BERNIE LONGBOY: Hello, everyone.
Thanks for joining us for the last session on global outreach.
I'm Bernie Longboy.
I'm head of Outreach and Partnerships for CS50.
And I have to tell you, I'm very excited today
because I get to finally share a little bit about what I do
behind the scenes, all about outreach.
We also have a very special guest who will be presenting with me today,
my good friend, but also a good friend of CS50, Maya Nelson.
And I will let her introduce herself briefly
and then we'll go ahead and get started.
MAYA NELSON: Thank you, Bernie.
Good afternoon, everyone.
It's such an honor to be here.
I am Maya Nelson.
I'm the head of school at Jakarta Intercultural
School in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Jakarta Intercultural School has 2,200 students from pre-K through grade 12.
We're an international school serving the expatriate and Indonesian nationals.
And we're so pleased to have had the honor of partnering with CS50 Harvard
during the last two years.
Thank you.
BERNIE LONGBOY: So a little bit about CS50.
As you've all heard today, CS50 is the Intro to Computer Science course
at Harvard College.
It's also one of the largest courses here at the college.
And also, it's taught across many platforms.
As you can see from the numbers here, these
are just some enrollment numbers in the given year.
So at the Harvard Extension School, it's also one of the largest courses.
We also teach CS50 at Yale University.
So we have a version of it down in New Haven.
And we also teach CS50 at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.
However, it's a bit more programming lite.
But we believe that students graduating from these two programs
should still have some understanding of computer science principles.
One of the great and unique things about CS50
is we have a robust community of educators and learners,
1.8 million followers on YouTube.
And most recently 5.8 million students took the course
on EdX, the MOOC joint venture between Harvard and MIT.
Our belief, our philosophy at CS50, we believe that quality CS
education should be available to all.
It's not just for the incoming 1,600 students to Harvard College.
So you all have seen this slide before, as well
in David's presentation and Yuliia's presentation.
So in 2007, all our courses were made available on OpenCourseWare.
So again, accessible to all.
So I just want to see a show of emoji hands here, how many of you
have taken two courses of these courses here?
Just show a little wave of hands here?
Anyone?
You can do your little emoji hands.
There you go.
All right.
How about three or more courses?
Wow, OK, so we see three.
Four or more courses?
Next year, we'll have to do maybe a little prize for whoever
has taken the most courses.
All righty.
But now I want to turn it back over to Maya,
because I'm sure you guys are all interested in hearing
about the start, the evolution of this program.
How did this program come to be?
Thanks, Maya.
MAYA NELSON: Thank you, Bernie.
So as an international school, what we always look at
is how can we give back to the country that we are in.
How can we support the education of our colleagues, of other educators
throughout our country as well as globally?
In addition, there had been a lot of conversation
about what types of content areas needed to be improved or enhanced,
what types of professional development educators needed in Indonesia.
And this led to evolving conversations between Bernie
and I, between Dr. Malan and us, to see what could
we do with outreach throughout the world that
would benefit not only the teachers, but our school students globally as well as,
of course, the CS50 professionals.
That started a conversation that ended up in the Ministry of Education's Office
in Indonesia.
And we were so thankful that the Ministry of Education
was very open to this and was indeed, as well, looking for ways that they could
enhance their understanding of computer science
in both high schools as well as universities.
And in this conversation and the involvement of the program,
we looked at what could be done between our three organizations
to support all educators throughout the region.
So these conversations took several months.
It took several months of being able to figure out
who could do what part, what are the responsibilities of each,
and what do we need to do in terms of our action step and processes.
And so it began.
Of course, first and foremost was publicity and marketing.
And that came twofold.
It wasn't just publicity or marketing about what we
were doing that was really secondary.
What we needed to do is get the word out to educators throughout the country,
throughout Indonesia, which is a very vast and large country,
to opportunity to be able to learn and grow in this specific content area
and in support of understanding how to teach computer science in schools.
This is the piece that was really special
that Dr. Malan and his fellow teachers gave in support of our educators
in Indonesia.
It wasn't just being able to take the class that many people, many of you
have taken online.
But it was also being able to understand how do you teach this content
area to others, how do you engage in that conversation with the students
in your classroom so that they can continue
to grow in their understanding of computer science
and how this is applicable to them and globally.
And so in the steps, the Ministry of Education professionals
supported us in being able to market this throughout public schools
throughout the region.
And from that, applications started coming in.
Of course, the application process was very reliant
on the MOE, the Ministry of Education, being
able to find the right areas that needed to be ascertained and aggregated.
There was an application form.
There were essays.
There were interviews with each person, interviews
with the supervisors, the principals, or the heads of the schools.
There was also information in regards to CS50
and how the lecture format was, and very critical, as they needed
to have a basic understanding of English proficiency
so that they could learn content in the English medium.
All of these pieces took several months.
And in the first year, this is now into the third year,
and the first year that we did this, we had several hundred applications,
almost 500, and 150 students were chosen out of this.
That selection process came from the Ministry of Education, then
went to our colleagues and professionals at CS50
who gave the final approval of those who were chosen.
In addition to all of this, logistics needed to be had.
Logistics about how do these classes form throughout the world,
do the teachers have the logistics, the laptop, the internet access,
all of those pieces so that they could join with the professionals teaching
this from Cambridge or Boston.
And that information was shared, and schools
in various locations in Indonesia supported
what needed to happen so that the learning could happen.
So Indonesia is vast.
From one side to the other, it is as wide as the United States.
And we were so lucky that there were professional educators
from throughout the country that were interested in this.
We had people all the way from Aceh, which is one side of the country,
to Papua New Guinea.
We had a large majority of teachers that came from Java Island, which
is where Jakarta existed.
But no matter where they were located, what they needed is access to internet.
They needed to have a laptop.
They needed to have ability to be able to navigate all the different platforms
and enough bandwidth for this.
And then, of course, what we had really hoped
is for them not to be able to only engage learning online,
but also to be able to eventually meet everyone.
Let's take a look a little bit about what this was like.
["UPTOWN FUNK" PLAYING]
(SINGING)
Doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh
Doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh
This hit, that ice cold.
Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold.
This one for them hood girls
Them good girls, straight masterpieces
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Make a dragon want a retire, man
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Say my name.
You know who I am
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And my band 'bout that money.
Break it down
Girls hit your Hallelujah.
Woo
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Woo
Girls hit your Hallelujah.
Woo
Cause Uptown Funk gon give it to you.
Woo
Cause Uptown Funk gon give it to you
Saturday night and we in the spot
Don't believe me.
Just watch.
Come on!
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Hey, hey, hey, aw
Uptown funk you up.
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Uptown funk you up
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Uptown funk you up
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Uptown funk you up
[INAUDIBLE]
MAYA NELSON: It was really a remarkable time.
And we're so pleased that we can continue
to offer this educational opportunity to our Indonesian colleagues,
our educators throughout the country, really
because of this wonderful partnership and the work of Dr. Malan
and his group of professionals.
So, you know, logistics are always a big part
of when you plan something as extensive as this.
And there were logistics both within the school as well as externally
with the Ministry of Education and the CS50 group.
And let me talk to you a little bit about both sides of it.
Within the school, what we knew is we wanted
to culminate the whole experience with an in-person workshop or in-person class
opportunity.
And so what our hope was, of course, is to have Dr. Malan join us in Indonesia.
You know, not only is he famous and an engaging and wonderful educator
and so supportive of the knowledge that people around the world
have gained because of his expertise, but people
wanted to see him in person so that they could really, I think,
solidify this whole experience.
And so we wanted to make that happen.
1 opportunities that came with that, of course,
was also that our school, as a k-12 school,
our high school students were very aware of Dr. Malan and his work,
as well as Harvard University.
And they wanted to be able to see and learn a little bit on the sides as well.
So having a plan to have the group of professionals from Boston
come join us in Indonesia was put into motion.
And we worked through all elements of this,
from what are the pieces that we need to do
to have a workshop, what type of an environment
is most beneficial for teaching and learning.
How do we pay for this?
That was a big question at the beginning.
And we were delighted that we had sponsorship
from various American-Indonesian partnership organizations that supported
this endeavor and really believed in the importance of this
so that we could upscale students in schools,
and so that students in Indonesia would know that computer science is
a viable and important profession to go into
and to increase the understanding, of course, of educators.
We are very fortunate at JIS that we have facilities of every type.
And so we were able to block out classrooms and a theater for an opening
ceremony and a lecture hall for some of the larger classes
that CS50 put together.
With this as well, there was a travel schedule of not
only just our CS50 professionals who were coming to Indonesia
and flying across the world, but also the students from all over Indonesia.
And this is where the Ministry of Education came in and supported.
So what we gave as an opportunity and through funding
from the Ministry of Education, all 150 teachers in the first year
and then 272 in the second year were able to travel to Jakarta
and were able to participate in person into this live workshop
experience on the JIS campus.
The schedule was made so that it happened towards the end of the week
on a Friday and Saturday, and the students from Indonesia
all came in on Thursday so that they could join us for all festivities,
all lectures, all keynotes.
And then of course, they left by the end of Sunday as well.
Our colleagues from Harvard joined us a little bit earlier
in the week because of jet lag.
And then they came in and worked with us on our campus.
And we were very privileged as an international school
to also have a little bit of expertise shared with us, with our own students,
on Friday, before all the other engagements happened.
There were social connections that we wanted to ensure
were real and important for everyone, all the different constituents.
Again, this is about connections.
It's about three different organizations coming together in the well-being
and support of education globally.
And we knew that the connections and the relationships that we were building
were important not only for today, but also for the future,
for us to be able to plan for the future,
for our students to learn from us that having global engagements
and having connections were so critical in this world today.
Then last, of course, it's always important to recognize
the people who made this happen.
And this is not something that one person did.
This is something that took an enormous amount of collective wisdom,
collective dedication, and time, and responsibilities, and agency
so that everyone could work for the well-being of an educational endeavor.
And both years that we did this, we had a large presentation
where we invited dignitaries.
We're invited people who helped sponsor this the first year we did this
on our campus, on our JIS campus.
The second year, we were privileged to be
hosted at the Ministry of Education Center in Jakarta.
And then again, of course, we were so honored
to have Dr. Malan speak to us at both of these sessions,
as well as the Minister of Education, [? Pat ?]
Nadiem, and many other important professionals
who supported this endeavor.
BERNIE LONGBOY: So what did the course look like?
So in the initial meeting with the Ministry of Education,
one of their key requests was for the course
to resemble the fall college course as closely as possible.
So what did this mean exactly?
So the fall college course is a 10-week course.
So for us, what we did with the Indonesian
teachers is we slightly customized their program.
So the course started in October and ended the first week in March
with the submission of their final project.
And really, we were able to spend more time, extend the course,
and spend more time on some of the more challenging modules
and lectures that David did.
So, for example, for arrays, they had two weeks
to do it versus in the college where it would be only one week.
So some of the other things that they did that replicated the college model
was also the use of teaching fellows.
So at Harvard College, we have what's called teaching fellows or TFs,
and they help support David and the rest of the TFs, the preceptors, Yuliia,
and formerly Carter, with the course.
So how it works is that the students, the teachers--
and we use that interchangeably, by the way,
so the Indonesian teachers were the students, obviously, of this course--
so they attend the sections after the lecture.
They meet in their sections regularly with their teaching fellow.
And it's a smaller cohort of students.
So for Cohort 2 is about, oh, 18 to 20 students per cohort.
The material for each of the sections is standardized.
So the TFs can tweak it according to their teaching style and personality.
Attendance is required.
It's part of the grade.
So sections, they do attend sections.
Attendance is there.
And it is part of their grade.
But, again, all done synchronously through Zoom.
And they also have the office hours, which is also another part of the course
that they're able to do.
So I'm going to go back here.
And I do want to do a shout out really quickly.
We have, actually, one of our TFs, one of our teaching fellows
from the Indonesian course here with us for the workshop.
Tim Sampson, can we unmute Tim?
And maybe, Tim, if you could say a brief introduction, and maybe a line
about being a teaching fellow for the Indonesian course.
TIM SAMPSON: Yeah, sure.
Hey.
Hi, Bernie.
Hi, Maya.
Hi, everybody.
My name is Tim Sampson.
I teach in high school AP Computer Science principles.
And I use the CS50 curriculum.
And I had the opportunity last year to also be a TF for CS50 in Indonesia.
It was a fantastic experience.
The students were very dedicated.
And they were really involved in class activities.
It's really, really wonderful to be a part of.
Yeah, for sure.
Thanks.
BERNIE LONGBOY: Thank you, Tim.
And so one of the great things that we also had for this Cohort 2
was one of the previous students.
So from Cohort 1, Nima, who's obviously Indonesian, local teacher,
was able to be one of our TFs this year and was
able to come and join us as one of the consultants
and basically to present at the educator workshop at JIS in March.
So we're very excited about that.
And, again, just bringing continuity to the program, right?
And how inspiring for the teachers to see one of their, quote, unquote,
"their own" people doing the teaching and also participating as a consultant.
So obviously, some of the other things that the teachers were exposed to
were the tools.
So this is part of what they get in the course in the fall.
So the teachers had all access to CS50 Dev.
As you guys already know, it's the programming environment.
It's free as long as there's an internet browser.
If they have a browser and internet connection, they're able to access that.
They also had-- obviously, you've heard all about our duck debugger.
So they had access to that 24/7 for further support.
check50 to see if their code was correct before submitting it,
And style50 also about format and style before they submit their p sets.
And we also used Gradescope with this course.
So they could submit their assignments through Gradescope.
And the TFs were able to keep track of their grades and their progress
through Gradescope.
So the workshop structure, so what did that look like?
So Maya was being a bit modest.
As we all know, it takes a lot of work to put on an in-person event.
And you know, as much as we love this Zoom event
and having teachers have access to our workshop,
there's nothing like being in person.
So all the teachers got to come together, finally.
So after six months of watching David's lectures online,
attending synchronous sections with their TFs over Zoom and multiple office
hours, we finally were able to bring everyone together
for the in-person workshop.
So much like what you're doing today, the two days of this workshop,
we also did it in Indonesia and held it at JIS.
And, again, it really did take a lot of work to bring everybody together.
And I think for JIS and Maya's role, they
were sort of the middle person, if you will, in this.
Because they were dealing with the MOE, and the teachers
coming, flying in from all over Indonesia, taking trains and bus,
but then also dealing with the staff here in Cambridge coming over,
as Maya already pointed out, so dealing with two groups
and trying to really work with all our needs and resources and replicating what
we do here at JIS.
And we have to say that it was amazing.
And we were able to do it, as you saw from the videos.
So one of the big focus for the workshop was really
building community and establishing those connections between teachers.
How do they take now what they learned in those six months, the CS50 course,
they have it under their belt, and being able to synthesize that now as teachers,
right, and bringing that into practice?
So, again, adopting and adapting CS50 and bringing it
into their own classrooms.
Involving teachers, again, from the previous cohort, like Nima,
being able to see her as she was presenting to her teachers,
that was also something that was very inspirational for those teachers
to see and to aspire to.
So practice with pedagogy, so, again, unlike what you guys have already
seen and done as well, so much of the experience of the teachers for the two
days was similar, again, to this.
And so we broke teachers up in groups of four to five people,
again, led by Carter, Margaret, who's one of our teaching fellows
at a school in New York City, and Yuliia.
The teachers were placed in groups and asked
to look at some of these questions.
So I don't know if you guys can read this.
But what is the most important part of my job as a teacher?
And to really think about what does that mean, writing down their reflections,
thinking about moving forward not just, again, as teachers,
but teachers now with the CS50 curriculum under their belt.
This encouraged teachers to collaborate with each other,
reflect on their teaching experiences.
Because, again, many of those who were involved in the course,
were already established teachers.
So what we wanted to do also is validate what they know and their experiences.
The grading and feedback, so you guys also
covered this in some of the earlier sessions.
Really talking about not just what these problem sets look like
and how to correct them, but, again, broader strategies,
how to provide good feedback and support for students learning.
We all know what it's like as a student, right,
to have an interest in a particular subject or area and then for whatever
reason, not be validated or supportive and then feel like, you know,
this is not something I'm interested in it anymore.
I don't want to continue in my CS education.
So, again, here's a picture of Carter teaching us how
to implement the Caesar problem set.
But, again, it was more about how to provide good feedback
and support to students learning.
So the takeaways, which, again, we hope all of you
will take away from today as well, the problem
solving, as David has already mentioned, Yuliia, everyone
who talked about the teaching and learning side,
CS50 is not just about learning computer science principles.
It's also about thinking critically, logically, problem solving,
and really learning how to learn.
And then of course, the teaching practices,
like I mentioned before, validating already what the teachers know.
So many of them have already been in the classroom,
in the trenches, as we like to say, know what they're doing.
But how do they do that now with this curriculum?
And community, as I mentioned before, I think
this is one of the great things about CS50, so unique to CS50,
having that in person, building those relationships,
and really having the teachers be able to continue those conversations.
Because remember, so many of them, all they saw were each other online.
And then to actually meet up in person was, again, quite something to see.
MAYA NELSON: Of course, from year to year,
we had some lessons that we learned.
And we got better at what we did.
And I want to share some of these with you.
First and foremost, curriculum.
Any time-- and we have this in our international schools
as well-- when we teach content in a second language,
it becomes a little bit difficult for those students who are taking it.
What we knew as we moved along is that course materials needed
to come in many different formats.
Perhaps we could have also done some translations on this,
even though our students, the Indonesian teachers,
had English proficiency, the content level and the cognitive load
for this might have been such that that language
barrier made it challenging at moments.
As well what we needed to make sure is that all our students took advantage
of the platforms that were delivered for them.
The pace of the classes were different.
It was intense when they were online synchronously
with the fellows in the United States.
And what we needed to ensure is that everyone understood
that these were working teachers.
And in Indonesia, working teachers, just like teachers everywhere in the world,
they have students in the classroom, they're
expected to do things after school, and there's also
school on Saturdays in Indonesia.
And so that demand sometimes conflicted with the demands
of being a student themselves.
And then, of course, for our teaching fellows, as they moved along, especially
from the first year to the second, understanding
more and more about the cultural context,
about the backgrounds of their students, about what they were bringing
into the classroom, and what their experiences
in curriculum and understanding of how they learned
was really critical in the growth of being a teacher to these students.
So what we needed to do as well is ensure
that the teaching fellows were scaffolding the support, that there
was space for teachers to work, the students, right,
the Indonesian teachers who were students, to work with one another
in their native language.
So collaboration is really a very strong skill set in Indonesia.
It is something that they often rely on.
They work together to get things done.
It's not a society that's based on individual achievement, which
also has some implications on how they view curriculum,
how they are in the classroom, how they partake in the assignments.
So there needed to be space so that people
could work with each other in their native language,
translate, and even discuss have that discourse in Bahasa Indonesian.
There needed to be an understanding that all the different frameworks that
were presented were understood for all the participants.
And then something as well that's really important, again,
sometimes because of the cultural influences on society
and how people were raised, what academic honesty may be in one culture
is different than another culture.
In some places, it's very individualistic achievement.
In some places, it's about community.
And there needed to be very clear parameters and guidance
about what academic honesty meant for the CS50 program.
Then, of course, there were technology challenges.
And the first and foremost, I have to say
is that internet is not totally reliable in all aspects of Indonesia,
in all areas of Indonesia.
And so many of the students would have to work in their workplace.
This is where they took it.
They would stay in the school so that they would have internet access,
or they would go to places where they had internet access.
Not everyone has internet in the homes.
It's very different there.
And so the unreliable internet connections
also made it difficult sometimes to access frameworks
and standardized programs that were available for people.
And I think that we learned that we needed
to ensure that they would download versions for themselves so
that if they didn't have internet, or internet
would stop for any specific reason, sometimes it's electrical outages,
sometimes it's rain, then that they would have access
to what they needed online.
Also the CS50 professionals wrote an AI that offers a 24-hour teacher guidance
to be able to scaffold the information, explain information and the learnings
to the students.
And having clear understanding of how this worked
and that this was available to them was also something that was necessary.
And I think the big question is, was this program a success?
Absolutely, it was a success.
We went from applications of 400 or 500 to choosing 150 the first year,
to applications that were much higher the second year
and having 272 students finish the program this last year
and continued conversations about what will happen in the future,
knowing that there is great interest.
I think there are so many different levels of a success
if you're going to measure this.
And some of this is anecdotal, with data still needing to come in.
But to have three organizations, to have a university, a government entity,
and an international school all work together
in collaboration for the well-being of educators in the world,
I think is a really profound statement.
I think that this says something about what we can do in support of education
and changing the lives of people and the options that people have going forward.
Changing the young student in an Indonesian school
that wants to learn something about computer science
and being able to have access to a teacher who
understands this and can teach it to them, that's very significant.
What we also know is that the Indonesian teachers
shared that the level of content, the methodology, and the collaboration
from the fellows at CS50 was profound, that they learned so much,
and that they felt more confident leaving the program than entering
the program so that they could have the information they needed
and the methodology.
It wasn't just learning by themselves about what
CS50 was about, but by having conversations
about how do you effectively teach this content area to others,
how do you engage in teaching and learning in the classroom.
Having people of different nationalities and backgrounds
work together for the well-being of something is really a wonderful thing.
I think today, globally, it's needed to have those connections
and the relationships.
And what we know is that people from all over Indonesia, which is very diverse,
as well as people from all over the US, came together
to be able to put together a program that we didn't think
would ever work five years ago.
So to be able to have those connections is critical.
Teachers from Indonesia, those students, right, those Indonesian teachers
who were students then became teachers for their peers.
What we know in schools is teachers teaching teachers
is the best professional development that you can have.
And this is something that we saw come to fruition through this program
the last two years.
What we also know is that there are curriculum changes in the local schools
that these students, the Indonesian teachers,
took it back to, that they are engaged in those conversations.
What we also know is that the Ministry of Education
has prioritized the importance of computer science and technology
in Indonesia, the teaching of this and access of this for students
nationally in that country.
And of course, at the very end, what we want
is an increase of knowledge, methodologies, and policy change,
policy change for the well-being of young students who are going into school
and who could one day choose their profession,
or one day have influence on others about what they have learned.
So, again, to summarize, the first year we
had 150 teachers that worked online with the CS50 group
and then also came to our campus for the culminating last class and workshops.
The second year we had 300 teachers and 272
was the last number of those who completed the program.
And we are now in conversation about what this next year will look like.
What we know is that the participants, the students,
really felt honored to be chosen.
And I think that this is something that should not be taken lightly,
that the Ministry of Education in Indonesia chose a subset of teachers
from many applications, and then those teachers also
worked with the best in the world on CS50,
Dr. Malan, as well as all the teaching fellows,
is an honor that I think they will always have.
And so this was a very meaningful and impactful movement
for them professionally, as well as the schools that they represented,
the schools that they go back to to share their knowledge.
What we know, of course, is that the applications
continue to rise for this program.
And we certainly hope that we can provide
this type of professional development for educators in Indonesia and worldwide
in support of education for young children and young learners.
So for the future, how do we measure this?
This is something that we need to look at.
What are the changes in curriculum in indonesia?
How is CS50 being written into curriculum
in the middle school and high school?
We know that in the universities, there's been some slow changes.
And really, they have wanted to have more and more traction in this,
but all of it is very reliant on having the professionals be able to teach this.
And with the help of our colleagues at CS50,
we're so happy to call them colleagues, we
know that profound change has been made in Indonesia.
Thank you.
BERNIE LONGBOY: OK.
Thank you, Maya.
So what's next for us in outreach?
We want to continue to bring quality CS education to all.
We want to continue to reach out to individual teachers, schools,
both K to 12 schools, and higher education universities.
We want to reach out to districts, school districts, and governments.
As Maya said replicating this model really
made for a dynamic, high impact and efficient model
that we hope to see in the future.
So, again, thank you all.
This will conclude the recorded portion of the workshop.
And Maya and I will take any questions.
We can take them from the chat.
If you want to go on Zoom and ask your question, we can do that.
It would be great if you turn on your video.
So we're happy to take any questions.