Teaching computer science in high schools in low-income communities

In this video, Stanford teaching fellows Star Doby, Terrell Ibanez, and Julia Wang talk about how they guide high school computer science students to be independent and to feel comfortable asking for help — and about their excitement when students grasp challenging concepts. The teaching fellows are working with Title I high school students taking Stanford's CS 105 course through a collaboration with the National Education Equity Lab. 

Learn more about Stanford courses for under-resourced high schools.

Transcript

NARRATOR: More than 200 students from 15 Title I high schools in seven states enrolled in the Stanford course CS 105: Introduction to Computers. The same course is being taught to Stanford students on campus.

STAR DOBY, teaching fellow: When I first heard about this opportunity to work on this course offered by Stanford through the National Education Equity Lab, what really stood out to me was the word equity.

It's one thing to teach this course to students, but another thing to teach this course with a focus on equity and providing equitable resources to underserved communities.

TERRELL IBANEZ, teaching fellow: I do see a lot of myself in my students, but I also went to a Title I high school and you know, I've seen a lot of the struggles they've had.

One thing that's, I think, that really resonates with me, and I think especially when I talk about, maybe, when people hear about the work that we do, is that they're always kind of surprised.

There's this, kind of this deficiency model, like, oh, they can't do this because they have these struggles instead of focusing on what can be, what, you know, what they can achieve.

JULIA WANG, teaching fellow: Something that's really cool is you get to work with students who are earlier on in their academic career. So they actually don't have a lot of exposure to the types of material that we're working with in the class. And I think that that's really cool because you get to, like, mold their perception of the types of material that they can handle and what they're interested in. And you get to like be the person to introduce them to this entirely new concept and framework of thinking than they're used to.

NARRATOR: CS 105 is offered through a partnership with National Education Equity Lab. Students earn credits from their high schools and from Stanford.

It is taught by classroom teachers and Stanford teaching fellows via Zoom. Lectures are given online by a Stanford faculty member.

STAR DOBY: I definitely think this course helps emulate what a college course would look like. In high school classrooms, usually there's a lot of step-by-step guidance on how to get through the class, but in this course we really want students to be independent.

I think the biggest challenge with teaching students virtually is keeping them engaged. We had to really push like, “Hey, can people unmute their microphones, please?” Or “Okay, we're not going to move on until someone says something,” just so that people get used to participating in a virtual setting.

TERRELL IBANEZ: We also have breakout rooms where they break into small groups. And then me and my co-TF, Zach, will kind of go around and ask, “Do you have any questions?” Right. And then sometimes when they will be more reluctant to ask those in the larger sections, they'll be more up front, they will be, you know, more likely to ask those questions in the smaller groups.

And then as they get more comfortable asking questions of us in small groups, I find that, you know, we're starting to get more questions in the chat during the larger section.

JULIA WANG: And it's important to take a step back and make sure that your students know what avenues are open to them to getting help, and then making sure that those avenues are something that they feel comfortable using and approaching, and that's like almost something that just an automatic, I can use this tool to ask for help.

I think it's really about emphasizing that failure is a really positive thing as a student.

When you come across a concept that you really don't understand at first, that actually means you have so much more potential to, like, learn and grow.

It's not about understanding everything on the first try. It's really more about sitting with the material and and letting yourself understand what you don't understand, and then building that skill set and that toolbox to unblock yourself and figure out like, how can I, how can I get myself over this hurdle.

STAR DOBY: There was a memorable moment in our classroom where we were in session and we were trying to explain a topic that maybe wasn't so well grasped in lecture.

And after we finished the explanation, there was a big resounding “Oh” that came from the classroom. And that was an exciting moment, to hear that aha moment even through Zoom. We were really excited that students were capturing the concepts.

More about CS 105: Introduction to Computers

• ‘It proves I can do anything I put my mind to’
• ‘I needed a challenge’: Frida’s story

• These high school students were afraid to dream bigger. A Stanford class is changing that (LA Times, November 25, 2022)

   

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