How did you first get interested in computer science?

I started out in college as a psychology major. I liked the classes but did a summer internship at a local mental health facility. I came back a bit disillusioned and decided to look into other options. The math department was offering some information systems classes. They offered programming, systems design, some numerical program methods in Fortran. I really liked all of them, so I took everything my liberal arts college offered. When I got to my senior year and started applying for work, even though I had really just earned a minor in information systems, I was able to get my first job as a programmer. I leveraged that into a better-paying job in the industry and was a database programmer/analyst for about 15 years, so it really was my first career. 

When I had my own children, I became more interested in doing something that gave back. I had already gotten a Master's in computer science from The Johns Hopkins School of Engineering, but I went back and got an additional certification in teaching. I was lucky to get a part-time job in an elementary school near my house, which gave me a nice work/life balance. At that first school, I was best known as  ‘the computer lady,’ but I was able to incorporate some computer science. I was able to teach more computer science at my second school, and at my third school, my job was a  ‘STEM Integration Teacher’. By the time I was at the second school, Code.org had been launched. I used everything I could from it in my classes, and the kids really liked it. I enjoyed being able to find something that was fun and that the kids liked. That brought my passion to what I call ‘Chapter 3;’ Chapter 1 was in industry, Chapter 2 was in schools, and now in Chapter 3, I'm consulting for the Maryland Center for Education (MCCE) as a professional developer, which I like, too.

What are some successes and challenges you’ve faced along the way?

In my work with MCCE, I have worked with some great people: Dianne O’Grady-Cunniff, Elissa Hozore, Megean Garvin, and a tribe of other like-minded teachers in classrooms. We’ve been doing professional development for 6 years, and it's been well received. 

Regarding difficulties, some of the people who have learned through our Maryland Elementary School Computer Science Ambassadors Program don't always get full support back at their schools, where CS instruction competes for time with tested areas, especially reading and math. Plus, there’s the need to sell the idea to their administration, and while many teachers have been very successful in that, it’s often a barrier. We in Maryland have dedicated a lot of energy and funding to CS at the secondary level. At the elementary level, we've done a lot with the little funding we've received. We still have a long way to go to advance CS at the elementary level and need more funding for CS in ES to fully reach its potential. Right now, only about 24% of elementary schools in Maryland have at least 10 hours of CS instruction per year. Reaching that bar is only the start part, but it will be a big lift. We’ve been talking with Engineering educators because there are a lot of similarities between what they do and what we do in CS, and similar barriers as well, such as how many minutes can we get to do this teaching. In both CS and Engineering, It's essential to start this instruction early because if you wait until high school, some students self-select out because they don’t see themselves in it. There are not enough women, people of color, emerging multilingual learners, or students with disabilities in CS and Engineering. I’m very passionate about our impact to broaden participation. One of my current projects is to arrange community events where parents, people from businesses, and the public can come in and see that students can learn computer science, especially robotics, before high school. CS might seem like an overly rigorous topic for elementary school. Still, our past work onboarding MD ES CS Ambassadors has already proven effective so that we will lean heavily on our existing successes.

People are often worried about how virtual learning affected reading and math scores during the pandemic and tend to think the last thing elementary kids need is additional screen time. But the reality is elementary computer science is very social. It's generally done in teams. The kids talk to each other and solve problems together; it’s a very collaborative process that involves a screen, but a lot of the thinking is away from the screen. Also, learning computational thinking is learning both problem-solving and reading. Even before I was teaching computer science, there was a study where students whose reading interventions included problem-solving in coding outperformed the control group that received only traditional interventions in reading. After all, what do you do when you read? You decode, and then you make inferences connected to your prior knowledge. All of that is problem-solving that you do with computational thinking. I am against mindless screen time, but computer science instruction is educational. It's engaging, interactive, social, and empowering. It increases math and reading skills and improves metacognition and executive functioning. Also, it is the new literacy of today; it's foundational, not merely vocational.

Another concern is overcoming the head start that more affluent students may have over less privileged students in the classroom. I have found this isn’t as big of a problem as expected because even in families where there's a computer at home, most of what kids learn on their own is how to navigate social media; they consume technology, but without instruction, they don’t learn how to use technology to create solutions. So everybody starts with the same footing when learning CS.

What do you find compelling about CS and your work in it?

Here’s a story that goes back to my work in my third school: I was able to write some grants to get funding for robots and launch a robotics team at my building, a Title 1 school. My students loved coming to the robotics team and trying to solve the challenges the first Lego Robotics League put in front of them. These were fourth and fifth graders, and many of the teams they competed against had more hours per year to dedicate to their training or even came from middle school populations. But every year, our team showed up at the tournament, loved it, and were proud of their work. One year, we were getting ready to share our project at the competition, and part of that was presenting a poster in front of the judges. One girl on the team was terrified to speak in public; she prepared with her partner and practiced by presenting to just her mom and me, but was still so nervous when we did the dry run that she tried to speak and ended up throwing up in the bathroom. But she still wanted to go to the competition and take on that role, and when her turn finally came, she did beautifully. After each run of our robot, the team would sit down in a circle and review what went well and what we needed to improve. Our saying on that team was that we were ‘the best at getting better;’ we didn't win anything, but from day one to the end of the competition, we significantly improved our score and were very proud. And at the end, when everyone shared what they had enjoyed about the competition, that girl raised her hand and said, ‘I liked that I learned that I can speak.’ So this thing that had started as a massive source of anxiety for her became the highlight of her experience on the team, and that's the magic of computer science, of robotics; you get to create something that's cool, and if it doesn't work the first time, it’s not as if you’ve failed; you just have to keep at it. This is a story from my robotics team, but this same kind of problem-solving and 21st-century skill development also happens in the regular classroom. The students would be on Code.org, and they'd be so frustrated that they would say, ‘Miss Benson, this computer has a bug in it; it's not working right!’ Then we would do some trouble shooting only to find out that it wasn't the computer, it was the code, and they would fix it and be ecstatic. So that’s what I like the best, the empowerment you get when you solve problems with technology. And it’s enjoyable!

Do you have any advice or resources you’d like to share? 

My advice for teachers is to use some self-care. There's a whole lot to know, and you don't have to know it all. Start small, build on that, and don't be afraid to let your students teach you while you teach them.

For students, my advice is to be very careful with your digital footprint. Suppose you want to go on to one of the many jobs in Maryland that require a clearance. In that case, employers will Google you before you get an interview to see if there's anything discriminatory, illegal, or unethical that they can find out about you because If any of that is on the internet, you would be vulnerable to blackmail, which is really what a clearance is trying to get at: could you be blackmailed into giving away classified information? In addition to that my advice is to give CS a try. Even if you don’t make a career out of it, you will know some about technology can help solve problems in any kind of field.