspects of education as well.

Food for thought.

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Charles Schultz