EPISODE THIRTY
AGENT JORGE VALENZUELA (COMPUTATIONAL THINKING)
Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to incorporate computational thinking into all content areas. The special agent assigned to help you with this task is Jorge Valenzuela, of Lifelong Learning Defined, in Virginia.
In this episode we discuss:
Jorge’s path to becoming a teacher
Four elements of computational thinking: decomposition, abstraction, pattern recognition, algorithm design
Work shopping how I could apply computational thinking to French
Jorge’s perspective on including STEM into all subjects
His favorite unit or lesson
How Jorge’s personal pedagogical philosophy has evolved over time
Why he thinks PBL is the best PD teachers can do
Jorge’s success in improving his writing and his advice on how to do the same: write about something you’re good at, find a mentor, put in the time
His struggle with emotional intelligence
How STEM is becoming more inclusive for students
Jorge’s hatred of buzzwords
His ideal school system
Find out more about Jorge:
Resources mentioned:
Jorge’s book Rev Up Robotics (You can read the chapter on Computational Thinking for free)
Park Based Learning with James Fester
Jorge’s inspiration: Andrew Miller
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradbury and Jean Greaves
Christine Primomo on the gender divide in STEM
Some more information on using computational thinking with students from Juni Learning.
