Notice: Presenters, titles, descriptions, dates, and times for the in-person schedule are subject to change as needed by the VSTE Conference committee.
Educators know that out of everything students learn in school, social-emotional learning (SEL) is vital to the development of students of all ages, and perhaps is the most important thing we teach. In order to become contributing members of society, children must learn social skills, emotional regulation, conflict resolution skills, and empathy, and understand multifaceted identities. Social-emotional teaching and learning is often invisible and untracked beyond the preschool years as the assessed curriculum shifts to focus on content area knowledge. Teachers may struggle to find time to teach stand-alone lessons implementing SEL as they juggle other standards, and school counselors can be similarly overstretched trying to support too many students at once. Just as computer science (CS) integration can strengthen other content area learning, the integration of SEL standards within CS and content area lessons provides an opportunity to strengthen skills in all of these domains simultaneously. This practice also expands the student’s vision of who can be a computer scientist and provides space for students to come to terms with their own identities. Inspired by Reggio Emelia, these integrated lessons work to support the whole child, rather than asking them to compartmentalize themselves. When content is relevant to their lives, students are engaged and curious, boosting learning outcomes. Furthermore, students who see representation of multiple forms of identity and who have an opportunity to explore their own identity through creative coding and reflection, are more likely to feel that a diverse and equitable computer science landscape is possible and preferable compared to the current landscape of a tech industry that is 90% White or Asian and 75% male (Kapor Center, 2018). Through integration with SEL, students will be able to see themselves as computer scientists no matter their identities, as CS helps them explore and express who they are. In this way, we can use SEL integration to patch the “Leaky Tech Pipeline” that leads to diverse students leaving CS education and tech.
CodeVA has developed free, Creative Commons licensed lesson sequences integrating CS and SEL with content areas, especially English/Language Arts. The Scratch Identity Pack lessons use children’s literature and programming in Scratch to facilitate exploration of students’ relationships to identity, while integrating SEL, ELA, and CS standards. The books provide diverse perspectives, and the Scratch projects provide a creative medium for self-expression around student identity. Our first lesson sequence explores how names are important to several aspects of identity, including gender identity and culture/country-of-origin.
Attendees will leave with a set of lesson sequences that integrate SEL, ELA, and CS at the 3rd to 5th grade level using Scratch. This session may be of interest to K-8 classroom or specialty teachers, after school program instructors, school counselors, media specialists, and ITRTs.
