Before breaking into UX design, I worked as an educator in design, programming, and creative technology for 6 years.

Part of my goal as a creator from both the design and technical sides is to contribute to recreating Ed-Tech to be more inclusive of children who learn in a wide variety of ways. This includes holistically rethinking how learning can be structured to adapt to diverse learning needs while also enabling kids to be practice empathy, autonomy, initiative, and hopefully boundless creativity.

One challenge I identified in my years as an educator was creating an alternate teaching and learning structure to the traditional ‘raise your hand politely for the teacher if you're stuck’ mentality. I realized that kids as young as six or seven were in the process of being trained to rely on authority figures for ‘the next step’ in whatever they were trying to do, and with every year further in K-8 education, this training became more and more apparent.

After studying developmental psychology and design thinking in the classroom, taking an online course in the history of American education models, and working with kids directly for five years, the summer of 2016 I enacted a crazy plan to transform the challenge of the ‘politely raise your hand and wait’ method into an opportunity to enable kids with a new way of approaching problems.

My plan was two-pronged, and I called the parts:

‘How to Think Like a Programmer’ and ‘What to Do When You're Stuck.’

The following is my 30 second crash course since I think these methods are appropriate reminders for learners of all ages. These slides are pulled straight from a game design and development course I taught to 8-12 year olds.

How to Think Like a Programmer is adaptable to any curriculum, and contains reminders of key elements of solving programming challenges. The first two points are more universal, while the last two apply specifically to the technology we were using. For this course and age group, we tackled public and private attributes by describing them as books that either everyone has access to, like in a library, or that only ONE individual has access to, like a personal bookshelf.

What to do When You’re Stuck is universal across all types of courses, and reminds students to use a variety of resources, including their past projects, online resources, and their peers BEFORE reaching out to an instructor. As a lead instructor, I trained my TA’s to not give away answers but rather ask probing questions to help the kids find their solution as independently as possible.

The goal with both of these processes was to enable kids with a toolkit so they'd feel confident in tackling problems on their own. Of course, upon first introduction, this type of process was unfamiliar to the kids, but over the course of the week it is amazing to see how natural the processes become to them. 

These processes also reinforced my general belief that true mastery of a subject comes when you can teach it, which each and every student had the opportunity to do, enhancing their learning twice over.

I was really excited to see these processes actually work across a wide range of ages and courses, from 6 to 18, and across programming, robotics, graphic design, game design, cinematography, and more.

If you have any questions about these processes or how one might implement them in a classroom (no matter the discipline) don’t hesitate to reach out to me with the contact form!