Three powerful words

As I start a new school year with a new group of computer science students, I am reminded of the three powerful words that capture the everyday, seemingly normal miracles of teaching and learning. It happened after teaching the first lessons of html and my 6th graders were just beginning to create ordered and unordered lists. All at once, I heard a chorus of voices exclaim with joy, "I did it." There you have it. Three powerful words. I did it. It struck me at that moment that this is what learning is all about. It's about being about to do something that I was not previously able to do. It's about surprising myself with what I am capable of doing - that is empowering. It's about stretching beyond what is currently possible and continuing to push the boundaries of what is possible.

Then I took a step back to reflect further. What does this mean to me as an educator? I realized that this is what makes teaching such a joy. To be able to witness students celebrate their own accomplishments as they are equipped and empowered with new skills. Taking it a step further, what does that mean to me in terms of ensuring that all of my students have access to these "I did it" experiences. Do I have students that cannot yet say these three words and what can I do about it? Asking myself these questions then brought to mind reading I had done on Universal Design and the parallels between Universal Design (UD) in the physical world with architecture, for example, and Universal Design for Learning.

I love in the 10 things to know about UD  that the first thing to know is that "Universal Design strives to improve the original design concept by making it more inclusive." In teaching, the same applies. As I strive to provide these "I did it" experiences to all of my students, it's about making my lesson more inclusive without taking away any rigor from it. It's also about understanding that UD "aspires to benefit every member of the population by promoting accessible and usable products, services and environments." As I reflected on what this meant to me in the classroom, I realized it is about remembering to use strategies that benefit all of my students. For example, building pair programming into my computer science benefits all of my students. Even more so, building in structures where my students switch partners every 5-10 minutes or so creates benefits for all of my students as well since they are in an environment that has them collaborating, communicating, and problem-solving together. Doing things to intentionally and deliberately build an inclusive community is essential, as highlighted in this great article on broadening participation in computing by supporting great teaching. 
Here's to a year full of empowering our students with many more choruses of "I did it's!"

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