CS Educator Interview: Michelle Lagos

Michelle Lagos serves on the CSTA Board which is how I first met her. She is currently an At-Large member. Several years ago she was the International Representative.  She brings some interesting perspectives to board meetings and CSTA is lucky to have her involved. I was very pleased when she agreed to this interview.

WHERE DO YOU TEACH? WHAT SORT OF SCHOOL IS IT?
I teach at the American School of Tegucigalpa, a bilingual private school in Honduras. We are a U.S. accredited school (by AdvaceEd) which grants us the right to extend High School degrees and for over a decade have been offering the International Baccalaureate Program as well. Our students have the opportunity to graduate with up to three diplomas: High school, IB and Honduran Science and Humanities Baccalaureate as granted by the Honduran Ministry of Education. The American School of Tegucigalpa was founded in 1946 and it´s legacy families are now in their third generation of students.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED TEACHING COMPUTER SCIENCE?
I started teaching CS in 2000 as a senior at the Universidad Católica de Honduras (Catholic University) while finishing my CS Engineering degree. I was offered a job in a bilingual school as a Computer class teacher. From there I got hooked on teaching and have dedicated most of my professional career to education.

DESCRIBE THE COMPUTER SCIENCE CURRICULUM AT YOUR SCHOOL. WHAT COURSES DO YOU HAVE AND WHAT ARE THE FOCUSES OF EACH?
Our computer science curriculum runs from K-12.  We started teaching application computing and over the course of a few years we have been moving gradually towards CS. We follow ISTE standards for K-2 and CSTA standards for 3-12. With high school (which is where I teach) we are currently basing our course in the Computer Science principles course, and using the common-sense media Curriculum for our digital citizenship unit.

WHAT IS YOUR OVERALL TEACHING PHILOSOPHY? PROJECT BASED LEARNING? FLIPPED CLASSROOM? IN SHORT, WHAT MAKES YOUR CS PROGRAM “YOUR CS PROGRAM?”
I consider my philosophy to be quite oriented to project based learning. Considering that our courses are one semester long, I find that we can get better results through projects. What makes it my CS program? My kids!!! Every year my course is different depending how fast my kids absorb the content.  As any teacher I guess, I tweak and adapt my lessons sometimes on the spot and the “aha” moments I get are the best reward!

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN TEACHING CS AT YOUR SCHOOL?
The biggest challenge is time! We only get one semester as our students have a full academic load so we have to adjust the schedule so it doesn’t become too much for them. This then contributes to a lack of interest in the subject by most stakeholders at school.

YOU TEACH AT AN "AMERICAN SCHOOL" IN HONDURAS, IS WHAT YOU TEACH IN YOUR SCHOOL MUCH DIFFERENT FROM OTHER SCHOOLS IN HONDURAS?  ANY SPECIAL CHALLENGES OR OPPORTUNITIES THAT YOU HAVE?
I believe that what we teach is pretty different from our Honduran public system schools. (Honduras education system is divided into two mayor categories, public and private and within the private we have the Spanish-only speaking schools and then we have bilingual schools, mostly Spanish English. The latter is where my school fits into. For starters we teach in English, we aim for higher levels of academic performance than public schools but still try to comply with the country’s education curriculum objectives. We have the opportunity that my school is currently starting a STEM program and CS has found its place in it.  Again, our biggest challenge is time. Most of our schools public and private struggle with budget but the public system struggles much more. Remember Honduras is a third world country, second poorest in all the western hemisphere. This means that sometimes getting the resources we would like takes time and much negotiating. However, because most of our students leave Honduras for their higher education, we have the goal to prepare them the best we can to be a competitive student in most areas anywhere they would like to go. An opportunity I, as a teacher, takes advantage of is that our government has made CS credits mandatory for graduation, so that helps a lot.

WHAT IS ADMINISTRATION’S SUPPORT (OR LACK OF SUPPORT) LIKE AT YOUR SCHOOL?
My administration is more supportive than in other schools. We have a great curriculum director that understands the need of CS in today’s students lives. Our principals are also supportive when my department (which I am the head of) bring up new project proposals, they take them seriously and bring it up to the rest of the decision-making authorities. If there is any room for improvement it is along the lines of people understanding that CS is much more that hardware, plain coding or software. But we are doing our best to shed light on the vastness of the subject and its scope.

HOW DO YOU MEASURE SUCCESS FOR YOUR PROGRAM? FOR YOUR STUDENTS?
I measure success in my program when I hear my students don’t have many issues in their CS courses in college. That feedback is extremely important and helpful. I assess my students by abilities and when I see them understanding coding and loving our robotics unit, I find my program successful.

YOU'RE VERY INVOLVED IN CSTA AS A BOARD MEMBER. WHAT MADE YOU GET INVOLVED IN THAT WAY?
Sometimes being a CS teacher is a lonely affair if your department is not that big and your school is a bit ahead than others. I started looking for a community of teachers where I felt I belonged and could rub elbows with. A place where I could go for news, resources and support. I browsed through many associations and felt that CSTA fulfilled the purpose of support I needed as a CS teacher. I wanted to be more involved, but I couldn’t belong to a chapter as international chapters don’t exist. So, when I read in The Voice the call for nominations I decided to apply for international representative. I thought it would be a long shot but I am so proud to say that I became the first female latina to be part of the board and now the first international member to be serving in a position other than the international representative.

When I started working with the board, I felt right at home with a group of people that shared my passion for both CS and teaching. People that were doing serious work and proposals to improve CS around the world and I couldn’t be prouder to be a part of it. To this day I feel that CSTA is doing a great job supporting K-12 CS teachers. Every year the conference gets better and bigger. There are lots of opportunities for teachers to get PD and network with other CS teachers which becomes a valuable thing.

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU LIKE TO TALK ABOUT REGARDING YOUR PROGRAM THAT I HAVEN’T ALREADY ASKED?
Who can benefit from CSTA besides Michelle and AST? I am constantly trying to renew and update my curriculum and I want my kids to have more opportunities to learn what's out there. PD would be good as well as speakers and invitations to conferences. I also try to promote CS in girls and help them discover different opportunities in life.

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE (IF ANY)

• ·School name and web site: American School of Tegucigalpa www.amschool.org
• Twitter: @mglagos
• .IG: @mglagos
• .Facebook: Michelle Lagos Rico de Javier

Note: The index for this interview series is at http://blog.acthompson.net/2017/10/computer-science-educator-interview.html and is updated as new interviews are posted.