Join us at our free online research seminars
The Raspberry Pi Foundation hosts regular online seminars focusing on current computing education research topics. Featuring presentations from researchers from around the world, the seminars provide the opportunity to hear about some of the latest work in the field of computing education research, make connections with fellow researchers, and take part in discussions.
Sign up to our seminars mailing list and we’ll be in touch with details of how to take part
All researchers, academics, educators, and students with an interest in computing education research are welcome!
Catch up on our previous seminars! You can watch all our seminars after they have taken place on the previous seminars page.
Read our seminar proceedings! Presenters from our seminars have contributed articles to Understanding computing education, Volume 1 and Understanding computing education, Volume 2 — download and read these free publications now.
Dates and format
The seminars take place on the first Tuesday each month at 17:00–18:30 BST / 12:00–13:30 EST / 9:00–10:30 PST / 18:00–19:30 CEST.
The focus of our seminars are on computing education research in school/with young people. We aim to present recent and relevant academic research through our line-up of speakers, who are all currently actively researching in the field. We hope you find their insights useful, and can take something away from each presentation for your own practice, study or research.
We’re also keen to encourage discussion where everyone’s views are welcome and listened to. We do this through breaking into small groups and sharing perspectives on the presentation. We hope that through these talks, we can build up a community of participants who will get to know others with similar interests — a bit like a very slow conference! Thus we really look forward to your participation and getting to know you.
Upcoming seminars
We are delighted to launch a new series of seven free seminars on the topic of cross-disciplinary computing, running from May to December 2022.
| Date | Topic | Presenter/s |
| 3 May 2022 |
Adding a teaspoon of computing to history and mathematics classes | Mark Guzdial (University of Michigan) |
| 7 June 2022 |
Computational heterogeneity in STEM education | Pratim Sengupta (University of Calgary) |
| 12 July 2022 |
Learning and teaching with electronic textiles [title TBC] | Yasmin B. Kafai (University of Pennsylvania) |
| 6 Sept 2022 |
ME++: Data ethics for the computing classroom through biometrics, ballet, and AR | Genevieve Smith-Nunes (University of Cambridge) |
| 4 Oct 2022 |
Computational literacy in mathematics [title TBC] | Conrad Wolfram (Wolfram Research) |
| 8 Nov 2022 |
Computing education in non-formal settings [title TBC] | Tracy Gardner & Rebecca Franks (Raspberry Pi Foundation) |
Adding a teaspoon of computing to history and mathematics classes (3 May 2022)
Mark Guzdial (University of Michigan)
Participation in computer science classes is disappointing if our goal is “CS for All”. In both the US and the UK, evidence suggests that computer science classes are under-subscribed. We might now suspect that the “All” are unlikely to ever take a “CS” class. If we want more students to experience and learn about CS, we may have to take the “CS” to where the “All” are. Task-specific programming (TSP) languages are designed to be highly usable, rapidly learned (less than 10 minutes, typically), and matched specifically to learning activities that non-CS teachers want in their classrooms. These are “Teaspoon languages” (playing off the TSP abbreviation), because they add a teaspoon of computing into other subjects. We have developed prototype Teaspoon languages now for social studies, language arts, and mathematics classes. The strategy is complementary to approaches to grow CS recruitment and enrolment. Can we develop student awareness, appreciation, and self-efficacy in CS in other classes? Our design approach is novel for involving non-CS teachers in participatory design of new languages with a high degree of usability. We talk with non-CS teachers about what they might want with computing, build prototype tools for them, and expect withering criticism. That’s how we’re learning to build CS that works for All. In this talk, I will demonstrate at least three Teaspoon languages and invite participants to play with them.
Speaker:
Mark Guzdial is a Professor in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Michigan. He studies how people learn computing and how to improve that learning. He was one of the founders of the International Computing Education Research conference. He worked for a dozen years in public policy as one of the leads on the Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) Alliance, helping 16 US states and Puerto Rico to improve and broaden their computing education. He is a Fellow of the ACM.
Computational heterogeneity in STEM education (7 June 2022)
Pratim Sengupta (University of Calgary)
Technocentrism is a recurrent and recursive phenomenon in computing education. In this talk, I offer images of computational heterogeneity in K-12 STEM education as a way to counter technocentric myopia. Drawing upon modeling escapades in computational science as well as studies conducted both in classrooms and informal spaces, I will argue how attending to context, difference, ambiguity and postponement – rather than the immediacy of control – can center voices from the margins of discipline and society through honouring the complexities of language and experience.
Speaker:
Dr. Pratim Sengupta is a Professor of Learning Sciences and STEM education at the University of Calgary, where he has also served as the Research Chair of STEM Education. His interests include heterogeneous approaches to making computing and complexity open and public, both in classrooms and informal spaces. He directs the Mind, Matter & Media Lab (www.M3lab.org) and has recently co-authored Voicing Code in STEM: A Dialogical Imagination, available open access from MIT Press.
Learning and teaching with electronic textiles [title TBC] (12 July 2022)
Yasmin B. Kafai (University of Pennsylvania)
Speaker:
Yasmin B. Kafai is Lori and Michael Milken President’s Distinguished Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, with a courtesy appointment in Computer and Information Science. She is a learning designer and researcher of online tools, projects and communities to promote coding, crafting, and creativity. With colleagues at MIT, she developed the programming language Scratch and researched applications and participation in clubs, classrooms, and online communities. More recently, she has developed and researched the use of electronic textiles to introduce computing, crafting, and engineering to high school students and teachers as part of the nationwide “Exploring Computer Science” curriculum. She is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and the International Society for the Learning Sciences.
ME++: Data ethics for the computing classroom through biometrics, ballet, and AR (6 Sept 2022)
Genevieve Smith-Nunes (University of Cambridge)
Exploring data ethics through creative immersive tools with brainwave and motion capture data. Is there a difference in sense of self (identity) between the human and the virtual? How does sharing your personal biometric data make you feel? How can biometric and immersive development tools be used in the computing classroom to raise awareness of data ethics?
Speaker:
Genevieve Smith-Nunes is a 3rd-year Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cambridge and a lecturer at the University of Roehampton. In 2013, she set up ReadySaltedCode, an organisation providing innovative digital computing STEAM-focussed education. The organisation provides workshops and training and produces DataDrivenDance performances: large scale technology-enhanced classical ballet performances designed to highlight, engage and encourage people to love computing. DataDrivenDance looks to explore the ethical and social justice implications of future technologies, including biometrics and XR, and aims to reimagine how we could potentially deliver a creative computing education.