Tech EDGE: CS4NE with Special Guest, Kristeen Shabram

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03/07/2025 Added

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Westside Middle School's Kristeen Shabram talks about teaching computer science to middle school students. Computer Science for Nebraska (CS4NE) University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Technology (Tech) Education In Digital and Global Environments (EDGE) Innovation in Teacher Education College of Education and Human Sciences | Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education

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[00:00:00.500](upbeat music)
[00:00:06.120]Hi, I'm Guy Trainin
[00:00:07.920]from the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:00:10.170]And I'm Kimberly Ingraham-Beck from Gretna Public Schools.
[00:00:13.020]And this is CS4NE.
[00:00:15.240]And today we're talking to Kristeen, right?
[00:00:19.005]Yes, so Kristeen Shabram is a computer science teacher
[00:00:23.790]at West Side Middle School,
[00:00:25.530]and she has been so active in the different CSTA scenes.
[00:00:30.172]I'm really excited to hear what she has to say.
[00:00:33.030]I've never gotten to see her in her classroom,
[00:00:35.460]so I'm excited to hear what she says.
[00:00:37.680]Yeah, and it's always good.
[00:00:39.330]We hear a lot from high school teachers
[00:00:42.690]and even in other instances from professionals in the field.
[00:00:47.400]I love hearing from middle school teachers.
[00:00:49.200]I think my middle school is a magical time,
[00:00:52.736]and that is, it's after the elementary school years
[00:00:57.270]when you're getting all the basics in,
[00:00:58.800]and it's before high school
[00:01:00.210]and thinking about what counts for graduation
[00:01:02.880]and what prepares me for college and all of that.
[00:01:06.690]And middle school allows us to play a little bit more
[00:01:09.630]and to be more open-ended in some ways.
[00:01:12.150]And so I find what middle school teachers tend to do
[00:01:16.080]very creative and magical.
[00:01:19.350]So let's go through the interview.
[00:01:21.360]Hi, Kristeen, thanks so much for joining us today.
[00:01:24.330]Thanks for having me.
[00:01:25.860]Alright, can you tell us a little bit about yourself
[00:01:27.960]and about your experience in computer science education?
[00:01:31.110]Yeah, so I'm a middle school teacher
[00:01:32.730]at West Side Middle School in Omaha, Nebraska.
[00:01:34.860]I've been teaching at WMS for 21 years.
[00:01:38.040]I teach seventh grade business and technology
[00:01:40.410]and computer science which is a required class
[00:01:43.440]for all of our seventh graders.
[00:01:44.850]And then I also sponsor a Girls Who Code club.
[00:01:48.930]Outside the classroom, I've done a lot of stuff
[00:01:51.030]to further computer science education, for 10 years,
[00:01:54.570]I've sponsored girls to attend UNO'S Code Crush,
[00:01:58.140]for several years, I've also helped
[00:02:00.630]and taught at UNO's Gen Cyber, which is cybersecurity camp.
[00:02:05.910]And then I'm also a very active member in CSTA.
[00:02:09.330]I've been a member
[00:02:10.770]of the CSTA annual conference committee since 2018.
[00:02:15.360]I've served as the middle school strand lead,
[00:02:17.580]the review chair, the conference chair in 2022.
[00:02:21.120]And I'm currently in my second term of the review chair
[00:02:24.810]for the 2025 conference.
[00:02:27.600]That is so awesome.
[00:02:29.057]Alright, so you mentioned
[00:02:31.110]you teach middle school computer science.
[00:02:32.970]So can you talk a little bit about how you make it engaging?
[00:02:36.750]So I think opening their eyes
[00:02:39.240]to all of the career possibilities
[00:02:41.310]that are in the field of CS.
[00:02:43.650]CS is weaved into all career fields, so health sciences,
[00:02:48.030]skilled technical sciences, the arts, business,
[00:02:50.993]computer sciences, everywhere.
[00:02:52.800]And so helping kids understand
[00:02:54.870]that no matter what path they decide to take in high school,
[00:02:59.370]after high school, that CS is going to be a part of it.
[00:03:02.855]I think also helping students practice those
[00:03:06.810]like key foundational skills of computer science,
[00:03:09.960]which are like problem solving,
[00:03:11.940]and then even with computer programming,
[00:03:13.800]like debugging, some of those things.
[00:03:16.440]Those skills are gonna be skills that are gonna be crucial
[00:03:19.260]in any field you decide to pursue.
[00:03:23.377]And so I think that's how I get them engaged
[00:03:27.570]and get them really excited about computer science.
[00:03:31.260]But also just realizing
[00:03:32.460]computer science is not just computer programming.
[00:03:34.800]I think that's sometimes a common myth
[00:03:36.960]that students think all you do is computer program.
[00:03:40.440]No, that might be the way you start
[00:03:43.860]or your intro to computer science.
[00:03:45.840]But like I said, there's so many skills
[00:03:47.700]that you learn from computer programming,
[00:03:50.190]like problem solving and debugging,
[00:03:51.810]that help you to then advance to other areas in the field.
[00:03:57.600]Absolutely, yeah, I wholeheartedly agree.
[00:04:00.646]Just it's not just programming.
[00:04:03.270]There's so much more that we do.
[00:04:05.161]Of course, programming is fun.
[00:04:06.531]I mean, my kids love
[00:04:07.686]to create like little animations on Scratch.
[00:04:09.660]They like to program robots.
[00:04:12.270]I mean, even though maybe
[00:04:14.829]in our district they've been doing that,
[00:04:17.190]those same things in elementary,
[00:04:19.170]even when I reintroduce it to them in middle school,
[00:04:21.930]they still get excited.
[00:04:23.190]They still are super engaged,
[00:04:26.220]and so, I mean, it's a lot of fun.
[00:04:30.514]Absolutely.
[00:04:31.782]So where do you get these resources that you use?
[00:04:36.153]So, you know, I get a lot of my resources
[00:04:38.940]from great teachers like you
[00:04:40.920]and other, you know, colleagues that I have
[00:04:43.650]that are other teachers, conferences.
[00:04:46.320]I mean, the CSTA conference is always has a plethora
[00:04:49.890]of resources to available, Nita, NCE,
[00:04:53.940]I mean, endless resources that we have in Nebraska here.
[00:04:59.688]And then I have never really
[00:05:02.100]been a package curriculum type of teacher.
[00:05:05.220]I know that there are lots of them out there,
[00:05:07.440]but I like to like pick and choose what I like from those
[00:05:11.310]and then kind of put together my own lessons,
[00:05:14.730]only because, I mean,
[00:05:16.410]all of us have different students sitting in our classrooms,
[00:05:19.950]all learners that have different educational levels
[00:05:23.700]and accommodations, and I just like
[00:05:26.730]to be able to put together my own lesson
[00:05:28.620]to meet the needs of the learners in my classroom,
[00:05:31.530]and I've just found that that works best for me.
[00:05:34.770]Awesome. I love it, yeah.
[00:05:37.230]So what are some of your favorite activities
[00:05:38.880]to do in your classroom?
[00:05:41.130]Wow, so I love to have my kids problem solve,
[00:05:45.540]and I especially love for them to experience failure,
[00:05:49.380]because I feel like that that is something
[00:05:51.420]that they do not experience a lot of,
[00:05:54.660]especially in middle school.
[00:05:56.100]I mean there were, our middle schools is seventh and eighth,
[00:05:59.460]and so they're coming from elementary.
[00:06:01.560]They've had a lot of things in place
[00:06:03.210]where they've gotten a lot of assistance from teachers
[00:06:06.660]but not many opportunities to fail.
[00:06:08.730]And so I feel like that,
[00:06:11.489]that is one thing I enjoy,
[00:06:14.070]because I want them to realize
[00:06:15.840]that you're not gonna get it on the first try.
[00:06:18.210]And I do that a lot with when we program robots.
[00:06:21.930]I have so many kids that think, oh,
[00:06:23.490]I've played with this robot before,
[00:06:24.930]I've done this before, I got this.
[00:06:27.330]And they never get it right on the first try.
[00:06:29.130]And I'm like, that's okay.
[00:06:30.690]I mean, let's look at your code.
[00:06:32.700]Let's figure out what it's not doing for you.
[00:06:35.640]How can we debug this?
[00:06:37.350]So that is one of my favorite activities
[00:06:41.400]for problem solving and failure.
[00:06:43.980]But I also love having kids build apps.
[00:06:47.460]I use code.org's app lab,
[00:06:50.340]and I use some of the resources they have on code.org.
[00:06:53.520]But like I said, I kind of pick and choose
[00:06:55.440]and make my own lessons.
[00:06:57.180]But I love having them do this app
[00:06:59.640]where they make a voting app where they pick a topic.
[00:07:03.960]Might be like, are you dogs or cats?
[00:07:07.110]Are you Pepsi or Coke?
[00:07:08.610]Like I let them pick the topic,
[00:07:09.930]and it's always fun to hear the topics that they pick.
[00:07:13.770]But then we work through the program.
[00:07:17.280]Like I give them different resources and scaffolding
[00:07:20.430]to help them kind of build the program themselves,
[00:07:23.370]but some guidance from me.
[00:07:25.350]But then I have them go out, get data, we come back,
[00:07:29.760]we do a little bit of data analysis, but it's always so fun
[00:07:34.710]because they feel like they created something
[00:07:37.620]that they're interested in.
[00:07:39.870]It's like kind of has more ownership,
[00:07:42.240]but then they get to go out and actually talk to their peers
[00:07:45.660]and get that, get them to have like that user experience
[00:07:50.610]with them with their app.
[00:07:52.830]And so that one is just a great activity I like to do
[00:07:55.380]because it just get gets kids super engaged
[00:07:59.220]and super excited about something that they have built.
[00:08:02.640]That sounds so awesome, I love that.
[00:08:06.151]So tell us about your extracurricular programs
[00:08:10.080]and how they complement
[00:08:11.700]your regular computer science instruction in the classroom.
[00:08:15.270]So like I said, I sponsor a Girls Who Code club,
[00:08:17.940]and this is a club that we do a little bit of everything.
[00:08:22.740]Like it's not just coding.
[00:08:25.380]Actually the last couple years,
[00:08:27.150]the girls that I've had in that club,
[00:08:29.070]they have been really excited
[00:08:31.500]about like tinkering with things, building things.
[00:08:35.610]So last year we did sewable circuits,
[00:08:38.490]like we learned how to sew,
[00:08:40.050]we made like light up mask, and it was, you know,
[00:08:46.677]it was like a failure experience for me,
[00:08:50.040]'cause I was like, I know a little bit about this,
[00:08:52.170]but I'm gonna teach you girls how to do this,
[00:08:54.030]and if we fail, we're gonna fail together,
[00:08:56.460]but we're gonna figure it out,
[00:08:57.570]and we're gonna problem solve.
[00:08:58.590]And I mean, it all worked out.
[00:09:01.260]So that was last year.
[00:09:02.190]This year, same thing.
[00:09:03.600]They're really into building things.
[00:09:05.370]We just got done building electric cars,
[00:09:08.640]and so I bought motors and propellers and wheels,
[00:09:12.420]and I just went on YouTube and found DIY electric cars.
[00:09:18.270]One of the girls built a car out of a Pringles can.
[00:09:21.990]One girl just found like random pieces of cardboard
[00:09:26.130]and I mean, so they're just, just building stuff.
[00:09:29.490]And then in a few weeks here,
[00:09:31.470]we're actually gonna build Bluetooth speakers
[00:09:35.910]that I bought some kits on Amazon,
[00:09:37.980]but right now they're really into building stuff,
[00:09:41.070]not necessarily coding,
[00:09:43.239]but I have had years where we've spent the entire year
[00:09:46.500]like programming, learning HTML and doing all coding.
[00:09:51.000]So it just kinda depends.
[00:09:51.930]Every year I get a new group of girls,
[00:09:54.090]and I try to refresh the content,
[00:09:57.090]because I have girls that were in it with in seventh grade,
[00:09:59.250]and they come back as eighth graders.
[00:10:00.840]So I don't want them to redo stuff
[00:10:02.250]that we we did the previous year.
[00:10:04.140]But yeah, it's a lot of fun.
[00:10:06.300]I really love that opportunity
[00:10:10.553]to have those girls come together
[00:10:12.960]and have like a safe social environment
[00:10:16.860]where they can be who they are.
[00:10:20.190]They love technology, they love electronics,
[00:10:23.370]and it's a safe space for them to just be with other girls
[00:10:26.460]that have their same interests.
[00:10:28.020]So sometimes it gets a little, little loud in here,
[00:10:31.140]and you know, I mean, but lots of fun, so.
[00:10:34.260]That sounds amazing that, yeah.
[00:10:36.540]And very memorable experiences for those students too.
[00:10:39.780]Yeah, for sure. That's really awesome.
[00:10:42.630]So my last question for you is what advice would you give
[00:10:46.350]to aspiring computer science teachers,
[00:10:48.270]particularly those interested
[00:10:49.740]in working with middle school students?
[00:10:52.890]Well, I would for sure say find your group of people.
[00:10:57.990]Like it's your people at school, your people outside school.
[00:11:02.902]I love the quote, you're the average,
[00:11:07.903]average of the five people that you surround yourself with
[00:11:11.190]or spend time with.
[00:11:13.486]The name of that, Jim Ron, I think he said that,
[00:11:18.060]but the people that you surround yourself with are who,
[00:11:23.760]who are gonna shape you.
[00:11:26.130]And so when I became an educator,
[00:11:30.330]I gravitated towards the people in my building
[00:11:33.720]that I wanted to be that teacher,
[00:11:37.170]like the older teachers that I want be who you are.
[00:11:42.210]Like you are the teacher that I want to be.
[00:11:44.070]And so I, and now that I've been teaching for 21 years,
[00:11:47.880]I mean, I see these newer teachers coming in,
[00:11:50.340]and I mean, I still learn things from newer teachers,
[00:11:53.220]but I feel like surround yourself with people
[00:11:56.130]that can help you to shape who you wanna be is one thing
[00:12:00.510]that I would definitely give to like an aspiring teacher
[00:12:04.350]or aspiring computer science teacher.
[00:12:06.720]But then I also,
[00:12:09.180]just because I feel like middle school is that, you know,
[00:12:13.290]age where everyone,
[00:12:15.690]whenever I tell people I'm a middle school teacher,
[00:12:17.790]they're like, oh my gosh, I couldn't do that.
[00:12:19.530]Or I don't know how you do that.
[00:12:21.090]And I'm always like, you don't know until you try something.
[00:12:25.050]I mean, so you can't say
[00:12:27.090]that you don't know you do could do it,
[00:12:28.950]or you don't, you wouldn't enjoy doing it
[00:12:31.320]unless you've actually experienced it.
[00:12:34.050]When I started 21 years ago, you know, I wanted a job,
[00:12:37.590]so I took the job,, but at the time,
[00:12:39.990]I didn't really have an idea
[00:12:41.490]of what grade level I wanted to teach,
[00:12:43.770]because I actually did my student teaching in high school.
[00:12:47.250]And so I took the job, and here I am 21 years later.
[00:12:52.350]I love middle school kids.
[00:12:54.360]I love teaching seventh graders.
[00:12:55.950]They're just so fun.
[00:12:58.050]And I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't say
[00:13:03.300]that I do teach more than just my content area.
[00:13:07.890]I mean, I teach a lot of social skills,
[00:13:09.990]I teach a lot of manners, but you know what?
[00:13:14.100]That's just part of being a teacher too,
[00:13:15.750]is that you're gonna be the other adult in this child's life
[00:13:20.370]that they might not be getting those things,
[00:13:24.399]those skills other places.
[00:13:27.630]And so we need to fill in, and, you know,
[00:13:31.260]help those kids become safe, respectful, and responsible,
[00:13:35.506]you know, citizens, I guess.
[00:13:37.710]So I feel like that's a very teacher thing to say that I do,
[00:13:42.360]but you know? (both laughing)
[00:13:44.502]Yeah, I love teaching this age group, so.
[00:13:46.590]That's awesome.
[00:13:47.730]Alright, well thank you so much.
[00:13:50.100]I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today.
[00:13:52.950]Yeah, thanks for having me.
[00:13:54.750]That was great.
[00:13:55.710]I really appreciated talking with Kristeen.
[00:13:58.470]I love hearing about the extracurricular things
[00:14:00.390]she does with her students too, just to kind of reinforce
[00:14:03.660]what they're learning in the classroom
[00:14:04.860]but also take it to other levels.
[00:14:06.690]Like wearables, that's not something
[00:14:09.330]that we would probably do in classes,
[00:14:11.400]but what a fun experience for her students.
[00:14:14.580]Yeah, and what I love about this is,
[00:14:17.460]this is not the afterschool events, programs, clubs,
[00:14:22.860]whatever, replacing what happens in the school.
[00:14:27.810]School still happens.
[00:14:29.280]Computer science is still being taught.
[00:14:31.170]This is extra,
[00:14:32.370]and that's where for me at least is the best place
[00:14:36.420]to put that kind of an approach to computer science.
[00:14:40.470]For a while, many school districts were telling us,
[00:14:43.440]you know, we have these afterschool clubs,
[00:14:45.780]so everybody who's interested can get it there.
[00:14:49.350]And I felt a little bit uncomfortable with it.
[00:14:52.440]First of all, I think computer science is a core subject
[00:14:55.230]in the 21st century, and so that's the first thing.
[00:14:58.800]But the second thing from an access perspective,
[00:15:01.860]not everybody's got the capacity
[00:15:04.260]to join an afterschool program.
[00:15:05.970]They may have family obligations,
[00:15:08.670]they may have work obligations, other things are happening.
[00:15:12.390]So we've gotta make sure that these are extra opportunities
[00:15:15.990]that we definitely want to offer.
[00:15:17.910]Like, you know, Girls Who Code
[00:15:19.800]or whatever other opportunities.
[00:15:22.290]And she's a great example of a teacher who goes out
[00:15:24.570]and finds those opportunities and bring them in,
[00:15:27.000]and we want to have that,
[00:15:28.200]but we do need to lay a foundation within the school day
[00:15:32.550]so everybody's got access
[00:15:34.320]and everybody's got a chance to learn these things.
[00:15:37.560]Definitely, yep.
[00:15:40.080]Alright, so another great interview.
[00:15:43.440]Another thing we've learned,
[00:15:44.940]and don't forget to contact us if you have questions
[00:15:48.570]or suggestions for teachers we should talk to.
[00:15:51.420]And we'll see you next time on CS4NE.
[00:15:55.130]Bye.
[00:15:56.763](bright music)

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Tech EDGE: CS4NE with Special Guest, Kristeen Shabram

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