Compassionate Coding in the Classroom
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If we're going to fix tech's toxic culture, we have to start early, i.e in the classroom. Compassion can transform the coding classroom from a stressful place plagued by bias to a positive learning environment for all students. Improving tech education to be more supportive and inclusive is essential to transforming the tech industry as a whole.
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Compassionate Coding in the Classroom
- 1. COMPASSIONATE CODING in the CLASSROOM April Wensel Founder of Compassionate Coding @aprilwensel COMPASSIONATE C O D I N G @compassioncode
- 2. @aprilwensel
- 3. @aprilwensel
- 4. @aprilwensel
- 5. 65% startup failures are due to people problems Noah Wasserman, The Founder’s Dilemmas. 2012.
- 7. @aprilwensel
- 11. @aprilwensel
- 12. @aprilwensel C O D I N G COMPASSIONATE
- 14. @aprilwensel
- 15. @aprilwensel
- 16. @aprilwensel 1. EMBRACE THE GROWTH MINDSET
- 17. @aprilwensel “I’m never going to be able to code.” “I don’t get it.” “This is too hard.” “I’m just not good at this.” http://www.slj.com/2016/04/technology/of-coding-and-compassion/
- 19. “Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that EVERYONE DID THE BEST JOB THEY COULD, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.” –Norm Kerth, The Prime Directive @aprilwensel
- 20. 2. TEACH & MODEL SELF-COMPASSION @aprilwensel
- 22. @aprilwensel
- 24. @aprilwensel • Recognize that you’re going through a tough time • Remember that everyone goes through tough times • “Talk” to yourself as if you’re talking to a good friend
- 25. @aprilwensel 3. COMBAT BIAS WITH EMPATHY
- 26. System 1 System 2 • Automatic • Instinctual • Emotional • Unconscious • Intuitive • Reflective • Deliberate • Logical • Aware • Intellectual Daniel Kahneman. Thinking, Fast and Slow. 2011.
- 31. @aprilwensel 1. Embrace the GROWTH MINDSET 2. Teach & model SELF-COMPASSION 3. Combat bias with EMPATHY
- 32. “If it is not tempered by COMPASSION and EMPATHY, REASON can lead men and women into a MORAL VOID.” –Karen Armstrong compassionatecoding.com april@compassionatecoding.com @aprilwensel Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
Editor's Notes
- My background – 10 years as an engineer, including time spent leading teams Wide variety: - Health tech, ed tech, entertainment - Big companies, small companies, research institutions Startups & established firms Web dev, app dev, middleware
- Common thread: there’s blind spot when it comes to engineering teams – people We put the emphasis on the technology and not the people This shows up in a number of ways
- Mildest consequence – confused users – we build products without empathizing with people using them
- Personal conflicts on the team affect the bottom line
- More serious consequences of tech’s lack of concern for people: Lack of diversity Fake news Displaced jobs Insensitive – FB pics of someone’s dead children Addicting Distracting Bullying, harassment Misleading
- Consequences for Individual developers - Stress, anxiety
- sad story out today about an Uber employee who committed suicide, blamed on stress and issues of racial bias at work
- This is a pretty sad state of affairs in tech – can we do better?
- I think so, and believe the answer is compassion. I don’t mean this in a religious sense. My CS background makes me view it as an optimization problem: minimize the suffering of everyone involved
- This approach requires caring about all the human beings who Make tech Use tech Are affected by it
- This is why I started Compassionate Coding I work with tech companies to understand their human problems and then give custom workshops on emotional intelligence to address those issues You can think of it as take agile’s people over process concept to the extreme
- The only article that came up when I searched compassion and coding when starting my company It was written by an educator So today I’m going to focus on the points most relevant to you as educators
- Some of my Twitter connections recently shared poor experiences they’ve had with discouraging teachers
- I’m going to discuss 3 tips for creating a more compassionate classroom
- Fixed mindset ideas
- Believe all students are doing their best given their circumstances Focus instead on continuous improvement,
- - Coding is stressful!
- Developer self-talk is often negative
- Self-compassion is a better response than beating yourself up
- 3 components of self-compassion
- We all have bias
- System 1 – stereotypes. We will tend to favor students who remind of us ourselves This may affect Who we call on Who we give special attention to
- People from a marginalized groups often feel extra anxiety in stressful situations because they fear confirming negative stereotypes about their groups Consider as a possible reason a student seems to be underperforming
- Systemic biases in favor of some groups
- - All we see our Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg; but there are many more stories out there!
- Marketing materials matter – here’s source of images of real women of color in tech
- Summary of the 3 tips
- In tech, we have the reason part covered; what we need to work on is the compassion and empathy part. You as educators are in a powerful position to change the face of technology for the better!