When people think about computer science class, they likely conjure up images of ones and zeros—not mindfulness. But there are many ways computer science can support student mindfulness and social-emotional learning, and vice versa.
For one, computer science is all about trying things, failing, and trying again—giving students ample opportunity to learn how to manage their emotions and build resilience, said Nadia Taylor, a computer science implementation specialist in the office of student pathways for the New York City schools.
“Students, when they encounter bugs when they’re programming, they’re frustrated, they’re angry, they’re sometimes embarrassed,” she said. “They’re getting all of these different emotions because they put so much hard work into creating a program and they’re finding a mistake.”
That’s where social-emotional learning can be useful.
Building social-emotional skills can help students not only pinpoint the emotions they have, but also give them strategies to manage them productively, Taylor said.
Taylor presented on this topic at the ISTELive 26 + ASCD annual conference in Orlando, Fla., in June.
Social-emotional learning has an important place in computer science—and other STEM—classes beyond just being a tool students use to help solve problems. As a classroom teacher, Taylor used digital mood meters so students could share with her and the class how they were feeling that day.
“This is something that we were able to save, and then I would be able to look at it later on and even do a quick assessment just to check in on the students,” she said. Mood meters can and often are done on paper, but Taylor said she preferred having digital data that was harder to lose and made it easier to track trends.
Even in a class where the point is for students to use digital devices, teachers still must think about students’ overall wellness and take tech breaks to let them move around or even just give their minds a rest, said Sean Arnold, the director of school pathways for the New York City district, who presented with Taylor.
“Whether it is a little yoga break, even if it’s in your chair, even if you’re not mobile, brain break activities [for] students need to be built into everyone’s day,” he said, “especially with young people because otherwise your brain can’t process the things that came before and can’t prepare for the things that are coming next.”
Finally, there are also popular teaching tools used in computer science that can support social-emotional learning both in computer science and other subjects, said Taylor. One example: rubber ducky debugging.
This is a problem-solving strategy in which the programmer talks to a rubber ducky or other inanimate object and describes their code line by line. By articulating aloud what they’re doing, it becomes easier to spot mistakes. This approach helps students build important social-emotional skills such as problem-solving, iterating on their ideas, and independence.
Teachers in any subject can use this strategy, Taylor said, and it doesn’t have to be done with rubber ducks. An English/language arts teacher can have students read their essays aloud to stuffed animals to help them catch punctuation errors.
“Even though they’re really talking to themselves, they’re noticing what’s going on and they’re catching those mistakes as they’re talking about it,” she said. “I was a big fan of ‘ask three before me:’ ask yourself and the duck, then ask the person next to you, and then if you need to, you come to me last. ... We really want to build that independence.”
