 Hello. We're just started recording. Yeah, I'm Richard Ladner I'm the principal investigator for access CS access access computing. And I would like to introduce our speaker today. And we're going to have time for questions later. If you do have a question during the talk be sure and put it into the chat. So, Robert, the Filippo is a teacher of students with diverse learning abilities. And he has won some awards. He won the 2008 any Sullivan Award for excellence in education. He also won the 200 2018 national champion of computer science award winner for his work with equity and accessibility to computer science for students with severe cognitive and emotional disabilities. So I'm proud to introduce Robert Dave Filippo. Thank you Richard I really appreciate the opportunity and thank you all for coming this evening and this afternoon based on your time zones. I'm pleased to be here and to have the opportunity to talk about a subject that is very near and dear. As my journey has begun a few years ago and we continue on that journey today. So as Richard had mentioned, but we began talking about myself a little bit. In the past 25 years I have taught in many roles. I've served populations in special education from students with specific learning disabilities, life skills support emotional disturbances students with autism and students with severe cognitive disabilities in many different environments. I have worked in a typical high school setting as well and as a resource room teacher, and those classes I would be doing push in services to give them supports with that and as well as being a full time self contained classroom teacher as well. So that's a little bit of my background. And before we kind of move on I just want to kind of go over with you guys a quick overview but you can see that there's a chart here that I have on here as well. So while I go over today's presentation objectives with you, I added this chart is kind of like a little teaser as to frame what the presentation is really about. So you can see that the title of the chart is equity through opportunity and accessibility through differentiation. So when we really talk about this opportunity what are we discussing we are really looking at that opportunity for students with severe cognitive disabilities to really have access to grade level content and computer science. Now what kind of varies with that a little bit and you can see the arrows jetting off side to side is really about having the fact that we look at social emotional learning pieces as well. We really want to take a broad view that whole child approach to teaching students with severe cognitive disabilities computer science. And on the other side we're really looking at that student engagement more of your just fundamental teaching and learning and the skills that are needed in computer science. And then how do we differentiate that and you can see Noah is represented there right there and we're going to be talking more about that. But when we're talking about today and we're going to be looking at our objectives. First it's going to be our journey the why why did we begin doing what we're doing, as well as number two the second section we're going to look at know your students I call it kys and what it will look like to be an inclusive environment, willing to accept this opportunity and accessibility to computer science for all. After that we're going to look at what's worked for us. Again, it is what we have found to work in in our environment with our population. And last but not least some strategies for differentiation as well. So first a little bit about the school that I work in. I serve as the computer science instructor for Mon Valley School, which is a center based school, part of the Allegheny intermediate unit three. In the state of Pennsylvania, if everyone is unaware in the state of Pennsylvania we have intermediate units, and they are educational entities that serve to provide special education services and supports for local school districts. Mon Valley School at Mon Valley School we serve 1% of the school age students that have needs that cannot be met inside of their home school districts. Our school is 100% free lunch. We serve students from lower income families, our enrollment fluctuates between 200 and 300 full time students. We serve ages from five to 21 years of age in grades from K to 21. We also have about 200 half day students that come into Mon Valley School for vocational programming. And some of the vocational programming that we do offer is we have a food service program, a nursing aid program, auto mechanics, buildings and grounds maintenance and most recently a computer science vocational program that is served that students can come into from 42 different school districts around the local area. So I have a video that I'm going to play that's going to tell you a little bit about the journey that we have taken. There's no sound to it, but you'll get a great representation of what the classroom looks like some of the things that go on in the classroom, and I'm very happy and proud to say that this was created by some students in the classroom so this is kind of a little bit of their little journey as well. So our journey did begin our journey to bring opportunity for computer science to our population students begin in 2016 is when it really began. And while teaching in a self complaint contained autistic support classroom. I was really looking for a way to engage my students with technology, while also still connecting their learning to reading math and science. My observations were really two fold one students were really engaged with electronics, and two, they were great consumers of technologies, but they really had no understanding of the technology and how it worked. I began with using the code or platform for teaching computer science, but I was quickly met with kind of two realizations that I had. First was, I had no technology in the school to really be using, except for two classroom desktop computers for eight students that I had at the time. Second of all, that the platform was not developed for this population. This led me to start really kind of diving into being creative and trying to think of some things that we could do. So through some grants that I wrote and received from the state and local partnerships, we were able to create this teams lab, which is an inclusive dedicated space for teaching computer science to students with cognitive disabilities. But it's also to look at other job opportunities. The lab really focuses on three main areas. And we look at coding and robotics, more of your standard language based programming. We look at engineering and design. And then we also look at digital arts and digital fabrication inside of the lab. So those are kind of the three cornerstones of what we've done with our teams lab. Now, as you can see, there are two charts here and there's a question in the middle is there room in the car. So I always use this metaphor because I really feel like it gives us an opportunity to take a look at a car being used as a vehicle to get from one place to another. So the two charts that are up there, kind of, I began to quickly realize that the focus in computer science on a national level was really centered around gender and ethnicity and socio economic groups, as as evidence here in the charts. And then I really began to realize that not much was being said about students with severe cognitive disabilities. And that's where the car metaphor came in is the fact that I felt like computer science as a whole on a national level was pushing forward. And it was bringing opportunity. So the car was the opportunity for computer science, but it was kind of looking at the fact that gender and ethnicity and socio economic background were taking up all of the seats in the car. Well, yet, special needs students were kind of not being asked to enter the car. So this is kind of really the impetus of why I wanted to start and really try to bring some equitable access for students with severe cognitive and emotional disabilities to computer science. Now, the next section kys know your students it's it's really when we look at our population. Objective number two is about know your students and let's look at the population we're targeting today 7.1 million students in the US are identified as having some disability under the idea act, of which 11% of those students are on the autism spectrum. One in 54 students on the spectrum are also dolly diagnosed. So, and those numbers are from 2020 CDC and these numbers in my perspective, they really don't reflect the total number of students that I believe that have slipped through the crack that maybe unidentified students that may require some special programming to make things accessible for them. But I also believe that moving forward, we need to really find this there are other students that were not maybe their families did not want to have their child identified as special needs. So I think that these numbers are a little low I think the numbers are much higher, but this these are the reported numbers that we have at this point. Now, when we talk about 31% of students with autism spectrum disorders also have intellectual disabilities as well. So that dual diagnosis piece, and we can see 25% have IQ scores in that borderline range. Well, we still have 44 a big number of students are right at that 85 greater than 85 so really understanding what the background of the students coming into their classroom is really one of the key things about knowing what we're going to have to do to make things accessible for the students that we're going to be serving. Now, when we talk about this, we're looking at this inclusion in your CS classroom. What can we expect. Now, when you think about dole diagnosed we just talked about students with ASD often have intellectual disabilities that dole diagnosis strand as well, but except expressive and receptive language difficulties. So receiving speech and language support, they may be non verbal students they may have speech impediments vocabulary development may be delayed as well. Along with this receptive and language issues that students present with. They can also have reduced auditory and visual processing skills. Now this is an important one because I believe that these reduced auditory processing and receptive skills limit access to typical verbal teacher instruction. Now I like to use another metaphor here because I what I tried to bring it from the perspective of the students that I have served and what I know in after learning in 25 years of teaching students with severe cognitive disabilities is I oftentimes reference a conference room in with stacks of paper all over the desk, and somebody has a fan running full blast, the papers are spinning around, and students oftentimes with expressive and receptive language difficulties are constantly trying to find where that paper is for that exact moment that they want to be able to respond or feel like they are involved in the classroom discussion so that organizing and sequencing deficits are also a big part of it. Now when you take that and we also look at that emphasis on the social emotional learning piece. What can you expect here students that may not make eye contact, they may not understand social mores with with the sense of inclusion, and they need to have rules and routines. So managing emotions for them might be very difficult, trusting the learning environment and relationships can be very difficult for the students as well. Decision making again this is that executive function piece. Decision making is very difficult for them as well. And often they are searching for environment that is really a highly structured environment where rules and routines are concrete. And they are really repetitive. So again the outcomes with the whole child approach sent hence the arrow moving over to the whole child approach. When we talk about the whole child approach what are we really talking about. So we are looking at things and we are saying we want more of a bird's eye view a broader view of skills and knowledge, not just a standard on a piece of paper, but what are the intangible things that are being taught by this as well. Being able to have students have hands on opportunities that real high structured classroom settings and prompts used to initiate learning inside of your classroom are very, very important for students to be successful inside of a classroom for computer science. Now the impacts on instruction. So this slide really addresses some of the solutions based on the presented deficits in the classroom correlated to what we know students with severe cognitive delays can experience in the learning environment. So with language skills, the use of other web based technology to support alternate ways of input and response to instruction, things like flip grid and jam boards and we'll talk more about those in the next section. But the scaffolding also looking at scaffolding ideas for students being able to get them, you know, instead of it just being one activity being able to have them do multiple activities, but breaking it down to a component that that student is able to handle the emphasis on the social emotional learning. These are the rules and expectations reviewed before every class, you know, time countdowns to begin instructional time, verbal visual auditory cues to begin instructional times, and opportunities for those students to build trust in relationships, and in the environment itself will be based on the start of the school year and we'll discuss that more again in the next section. In the child approach, I really want to kind of drill you into this drilling down of standards to meet students where they are, and we'll really take a look at this later on when we look at the differentiation piece of the presentation. I think that that is probably the most impactful thing that we can do for the instruction to make computer science accessible for students with special needs. So making those whole things are wrapped around can we find opportunities to make abstract concepts more tangible when possible, can we find those opportunities. As we start into the third section looking at outcomes for CS for students with intellectual disabilities. I want to draw on what we have previously discussed, especially that piece about the differentiating strategies and why I underlined and bolded that drilling down of standards. So in computer science, it's, we have a very clear representation standards driven for typical or traditional students in our classrooms. You know, oftentimes they follow that to P3C problem solving persistence, communication collaboration and creativity. So those are very clear outcomes that they can have for students that are typical or traditional students in your CS room. When we begin looking at severe cognitive disabilities, we begin understanding that while those outcomes for typical students may be including college or a CS degree later students with neurodiversities, they're gaining much more than just that CS knowledge, just that ability to maybe understand loop structures, or maybe to write a few lines of code in Python to do artwork on on a, on a canvas. But by using this, looking at these different areas the problem solving computational thinking critical thinking for traditional students, how does that translate over to students with severe cognitive disabilities. Well, they are things like finding that first step can they in problem solving, can they find the first step to be able to even begin the problem solving process. So we do look at ways that we can differentiate that and again we'll talk more about that when we get into that section, but that is what we're trying to look at the next building a plan. So can students then get to the point where they have identified what the problem is and now they're ready to move on to coming up with a plan to solve. And this idea of failure learning understanding that they will have more failures in your CS classroom than successes. And I think as an overall we can kind of all agree that I don't think it's just special needs students that have a lot of great out of the gate with computer science. So I think that it's across the board. Now, one of the things that we also look at with computational thinking that we've done for ID students is this idea of flow chart thinking and segmenting and sequencing grouping and pattern recognitions. We use it in the teams lab we do use flow chart thinking where they come to diamonds for decision making. In other words, we give some of them the opportunity to have, it's almost like story starters for reading. So we may give them an algorithm that needs debug, but we may give them the first three things that are wrong that they need to find, and then only find one more. Again, with thinking critically, we know what that is for typically or traditional students, but the next pieces is for ID students, it's that strategy recall through repetition, where are we giving them enough time to go through a skill set that they can actually demonstrate mastery before moving on. So, as we discussed, we can see that those tangible benefits of why CS instruction can help with academic precursors like critical thinking or problem solving or executive function of neurodiverse students. But we can see the correlation really between the soft skills and the social emotional learning that those students reap the benefits of as well. That's self advocacy and self determination. Now, in, you could see a EC level alternate eligible content standards. So I want to draw your attention to that because in the state of Pennsylvania and I'm not sure if other states have this but our core content standards for reading math and science. They all have alternate eligible content standards for special needs students. So these are drilled down versions of the high level outcome standard that a typical student would get. So I need you to think about this in terms of a continuum. While the high level outcome or the high level standard may be the high level standard. There is an opportunity for teachers to drill that standard down and and almost think of it as rungs of a ladder that are going up to whatever that standard may be. So I did pick one of the standards that that I oftentimes do with my students and it has to do with decomposing problems into smaller components. And it's, you know, they use a lot of high level words with through systematic analysis. The standards are used, but drilling that standard down for a special needs student can be done simply by looking at, you know, are the students expected to decompose a complex problem and develop a program all on their own. Or can we give them a story starter can we give them the first rung of the ladder and then help them through that with some instructional strategies that we can use such as study guides that can help a student get through a high level standard at a low level entry point. So it's really about meeting the students where they are, instead of having the students meet us where we are. Robert. Yes. Yeah. So the question in the chat you use the term ID student. Could you explain what that is. That is intellectual disabilities in the state of Pennsylvania ID is the preferred usage for identifying students that have severe cognitive and emotional disabilities intellectually disabled. Thank you. Yes sir. Now what has worked for us. So this is our next section what has worked for us so we really wanted to try to focus on understanding that the students coming into our classroom. How can we make them feel comfortable how can we look at that whole child approach to learning and really make computer science equitable, as well as accessible for them. So we really had to come up with some ideas of what we would do and how we would get students more engaged in that learning process for computer science. We did get through and we came up with one of the tools that we use is called Noah, and Noah stands for norms outcomes assessments and groupings. And Richard had mentioned when he looked at my slides that the age doesn't meet the groupings. So when we say age we are actually looking at that homogenous and heterogeneous groupings. So that's the reason why we use groupings. So the norms outcomes assessments and groupings are what we differentiate for our students right out of the gate to really build that inclusive classroom setting. Again, I don't believe that this is only for special needs students. I believe that there are a multitude of students that take computer science courses, whether it be because their friends are taking it or they did not want to take a math course and they can use the CS course instead, but they come in and they're immediately overwhelmed and immediately they think to themselves, I'm never going to be able to do computer science. I don't understand it. So I think that making the environment that first week of school making that environment inclusive and not as threatening is the first place to start with differentiating. So, one of the things with norms is starting with that first week of class and building that culture for the classroom, that culture that is represented with problem solving that persistence piece communication, collaboration and creativity and giving us the opportunity to experience how the classroom is going to be run before they get into the core content pieces of what the computer science curriculum is going to look like. I have attached in the in here, a teams pre course, so it is a quick view I'm going to, can everyone still see my screen. Yeah, yes. Okay, great. So the teams model lesson plan is really just a lesson plan that is completely developed for you with content standards as well. And there are even the materials some of the materials we have designed as well to help it more tangible for the students, but we have everything they all follow those classroom the two P's and three C's for us. We also look at that communication piece. We also look at in other lessons. We go into collaboration and communication in this lesson. Oh the places you will go the name of the lesson, as well as problem solving collaboration and communication. That's all you're learning in the classroom. So this is a great resource if feel free to use it to help kind of really build that sense of that really build the sense of community inside of your classroom to make a special need student coming in, not have to feel so isolated when they come into the room. That is the norms. Next outcomes. So when we look at differentiating outcomes for accessibility to computer science. The neuro diverse students should have a high level content standard drill down for them, working on a continuum like we had discussed, does the same levels of typically developing students. Now the products and the artifacts can be differentiated that that is the simplifying of how many concepts are being assessed at one given time. Now one of the big things when we talk about assessments in our next slide, we'll talk about how you can structure your assessments, but what are we talking about differentiating the product or the artifact and and really drilling the product or the artifact down. So I did give an example if assess skill takes three steps to complete the assessing one step at a time, and then all three steps. So really breaking it down into more manageable pieces. As we examined earlier that students with severe cognitive disabilities will have a difficult time managing large portions of information. That large portion of information is again that piece of paper flowing through their head, they're not able to grab a hold of, if you're able to narrow it down to only one piece of information, and then give the repetition, the drill in practice, the wrote piece of learning to that student with severe cognitive disabilities, they will be able to attain mastery at some level. At that point you can then think about adding another outcome on to it. So maybe a two step process to be looking at what a student's artifact may be. Maybe you want them only to back to making a piece of art. So in Python, if you think about making a piece of art and you think about making just a simple rectangle and then filling in that rectangle. There are so many pieces to get that correct. There is the correct, correct spelling of the word wrecked the parentheses, the parameters that are needed to be able to make the size and width of that shape, and then any field command that you may give in there as well. So when you look at outcomes for neurodiverse students, you can look at can they get two pieces of that or one piece based on their readiness level. Not all students, as we know, are on the same level at all times. You have leaders you have followers, but oftentimes we're looking at that piece of each individual student and meeting them where they are. So you get a quick representation of that, especially after using the pre-course of what students are going to be your leaders and followers and what students are going to need more assistance through your curriculum. Next, the assessment piece. So we really need to be looking at how do we differentiate assessments for neurodiverse students. And when we look at this, we really want to look at the differentiating ways for assessing their learning, especially for vocabulary, one of the big ones. So some of the examples I've given there is Flipgrid. I don't know if anyone is familiar with any of these, but they are easily easily searchable on the internet. So Flipgrid, Quizlet, Quizziz, Kahoot, and Jamboards are one of my favorites because it gives me the opportunity to kind of do one-on-one instruction because I can assign a Jamboard that I have created and that student is going to get more repetition through what they use. So they're going to have more opportunities to learn a skill. That's one of the greatest things that I found with teaching computer science to this population is the fact that there are no platforms that really seem to give enough opportunity for practice in a skill, whether it's building loop structures or understanding variables inside of an algorithm. It seems like there's all of the platforms that are out there only give students five or six examples to get through or lessons that they have to get through before moving on to whatever comes next in that specific curriculum. So I found this to be one of the biggest barriers or obstacles to really having computer science equity for students with neurodiversity. This is really the point of where we can begin to build extra scaffold learning activities through the use of these Jamboards or Kahootz or Quizlet for vocabulary. It is a great way to have students that have expressive language difficulties as far as typing or structure of words and how they put together, but they do have the verbal ability to do that. They're able to make their own video responses to any content that you're able to give them so you can build a lesson where you give them and ask them to answer a question regarding something that you're working on that week in class, and they're able to give a verbal response to that. The students should also have frequent more than typical students assessments, breaking down concepts into more manageable pieces and the remedial assessments that maintain skills and concepts that were previously learned. Now, what am I talking about when I say those, I'm really looking at when we assess a skill for neurodiverse students, we really want to take a look at that skill and as we assess that one skill, and then we decide that they have met mastery or they've met a benchmark that is sufficient for moving on to the next skill, then we still don't want to forget about this skill. Students with ID do need to have that repetition. It's the use it or lose it mentality. So students really need to have to go back and still retain that information. And the way that we found that to be beneficial for our students is through the assessments by breaking it down to one assessment, adding a second, adding the third piece, and then for the second and third piece still adding one from the previous lesson, or two from the previous lesson that maintains their skill, while moving on and learning other pieces. Now with groupings, this is more on the social emotional learning side. So this is accessibility through differentiation. We need to increase communication and collaboration for students. We need to build a culture in the room that's going to allow for more sharing and more failure learning. Again, I do not believe that this is just for ID students or students with special needs. I believe this is for every population in computer science. It also offers reflections on tasks as well. What we have found to work very well with groupings is to begin the school year with grouping students in a very homogeneous group. They are on the same ability levels. They have that same student that is very shy and does not want to talk. We want him with other shy students that do not want to talk, or students that have language deficits. We want to keep them with their own group to start. So once everyone is feeling comfortable, that gives us then the opportunity to break out and now look at more heterogeneous grouping when we do paired programming activities, where you can have a leader and a follower where you can have a student that does is a very good and a student that may not communicate as well. So again with groupings, we're just looking at, can you give opportunities to group students at the beginning of the school year in homogeneous groups. And then once that environment and culture and trust is built in your classroom, then look at moving into that heterogeneous class or groupings to be able to look at paired programming activities. So, in wrapping up its equity through opportunity and accessibility through differentiation. What you know about your typical students behaviors struggles with parts of a curriculum it's it's things we already know, plus what we've learned about differentiating really makes us understand that we're not as special as we thought we were. So the reality is is that while that special needs student may be coming into an inclusive environment for computer science. It does not mean that they are not going to be able to meet the requirements for the course. It just means that we have to find more opportunities to have accessibility and to differentiate the curriculum to help them be successful. So some of the things that we've talked about today, in regards to differentiating based on the norms of the classroom, as well as drilling down standards assessments and outcomes, I truly believe that this is an opportunity to truly bring equity through opportunity and accessibility through differentiation. Thank you. Thank you for your questions and answers at this point. Yeah, well, thank you, Robert. Yes. Yeah, so I have a question, and people please put your questions into the chat, or Brianna will monitor and see if anybody. Can you raise your hand, Brianna, be able to do that. You can raise your hand as well. I'm going to let us know, sorry, but I have a first question. And that is, you know, your students are, you know, a very diverse among themselves, but they all have a disability. And many teachers, you know, most students who have a disability are not in self contained classrooms like yours. But they might, you know, I might be a teacher that has two students on the autism spectrum but the rest of my students are not. And a couple of other students have reading, reading issues and so on. So what can you say to a teacher who who has say 30 students in their class, and just a few students that you would typically have in your, in your classes. I would think that the greatest thing that I would say is the fact that yes the upfront work needs to be put in to help them be successful in the classroom. There are some extra things that need to be done to help them be successful. But I think that at the same time, you know, in my classroom, I have vocational students that are coming half day that may make up a third or fourth of my classroom setting at that time with students that have special needs at the same time. While I have two different levels working at one time, it does require that opportunity to be able to sit down and put in some extra work upfront to be able to have things planned where you can give extra assignments for students that may not be grasping a concept right out of the gates. So I think that this this idea of differentiating and looking at platforms across the board and and if anybody has any I would love to hear, but platforms just do not seem to have enough opportunity to practice skills. So that's where the differentiation piece comes in and I'm sure that there are teachers that are in this presentation right now that spend time finding extra scaffold activities or remediation lessons for those students as well. And those remediation tasks or those extra assignments to be able to grasp the concept. I think they're out there and I think teachers are already doing that. It's just more about differentiating that classroom so that the ID student is able to fit in right out of the gates. You'll get more from them if they feel that sense of inclusion in the classroom. That's, that's really interesting. Also you mentioned in your presentation, you know the idea of providing scaffolding so that people have a pathway to solve a problem. And over time, do you sort of loosen up that scaffolding and remove it how does, and how long does that take. Yes, so the, you're, you're referring to what in special ed we call fading, fading. Yes. So in it, we do use fading so we do have scaffolding activities we do have structured worksheets that go along with assignments as well that that helps students through their thought processes and solving a problem. And we are able to fade those things out over time based on a student's understanding of the concepts that we're using. So one of the flow charts that we use like I spoke of earlier, we use diamonds for decision making points where they can either go left or right or continue straight down. We use stop signs to let them know obviously that that is a stop. We use rectangles to tell them that they are at a starting point. And over time, we begin fading out those visual cues for them. Now it may just be written cues, and over time we then fade out the written prompts and the written cues to step them through their thought processes as well. So over time, and again, it's individualized so I've had students that master the concept of this kind of decomposition, the brainstorming looking for pattern recognition, then moving into this try phase where they're working through the problem, and then that reflection is to look back to say yes it did work or didn't work. I have students that work through that process. After some scaffolding activities and structured guides for them within weeks and I have other students that it's taken a whole school year that they still need that level of support to get through there. But again, I think the biggest thing is is really understanding that the learning that the students are grasping from computer science is not just about the content of computer science. It is about the social emotional piece. It is about the understanding of that self advocacy. It's better communication. It's following single and multi step directions. It's sequencing its pattern recognition. These are all those soft skills and special ed that we always struggled with trying to find ways to build into our curriculums with reading and mathematics computer science just is a perfect symbiotic fit. Wow. I was wondering, Robert, could you stop sharing your screen because then we can have more people. And I might. There's a couple of questions in the chat too. So if that asked, do you differentiate the summative assessments like quizzes and tests for students with intellectual disabilities? Absolutely. And again, we differentiate on a lot of different factors. A lot of times we're beholden in the state of Pennsylvania and I believe across the country, you're beholden to a lot of IEP restrictions as well. If there are accommodations that are in the IEP that address things like extra time short and assignments. So we obviously have to be beholden to those. But from there, I do differentiate on a lot of different avenues where one test a student may have to debug a program and then go through it and revamp the program changing a lot of the parameters. Whereas another student may not have to debug it. It's only a choice between two, two lines of code that are options for right and wrong. And they do not have to then rewrite it with new parameters. So it's just differentiating that outcome that you're looking for doesn't necessarily have to be every student gets the same assessment in the classroom. Vivian has a question and do you want to unmute and show yourself and ask your question. Yes. So I was wondering if the students you teach they are verbal or they have different communication needs and if so, how do you address their different communication styles during group activities for instance. Yes, so I do have students I have students that are non verbal I have students that have speech delays. I have students that are typical speakers. Like you and I, and the way I overcome that is, first of all, if we're doing anything that they have to give responses back to me, they we have some software in the classroom. We have text to talk so if they're having difficulties verbally telling me what they need or what's going on. They have task devices where picture representation and I can code a line of pictures for them that are responses for a set of instructions that we're going to be going over, and the computer will read the responses back to me, they just have to choose which one is the correct one. Great. One thing that you mentioned to me the other day when we were talking was that when you do. And you mentioned kind of abstractly here. So the fact that a lot of curricula like code or curricula they, their, their assessment is on, you know, on a and then they go to be, and they do an assessment on be but forget about a. And, and, and what you're, what you're saying is that to do this alternative eligible content. Is that what you call it. Yes. Maybe you could go into a little more depth and, and, and explain what that means to know that sounds difficult because you know, you have these units and, and you test on the unit and then you go to the next unit you test on the unit and it's like a whole new approach. Yeah, it is it is a daunting task at times but when we look at, for instance when we were, I'm just going to grab one that I just recently done have done with some students. So when we were looking at understanding canvas size only for a group of fresh students to the CS course that I was teaching. So just understanding the pixel size 400 by 400 understanding the X and Y parameters. I had to break each one of those down. I had to use a jam board to be able to get them through and just learning what the canvas was and what a pixel was 400 by 400. When we were then able to move on and we were then looking at making a circle on the canvas now and understanding that a where a circle gets placed is completely different, because it's using the exact center of the circle. It's going to give its radius and its circumference the size of the circle on the canvas to where a rectangle will be placed based on the upper left hand corner. So the point being is is that while I was just teaching canvas at first, that was the one that I had to assess to make sure everyone was able to get through at a certain proficiency level. When I was able to do that we then went on and began looking at circles ellipses and rectangles and their placement on the canvas. When I assessed that new concept, I also brought back the concept of canvas size. By the end of the course when they came through their final assessments, their weekly assessments that were going were upwards of, you know, 25 to 30 per week of questions that they were being asked, but they were all built and they were all reviewing what they had learned in previous ones. You know, it's interesting in college, you know, I've taught college for too many years. You know, we, we don't typically do those little tiny assessments we have one big assessment, you know at the end of the quarter maybe a midterm or something like that that they're more summative you know they test everything. You know, that can be kind of a shock for somebody coming from having these sort of mini assessments and building up assessments to having these assessments, you know, for the students that are going to college. Yes, yeah, and it is and I truly believe that that's what really helps our students in our school. It's that manageable piece for them. So a lot of students, especially autism spectrum disorder students that their ability to manage emotion and manage behavior is something that is they struggle with in the classroom. If they understand that they're going to learn a concept so if we give the expectation for the day we give the objectives for the day, and we begin that learning process. And at the end of that process they're expected to do X, Y and Z, that can be sensory overload for them. So we're looking at these sensory input issues as well that three things are a sensory issue for them, because it is unmanageable and now things are flying around it's the, the the metaphor of the paper flying around from the fan. That gives students then the opportunity to realize it's one thing that I have to do that makes it manageable. And the interesting thing is is over time, we fade in the classroom where we may tell them at the beginning of class this is going to be one thing that you're going to need to do this is the one content that we're going to assimilate learning to, we are going to practice the skill, and then we're going to do a short assessment on the skill. And after that is completed, and they now have that ability to sit back and go I did it I feel great this is awesome. Then we can all oftentimes later in the school year say okay we're going to do one more today, when all along the idea was we're getting through two concepts today. So I don't want to give them at the beginning that the objectives that is to do two learning concepts for the day. I just want to give them one. They feel that sense of accomplishment, they're ready to try another one so it's the pacing of lessons, I leave completely up to the students. That is not for me to determine just like it's not me to determine where I'm going to start my class, as far as what skills I'm going to teach, or what vehicle I'm going to use in the classroom. I want students to dictate and show me where I need to meet them at where do they feel comfortable what is their preferred method of learning, and then to be able to help them achieve that. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to ask you know when we talk about certain populations when we talk about students with who are blind or have low vision we talk a lot about which tools are more accessible than other one. If you've found that certain programming tools work better for the population of students that you work with. What you know which ones you've had success with. Code. I've used code.org platform. I think that they have a lot of beneficial things to their platform. I think that the students interact with it very well. I think that the tractors that I would say would be the interface the UI is very busy for students with special needs. There's too much going on and too many things on the interface. And again, the big thing is, is there is not enough practice before moving on to the next skill. The Academy from Carnegie Carnegie Mellon University, I've used that as well. The students have had great success with that and they appear to love that curriculum, because the interface is more like a compiler interface. It is not flashy there are not things all over the screen. It's more of a compiler. It's very rules based, which the students most of the students that I have, especially the students on the spectrum. They love the fact that a product is very rules oriented they know where to click there's not a thousand buttons going on. They're able to get in and out in and out of that platform. So those are the two that we've had the most success with for our students, especially at the high school level. Someone asked which code.org curriculum did you use. We have used so CS discoveries CS discoveries is a great curriculum that we've had a lot of success with. But I think there was a disconnect with code.org's discoveries program. I think that it landed itself too heavily towards the unplugged activities, which tends to be a little bit boring for my students. They want something that's a little bit more fast paced. So that curriculum, I had to adapt tremendously by using lots of STEM activities and science experiments around the concept that code.org was asking to be taught. I've also used the express course for code.org as well as the principles course. Now Zoe, Zoe has a question. Do you want to ask your question on mute yourself and ask. Sure. So I work with a fully online institution. So, and we're nationwide. So we and we're really focusing on developing our courses to be as inclusive and targeting all of our learners as we can. But it's fully it's fully virtual. So they're never going to be in a brick and mortar building. They might not even interact with other students in their online platforms. So we're really trying to figure out the creative and sort of best practices ways to create a really good learning experience for those learners. So I'm wondering if there's anything that that comes to mind surrounding that because I recognize that it gets pretty tricky pretty fast. But we're, like I said, we're we're trying to, I guess, up skill ourselves and then again be as mindful as we can. I cannot get I cannot wave a magic wand but I will tell you what we have done and what has worked for us. I, are you familiar with OBS. One button studio. No, open broadcasting source. Oh, okay. So OBS is I use video lessons. I have multiple students that were virtual for the entire school year. Both of those students were they are students with severe cognitive disabilities. And the only way to truly get across the learning was for them to see a lesson being done and it not just being like we're sitting here now. So they needed to be able to see the interface they needed to be able to go over things and they needed to be interactive with the interface as well. So we use OBS. I video record a lot of the lessons of me doing the actual practice skills or the lesson itself. I actually turned it into this. We call it teams lab TV and the students just absolutely love it. They said I should be the bill next bill nine. I told them no, I think I will pass, but OBS is one that I've used to help record and video the lessons it's very user friendly and then be to be able to get into the platform and then be able to have, you know, step a student through and then monitor them as they go through and do it on their own. It also is beneficial because it has an archive. If you have students that need to go back and learn a skill. That's the nice piece of video lesson modeling as well and using video modeling. It now becomes an archive for you to remediate and I'm not sure how your school works but I know that in my school. One of the things that we encounter quite a bit is we may be two thirds of a way through a semester and all of a sudden three new students show up. So that is how do you plug three new students into, you know, where you've already moved for three quarters of a semester, and how do you catch them up to that. And the nice part of the video modeling is all of those lessons are already done. So while I could work with one group and get them moving in the direction that they were already on. I can then have the other students be working on their video modeling, and then I can vice versa switch and then give one on one attention that way. So yes, virtual instruction with computer science. I don't think anybody has solved that one yet and whoever does is, I will be the first in line. Thank you so much for that. Yes. I have a question about the jam boards. Yes. I'm trying to conceptualize it is there a way, a simple way that you want to share your screen again and give us an example. I sure could. So since we were talking about the radius lesson. I figured that might be a good place to start. Let's see game lab. I saw below that. So again, these were, and I was able to use this jam board in, and I could specifically think of the group of students that were working in this. I used OBS to screen record and have my little picture down in the corner and I taught my lesson for the students. But the nice part was is after the lesson they did have some interactive things that they had to do in order to demonstrate to me that they understood what radius was. So again, I'm looking at students that are coming in that have, you know, their math capabilities are well below grade level. So the computer science component is the first place that I have to start is with math and computer science, because students do not even understand what the word radius means, let alone can they figure out. Do they understand what circumference of a circle is. We're being able to have interactive lessons where the students are able to go through and just have time and interactive, and we have this same piece inside of the classroom as well. I don't have a picture of that, but we have a giant board that is made into a circle that has a nail through the center of the circle with thread going out. Based on a piece of pie that they're given, they have to move around so it's that tangibility piece. So again, it's meeting all those modalities of learning that where I'm able to understand that if I put a student into a video lesson, doing a activity that is virtual and doing jam boards and understanding different things with radius and diameter and circumference, and they get it, then they're ready to move on. If they do not get it, then I can then say, Well, there is a piece to the component that did not work for that student. So visually, it was not able to be assimilated no learning happened in the visual cortex for them. It did not happen either because the words coming out of my mouth were in one ear and out the other. So I'm left now with this idea of kinesthetic and then this tactile modality of learning. So that's where I'm able to then take and say I have to make my next intervention strategy to now go to the next modality, which is going to be that tactile or modality of kinesthetic movements in the classroom. So I've had to go that low with students as well, where we've taken and created a complete code.org puzzles in the classroom, where to help them understand what the blocks are doing, what the code block is doing that they have to physically be able to be the keys and physically fill themselves moving from component or from square to square, based on them getting a code block in their hands. So again, it's that scaffold idea of meeting the student where they are before moving on. Yes, that's really interesting because what you're describing there is something that I, you know, there's the old queasy or rods and things that from way long ago so all this sort of tactile learning that you're really using that a lot. And I think some of the code and not the code of the computing without a computer what do you call that unplugged? Unplugged, right. Unplugged activities have a lot of physicality as well. They absolutely do. So in a lot of terms with, and that's where the STEM activities with a lot of the things that I didn't see as discoveries, I believe one of their first opening activities was the aluminum boat challenge. You know, sticking pennies in and finding out which penny, how many pennies will take to sink the boat. The students that was a kinesthetic activity for them. So it was them getting around a tub of water and physically putting pennies in and we used tickers to show how many pennies were going in. So those students being able to concrete versus abstract so much in computer science can be abstract while there is a lot of things in computer science that are very rules based and very concrete in computer science. My students and a lot of students that I see, they find the concrete and definable tasks of computer science satisfying. They find it very engaging to know that it has to be precisely spelled with capitalization, commas in the right place, parentheses in the right place, and that fuels them to get it right meticulous. And there are times when there are these abstract concepts for those same students that the abstract concept creates emotional distress for them, because it is a creative task where they're there may be seven different paths to take, and that is overwhelming to them. And that differentiation happens by limiting that number of choices that they have, so that they are from the social emotional learning piece, they're not becoming overwhelmed. And then in the next piece they're able to make it more concrete and have more concrete and rules based. Yeah, I really love that tactile learning. And I think part of that is from my experience with with blind kids as well, because a tackle is so important to them. Are there more questions from anybody out there. Brianna, they've covered everything in the chat one just popped up. Darius says I work for nonprofit training teachers to be computer science instructors, would you be willing to do a virtual PD on this for our teachers. I'll shoot his email to you Robert. I am when it comes to this population I am. I'm willing to help. I really truly believe that this, I've seen the benefits. I've seen the engagement factor from the students. I've seen what being given the opportunity can do for them. And I really understood more about I've learned more from special needs students in the last six years, teaching them computer science, then I learned in the first 20 years of my special ed teaching. Another question and throughout the talk today I don't think you use the term universal design for learning which is kind of this popular term out there. And I think what you're doing a lot of what you're describing is sort of could be put under that rubric. So what are your thoughts about UDL. Starting with the end in mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's absolutely what we're doing. We are absolutely using universal design to be able to backward chain. One of the biggest components of special education is chaining and backwards chaining is one of the most effective ways to gather concept attainment for a student. So being able to start with the end in mind, taking a content standard, drilling that standard down and finding hinge points that you want a student to be able to try to hit as they work up to that task. And then it goes the same way that universal design for learning that backwards chaining, then goes from the standards and your planning as a teacher, and then it goes straight into your instructional strategies and design as well. So as you begin to design what lesson you're going to teach the materials, the avenues of input, the avenues of assessment that you're going to use for whatever lesson you're doing for that day. So you are again looking at what do I want the student to be able to demonstrate at the end of the day to show me that there has been mastery or some level of obtainment of the skill based on an IEP goal or objective or just in the classroom expectation that I have. Yeah, I wonder if you should give a presentation to code.org it because, you know, maybe they can improve their curriculum by doing this backward chaining or, you know, making it more less, you know, a siloed, you know, each topic so siloed. Yeah, well, and we had talked about this as well is the fact that I feel like code.org one of the greatest things about teaching and this is the thing that that has always troubled me in education is when we try to take the art of teaching out of teaching. Teachers are great creative masters of their environments, and they always seize on these teachable moments. I feel like code.org. A lot of times missed their opportunity for those teachable moments, and we had spoken about one of those with their, you know, understanding of when we were talking about compression. When we were talking about lossy and lossless compression, and I thought that that was a perfect opportunity. One of the greatest things that students love to do is take pictures selfies of themselves. They are consumers of social media platforms where they're sharing photos and they're doing things like that. I thought that was a perfect opportunity for them to have a teachable moment that bridges the gap between these abstract concepts and then a real world application to what that is. So I think that those are, you know, opportunities that in the classroom teachers don't miss, because teachers are masters of this, you know, the teachable moment and having the, oh, this is where I can make a tangible. Make it real world this idea of compression and understanding how that affects image and video streaming. So that does give you that opportunity to do that and I think code.org. That is one area that they could improve their product is is definitely by finding more teachable moments in their curriculum and not making it and great verbiage the silo that they do. Why don't you, why don't you meet yourself, put your hand down and ask your question. There you go. I admire what you did. I feel like it took a lot of your time to really differentiate and build really meet their eyes. Sometimes I feel like it's really tiring is when you have different sections different levels of students and mix. And this year the problem I had was in AP classroom principles class, I had students who don't have algebra one. So I should have gone down like you did and start from the building the math and like a scaffolding and breaking down all those words but I just couldn't do it this year. So that was one question. How can you. What any any advice for a first year teaching that experience teaching that course like how can we reduce our loads and differentiate those. And my other question about the assessment was that students were supposed to take the AP exam. So if I differentiate the assessments, or in the end at the end they have to take the AP. So that was my question. And I will answer that in the best way that I possibly can which is when I started this journey, I became I had that sense of overwhelmed kind of what you're saying right now, like where do I begin there's I would have to go all the way back and fill in all the algebra that this student is Mitch missed to be able to get them to the next level. So my question is, first and foremost, pick a concept or a skill that you really want to work on with a group of students and start there. Don't try to look at your entire curriculum and say, I'm going to differentiate everything at one time because it doesn't work. And I tried that and I literally almost drove myself insane thinking that I was Superman and this was what I was going to do and rah rah rah and I'm going down this path. But then I began realizing that if I picked one component that I believe that encompassed all of the students at one time, one concept, and then really differentiated that and began building units around that. Building the extracurricular activities built into that the, the remediation projects the, the gaps in their previous instruction that they may be missing. That was kind of where I had to get the second piece of the answer would be the fact that I think that through these types of collegial conversations, these presentations. I think you and I spreading the word that there is an inequity that is happening, and that it's time for disability to be given the same status as gender and ethnicity that maybe we can spur these code dot orgs and CS Academy through Carnegie and bootstraps and all of these other platforms to hear what we're going through for them to finally realize that, wow, there needs to be a platform that's built that is taking into consideration students that may not be. Again, I hate saying it this way, but I truly feel like computer science platforms were built for a very typical student. They were not built for everyone. And I feel like until that time happens that we need to continue doing what we're doing with these kinds of conversations and partnerships and working with each other and you know ultimately trying to find a platform that is going to help with that. And there will not be a cookie cutter approach to it. I don't think that that will ever happen. I don't think that there will ever be a platform that says this is a computer science curriculum that handles everything from an introduction to CS to introduction to Python and Java, all the way up to your C, or a PC SP. I don't think there'll be one curriculum for that. I think that it's going to take three or four or five platforms that are going to be developed. And I'm currently working with a gentleman out of West Virginia State University, or West Virginia University in West Virginia. That is working for the Department of Defense and we are trying to build the first special needs curriculum for computer science but we are not going to be starting at the AP level we're going to be starting at the intro and and intro into Java that's where we need to get. So this basic idea and concepts of programming that just gives more opportunities as far as, you know, not learning a concept and having five bubbles and then your boom you're on to the next concept. And there really doesn't give enough time for anything to become very concrete in that students mind. They just don't have enough practice. Yeah, my recommendation Robert is don't call it curriculum for special needs call it curriculum for everyone. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Brianna, what do you think I think should we were near the end. Yeah, so yeah I think we're, we're ready to wrap up I will send an email with links to the slides and the resources Robert shared tomorrow. Keep an eye out for that. And it will also include a link to the evaluation and I will drop that in the chat right now please take a minute to fill it out. And if anyone would like any, you know, if anybody needs anything I've given my information, please do not hesitate. Anything that we've created or built or done is, you know, for the masses so, and I would love to learn what everybody is doing as well because I'm sure that, you know, as long as I've been doing this I am not the master of anything I am simply learning as I go and I'm building the plane as I fly it. You have a lot of enthusiasm. At my age I'm kind of losing it but you're still young. I just turned 50 and I don't feel that young because I feel like when you get asked to do these types of things that tells you that you've earned the gray hair and you're getting too old to be an education anymore but I'm going to keep keep kicking the can down the road.