For Google Staff
To Consider
To consider about the CAPE program
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Consider…Communicating more clear and specific student outcomes.
It is important that the faculty have a clear and complete understanding of the intended outcomes for the campers. There is no doubt that the faculty understood the desire to inspire and excite kids about computer science. However, the expectations for computing concepts and skills as well as applications of computer science were less clear.
The articulation of clear outcomes will go hand-in-hand with the desire to hand over instructional decision making to the faculty. The CAPE leadership can decide the "what" of the student CAPE Summer experience in terms of outcomes. Once this is clear, the CAPE faculty can decide the "how."
In order to communicate these goals, a necessary first step is to have the CAPE leadership clearly articulate the CAPE purpose and theory of action. Taking time to clearly describe the longer-term impacts of CAPE will then enable the CAPE leadership team clarify the CAPE program activities, faculty development and camper recruitment.
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Consider…How to balance student-directed learning with computing fundamentals and direct instruction.
CAPE faculty struck a balance between teaching computing fundamentals through direct instruction and having campers direct their own work. Although CAPE was designed to embody a spirit of student-directed learning, it was clear that the campers both needed and wanted some basic instruction. Ironically, the intention to empower the campers as learners by giving them opportunities to explore on their own, sometimes left them feeling uncomfortably lost. Students and faculty both felt that a little more direct instruction at the beginning of their experience would have been helpful.
Maybe for the coding, doing a couple more tutorials. I mean, yeah, we had some time…we worked on App Inventor and Python more…Python I think the most, but maybe it would be nice…they gave us tutorials for sure but maybe a little more…I would have liked a little bit of an overview of each of the things and since I basically knew nothing about programming before we went…
—Student Interview
They started a program and it's like—people don't know what a Boolean is. I feel like they should have started with a tutorial—basics. Like what words mean in a language.
—Focus Group
We took some time to do some direct instruction where one of us would be explaining things and having kids work along with us and we tried to balance that with kids exploring on their own so that was a little tougher tradeoff than I recognized it would be because when you have kids who don't have a lot of base knowledge it's tough to know how much to give them before you can turn them loose and have their curiosity take over so that was a little bit difficult because you couldn’t really gauge that before the kids were in the room and you found out where they were.
—Faculty Interview
I think maybe having a little more instruction on the actual coding…because I think some people knew how to do it but when I saw Python that was the first time I had seen it and I was like "aaahhh!" and I mean I kind of figured it out but learning it in school, I don't know, I mean the instruction…'cause you kind of want a balance between giving tutorials and stuff and trying it out for yourself…
—Faculty Interview
Consider…How to strike the best balance of depth over breadth.
CAPE struck a balance between exposing the campers (and the faculty) to a range of "modalities" (Processing, App inventor, Python, Arduino) and giving them time to work with one modality in-depth. While it was hard for the campers to identify anything they would cut out, they often commented that they wanted more time to work with the modalities that they most preferred. They suggested the possibility of starting projects sooner, after a more brief initial exposure to the different modalities.
Likewise, some of the faculty felt that they were being asked to master too many modalities. At times, they felt that they were no better able to help the campers with a question than the campers could help one another. Culturally, this was acceptable to the faculty, but as teachers who wanted to facilitate learning as effectively as possible, it was a challenge. They and the campers suggested the possibility of organizing the sessions so that faculty specialization might be more clear as a way of helping both campers and themselves.
Maybe cutting down the number of different environments. Not doing App Inventor or not doing Arduino, come down by one or two—gives them more time to go into depth, this would be good. Cutting down both languages would give them time to learn foundations. It was clear that they weren’t taught some foundations when we did final projects.
—Faculty Interview
I wish we had more time to work on [projects]. We are going through just 3 weeks and learning so many different languages.
—Student Interview
Some of the sections we taught were not meaningful because of lack of depth. In a CS course with 4 field trips and a lot of non-cs content, it doesn’t make sense to touch upon 5 different languages. It feels like we are pulling it away from the kids right when they get interested. They never really got a chance (except for final projects) to delve into anything too deeply. This lack of depth caused problems with the project development because they didn't know how to design them. They didn't have a mentor to sit with them to advise on design changes. If they are designing a project with lots of issues and they don't realize it, we don’t catch it. There were other design issues with other groups where I kinda had to come up with a hack fix just to get it to work. I didn't really like that. They were missing too many fundamentals. That was the cost of showing them all these things. You could've paired it down to 2-3 languages at most, and we would have had just as amazing experience. You don't have to show them all the programming paradigms—it's not necessary.
—Faculty Interview
One thing that irked me was that we would have this project going on in a language and we didn't have enough time to finish it as far as we wanted to go. Like, a lot of times you have stuff you want to improve on…like you finished a basic project and something that's really cool and then they would say—okay, now we are moving on to a different language.
—Student Interview
It's too fast—when gave the me the application they said little to no experience—they are going way to fast. And I feel like the only people who get it are those with a lot of experience.
—Focus Group
When I came I had experience in several languages, Java, etc. And I have no idea what's going on 80% of the time. It's not hard. It's just fast.
—Focus Group
Consider…Communicating more clearly about the purpose, design and use of stations.
During development, faculty were unclear about the intended design, organization and purpose of the stations. Some used them during camp and some didn’t. Those who did use them appreciated the opportunities they afforded to provide structured, differentiated learning explorations for campers.
Thus, if stations are going to continue to be an essential part of CAPE Summer moving forward, it will be important to develop some guidelines to bring consistency to their design and clarity to their use. CAPE leadership should consider ways to articulate the learning objectives the stations are expected to address; how the stations should be organized?; what structure(s) are the most useful?; when and how might they be used during the CAPE Summer experience? Clarifying these issues will help both faculty and students understand the best way to use and benefit from stations.
If they get through the basic part of the station they learn the goal. My goal is they learn the concepts. Then, I want to have them take it further—give them room to go past the station. That is important. There needs to be a coherent goal and then space to grow out of it. Many of our students did grow, not as many as I would have liked. They did go through the stations and learn them. They did it like an online tutorial, where you step through it and see the motions, but the understanding it's there as much. A deeper understanding wasn’t quite there. I want them to get this deeper understanding—I want them to go deeper than an online tutorial cause we are at CAPE. Some of the students went though the motions; they weren't quite sure why things worked. If you are just looking at a document with steps, they just follow the steps. When you follow steps, you focus on that and don't spend time questioning why you are doing the steps. You do this and then this happens. It's more like a recipe. Everyone is used to that. It's easy to follow the recipe.
—Faculty Interview
Consider…How to make the camper experience more coherent and integrated.
During CAPE, campers experienced a wide variety of activities (mentors, field trips, programming, guest speakers, learning & development). While each type of activity had its merits, the campers could have benefitted more if the activities were better integrated with one another and with the programming experiences. CAPE staff should consider working more closely with faculty to collaboratively plan these activities to make for a more connected camper experience. This kind of advance planning will also be helpful for the speakers and presenters themselves, enabling them to more specifically address the learning objectives for the students and help bring coherency to the experience.
We hadn't really thought through…to identify the big purpose of say some of the field trips or mentor time or eating with some of the Googlers. We just thought that some of the kids would recognize those things…Part of the way through we recognized that and thought we really need to come up with a definitive goal and sort of lay some groundwork before the kids do some of this stuff to help them recognize why we are doing it and point out some of the things for them which isn't difficult at all and for us as teachers should have been pretty obvious but I think we sort of regretted maybe…
—Faculty Interview
To consider for preparation and implementation
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Consider…What's essential for whole group planning time and teaching team planning time?
Overall, the faculty felt the summits and other planning opportunities were well designed and they appreciated the sometimes unexpected attention to community and collaboration building. At the same time, however, they felt they would have liked more time to dive into curriculum and content. CAPE leadership should consider ways to maximize the time when the whole group is together as well as the time that teams are able to meeting in small groups. There will always be trade-offs between doing work face-to-face and a whole group, in virtual groups, or individually; finding ways to strike this balance will be helpful to next year’s faculty.
It is worth noting that the faculty found the additional funds that enabled them to come together to plan together to be extremely valuable. These funds were essential supports for the faculty and they should be built into the preparation in the future with the expectation that each team will find a time to plan together in person, on their own.
The content [of the summits] I think was great. I enjoyed both summits. I know that the summits are sort of partially to get us going with what we are going to be teaching and partially to get us into the Google culture. That was great. I would have enjoyed more curricular time during especially the second summit. I know there is not a lot of time to do everything. I got value about everything we did…but more curricular time and more time to look at the stations and curriculum. I really enjoyed the summits—I thought they were valuable and worthwhile.
—Faculty Interview
The hangouts are good for being aware about what's going on. It's useful to hear about what other sites are doing and their experience. I find them useful, it’s nice to touch base with everyone involved once a week. I will try to join them for the rest of the summer.
—Faculty Interview
Consider…Ways to streamline communication about logistics and responsibilities:
At times, faculty felt that communication with the Google staff was confusing particularly with regard to planning and events. CAPE leadership should consider putting some communications in writing so that faculty are clear about procedures and expectations and can refer back to those guidelines when needed. These communications might include instructions for “onboarding” their employment at Google, getting help during the CAPE Summer camp day, communicating and greeting speakers, mentors and other guests, and other logistics. Having written materials available will enable face-to-face time to be more efficient and allow faculty to find communication information when it is needed.
It's hard to verify that the Google calendar is the same as the spreadsheet. It’s too much stuff to verify and it’s overwhelming. It's hard to keep track when someone else is modifying your spreadsheet and changing the schedule.
—Faculty Interview
Consider…Setting clear expectations for faculty feedback process:
Faculty expressed that they wanted feedback, but they were unclear about if and how they would get any on their teaching and participation in CAPE. There is great potential for teachers to further improve their teaching practice with feedback from fellow faculty and the faculty advisors. Rarely do teachers have the time to reflect on their teaching practice and CAPE is an invaluable opportunity to do so.
To consider for spread and sustainability
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Consider…Mechanisms for engaging current and new faculty.
There are many ways that CAPE can capitalize on the investment it has made in its faculty. In order to best do that, it can be helpful (both within CAPE staff and for faculty) to clearly describe the ways that faculty can contribute to the spread and sustainability of CAPE. Some faculty would welcome support for running a CAPE experience in their own locations. Others would be willing to travel to other places to support other experienced or new faculty develop a CAPE experience. While faculty may be willing, they have many priorities and could benefit from some clear options with descriptions of clear supports and benefits.
There was a little survey about our involvement moving forward. I don't know what that means for CAPE. Something will happen but I'm not sure what that means for me. Still sort of a mystery. We hear that there are plans, and that we will be notified, but it sounds amorphous and there aren’t many details.
—Faculty Interview
Consider…What's essential?
A necessary first step in spreading CAPE is clearly articulating what CAPE is. That is, considering which parts of CAPE are absolutely essential for accomplishing the CAPE goals and understanding why. Once articulated, these essential elements of CAPE can help guide the steps taken to put CAPE in place in other locations.
What wouldn’t translate off site? Issues with supplies and food and all that stuff. That's not to be discounted—it's really great to have the food. The mentors aren't there. The guest speakers wouldn't be there—that would be a shame.
—Faculty Interview
Qualified instructors: I think that's really critical…Right now, it worked because we had really bright kids and really good instructors. If you just try to release this and say "here’s this amazing program" and you didn't have all the amazing parts, you just have the curriculum part, that's not enough to make it this amazing program. Part of what's missing is going to be the Google office, which plays a large part in the kids' enthusiasm. There will be a lot of things missing if they try to push this program out that are not things that can be easily replaced…
—Faculty Interview
All the instructors in this program are amazing and every time I go to one of the summits I'm like "damn&mash;I have to work harder" and that's a good thing. I like seeing that there's other really great people out there that are great CS instructors and people that I can respect and learn from, but that's not the norm. That's very much not the norm. You won't find people like that who can make the adjustments necessary, that can facilitate the kids the way they need. Without either a much more well planned curriculum or without the instructors, it just doesn't work. You need to have something that will make anybody be able to pick it up and go from from beginning to end or from middle to end or wherever you want to pick up, or you need someone who can help them get there. So potentially: training for the instructors would make it work&mash;that kind of support would probably make a huge difference.
—Faculty Interview
Consider…Adaptations for population and location.
A key step in spreading CAPE is considering whether, and to what extent the intention is to reach more diverse locations and student populations. If that is the case, careful consideration will need to be given to the design and content of CAPE as well as the identification of and support for faculty.
Consider…Targeted and strategic spread.
CAPE will benefit most from its growth if that growth is targeted and strategic. Spread sites should be identified with consideration to how those sites are alike and different from one another and from the original CAPE sites and with attention to what can be learned about the growth of CAPE in the future.
Consider…Specific short and long-term goals.
Regularly revisiting the CAPE theory of action during this process will be key to successful growth and outcomes. CAPE staff and teaching faculty need to have a shared understanding of what they, as part of CAPE are trying to accomplish not only so that they have a clear vision, but also so that they can document and assess their progress. With ongoing reflection and data collection, CAPE staff can make well-informed decisions and mid-course corrections that will move CAPE closer toward its goals.