EdLab Podcast: Closing the Tech Gap

Associate Professor Jennifer Chiu began her career as an engineer in Silicon Valley. Before making her way into higher education, she made one more career stop: teaching high school math and science classes. Now, her work, which was sparked by the stark difference between technologies available in the corporate sector from those in education, weaves together all three stops on her professional journey.

“Seeing the technologies that were available in Silicon Valley and what was implemented and available in schools—there was a huge gap,” Chiu said.

As a researcher and teacher-educator, Chiu is now focused on questions like: How can we create technologies that engage students in science and math in a way that connects to students’ lives? And how can we best support teachers in this work?

In this episode of EdLab, Chiu discusses how working with partners from Colombia to Charlottesville to expand access to engaging education technologies is helping her answer those questions.

You can listen to the conversation with Chiu wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, including Apple, Amazon, or Spotify.

EdLab

Transcript

Edited for clarity.

Audrey Breen, Host: Welcome to EdLab, a podcast of the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development. In today's episode, we are tackling the question: If technology tools can be a powerful way to introduce students to engineering and computer science, how can we expand access to these very cool tools?

EdLab is a podcast of the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development, where we talk to the people behind the school's transformative research, innovative teaching, and thriving partnerships. In each episode, we aim to help demystify some of the big questions being asked in education, policy, health and human services. I'm your host, Audrey Breen.

In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Associate Professor Jennifer Chiu. Jennie's career has taken her from Silicon Valley to high school math and science classrooms all the way here to the University of Virginia. And her research has allowed her to partner with schools here in Charlottesville all the way across the country to California, and even with schools and classrooms across South America.

Welcome to the podcast, Jennie.

Jennie Chiu, Associate Professor: Thank you, Audrey. I'm such a fan of your work and being able to communicate what we do broadly. So, I'm more than happy to be here and talking with you.

Breen: Oh, thank you so much. Let's start with how you ended up here. We are now recording a podcast about your work. You've been doing this scholarship for quite a while. So how did your journey bring you to this place, doing this sort of work?

Chiu: Yeah, well, I never thought that my job existed. I didn't know that my job existed, until maybe midway into my PhD. So, when I was in high school, I was told I was good in math and science, or I was good in math and science. I liked it. And so, I was told I should be an engineer. But I didn't really know what an engineer was, even though my dad, had a degree in engineering.

And so, when I went to college, I took a whole bunch of different courses in math and science. And finally, my junior year, I got to take some engineering design classes and thought, oh my goodness. So, this is what engineering is. And really fell in love with it. And after graduating college, I went and worked as an engineer for Hewlett Packard, and worked with their mobile computing division, doing some supply chain and, you know, following products from R&D all the way out to customers.

So, while I was an engineer, I did some soul searching. My mom fell ill, and so I started thinking about, ways that I could most benefit society. And when my mom fell ill, I decided to go back and actually become a teacher. A high school teacher, to be closer to my family. And I absolutely loved being a high school math and science teacher.

I thought it was so much fun. And actually, I integrated a lot of engineering into those classes to make connections into the real world. And when I was a teacher, I often heard the female students coming to me and saying, like, it's so nice to have a female teacher in these upper math and science courses.

I didn't even realize that, I mean, I was a role model, and that there were not that many females and enrolled in AP computer science and AP math. And so, I decided to go back to school to investigate how I could support students and specifically, girls, into math and science and engineering. And, by the luck of the draw, I got into Berkeley. 

They have a tremendous program, and I was going to do work with engineering. And then there was this large grant that needed graduate students. So, I went and got my Ph.D. I still didn't think that I was ever going to be a professor through the Ph.D. program. I toyed around with, you know, creating my own company, my own gaming company.

But then, fell in love with the academic work and decided that, you know, being a professor and doing this kind of research was really for me. And so that's where I ended up doing the kinds of work where I try to engage students who might be traditionally marginalized in STEM: the science technology, engineering, math and computing fields, and developing technologies.

And the other kind of side of that was that coming from Silicon Valley and seeing the technologies that were available in Silicon Valley and what was implemented and available in schools, there was a huge gap. And so that's where kind of combining those to think about, like, how do we create technologies that engage students in science and math, as well as draw on the assets and the resources and connect to students lives to make it more engaging is sort of where my research is at right now.

Breen: I was just going to ask, can you give us sort of a snapshot of that?

Chiu: Yeah. Thinking about how we can develop and implement and research educational technologies, to increase access to science, increase access to engineering. And so, for example, one project that we've done, and we are continuing to do is providing something like, computer aided design tools that are typically for, you know, industry: How can we create those kinds of tools for students and have them design their own homes?

One of the projects we have is net zero so they can design their own energy efficient homes. And while they're doing that, they learn principles of science in terms of thermodynamics and sustainability and that type of thing. 

The other kind of, arm of my work is how do we support teachers to do this work? Because it's really, you know, teachers are kind of the, the key linchpin in terms of being able to engage students. And so, how can we develop technologies? 

Right now, we're really focused on AI-based technologies to augment teachers' abilities within the classroom so that they can provide ways for these projects or what they're learning for students to be more relevant to their lives and how they can draw on the assets of their students and provide guidance and feedback to more students, to provide more personal learning experiences.

Breen: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about some of the technologies? You mentioned the home design technology, what are some others that you are hoping to increase access to?

Chiu: So that's a great question. Actually, right now I am so lucky and so blessed to be working with so many fabulous colleagues. One of the projects I'm working on as part of the global center for Equitable Computer Science education. It emerged when one of my friends and colleagues from South America, from Colombia, Camilla Viera, came on a Fulbright to work with me.

And we saw there was a great need for low-cost computing devices to be available in, not only places like Latin America, but also in under-resourced schools here. Because a lot of these devices are over $100. And to be effective, it needs to be sort of 1 to 1 with students. And that's just way too expensive for most schools.

So, my graduate student, Eric Brenner, invented a robot, and together with Kim Wilkins, who is the founder of Tech Girls and was, again, I was lucky enough--she's a former student of mine. They're going to start up a company to manufacture the robots because they've been under such high demand. So, they're a low-cost robot that use a microcontroller that's been designed specifically for educational uses. And right now, their material cost is around $15. And so, we have a tremendous demand. 

So yeah, they're going to start up a company. We're in the process of doing all that work. To get these out to classrooms for students to be able to engage in these types of activities. And create opportunities for, more, more equitable access to these types of this type of work.

Breen: What does it mean for them to have this kind of technology accessible to them?

Chiu: It's quite heartwarming for me. I've been lucky enough to be able to travel to Peru, to be able to travel to Colombia, to very remote places in these countries where they have very little, and these, these types of contexts and, and bringing them a device like this is kind of pure joy. Like the kids, and we're working primarily right now with younger kids like kindergarten and first grade, which is very different for me. I'm usually in middle school and high school. 

But the…one of our current grants we're looking at for both K all the way up to eighth grade. It's amazing to me how natural all the students are with these devices and, and the change in how teachers see how engaged they are and what they're learning and how they're learning very similar things to mathematical concepts, but yet other types. We're looking to executive function and social emotional learning in terms of having to plan and be able to collaborate and work through debugging problems with teammates.

And so, it's been really extraordinary to be able to be part of this journey with the team. So, it's been a lot of fun.

Breen: That's very cool. What are some of the big questions that you find yourself asking right now? 

Chiu: I've been trying to peck away at these types of questions, either the kinds of questions that have been driving me ever since I was a practitioner and a teacher. So, when I was a chemistry teacher, the students would always ask me, I want to be a lawyer, why do I need to learn chemistry? And it just drove me crazy because like, chemistry is so important. Like what you eat, like what you do, how you interact with materials. Physics is the same way. Obviously, I'm into the physical sciences, but I mean biology too. 

So, it's how can we how can we help students see the relevance of science and engineering and computing to their everyday lives? So, I feel like how can we, instead of having such a silo, or such a box around what happens in school, have the walls come down and help students see that science is really important to their everyday lives.

Especially now and thinking about all of the digital content that they're being exposed to. And thinking about the ways that science collects evidence. Like the nature of science and how the field grows and expands and creates knowledge--being able to understand that as well. With the technologies and the technological advances, how can for them to be creators, not just consumers of these types of technologies, and be aware of all the biases and all the inequities that these technologies are bringing upon the world. I think it's really important. 

So that's one of the guiding questions that when I teach some of the future science teachers thinking about, do you think scientists sit and take tests? No, they don't sit and take tests like they are out there investigating and asking questions about the world.

Engineers are out there figuring out solutions to problems. These are the types of things we should be engaging our students in science and engineering classes. But yet they get a very different feeling of what science is often in schools. And so, it's how can we support students to see the relevance of these fields in their everyday lives?

And then on the flip side of that is, how can we support teachers to be able to do these types of projects and to be able to implement these types of more personalized experiences for students in their classrooms? 

So, acknowledging that usually in the case of these types of project-based or engineering design-based work, it becomes more, of course, it’s personalized.

Students are working on what they want to work on and what's relevant to them. And so when you have 120 students or 300, I mean, across two teachers, it can be very challenging. So how can we create systems? How can we create technologies? How can we provide professional learning experiences to help teachers do this type of work?

Breen: You mentioned earlier AI. Now let's just play imagine that AI is a tool that has no risk, only reward. How could a tool like that help close some of those gaps between a single teacher, a large number of students who are all trying to engage in problem solving or project-based learning around topics that are really interesting to each of them individually.

Chiu: Oh, yeah. So, there could be a different set of tools. Right. And so, this is, you know, pie in the sky, that there's no bias. So, I mean, students right now can use all of these AI tools to help them investigate, start the investigation. Now, granted, of course, they need to go and look at actual sources and actual evidence. But in terms of thinking about brainstorming ideas, right, they can use this kind of as a first line of defense with some of these AI chat tools. 

Thinking about how, there might be ways that we've done this before with math classes and with engineering classes being able to provide guidance to teachers around, say, assessing or, providing feedback on students’ work.

And so, what we found is we want humans to be in the loop, right? We don't necessarily just grade everything automatically for teachers. But what we found is, being able to provide a first pass, helps teachers to be able to look at it and say, oh, okay. Yeah, this is how I would want to say, provide some feedback to the student. And it saves time and makes their lives a little bit easier. 

It can also help teachers be more positive, actually, with feedback in terms of if they have a, already kind of preset, amount of feedback--Yeah, great job on doing this. But I notice that you might need to look at x, y, and Z--can be a nice way to sort of draw out the nice things about what the students have done, as opposed to only giving critique. 

So, we found that it can support teachers and giving more asset-based feedback. And so, so yeah, so those are some, some quick tools where AI could really help in these spaces.

And, and now I'm thinking of if there, if there are more, yeah. Because there could be all sorts of different ways that you could have different teams or provide feedback.

Breen: We will have you back. Yeah. Let's just do that. We'll have you back and we'll talk more. 

Can you speak to how partnerships are a part of your work? How do you develop some of these partnerships and relationships? And what do they mean for your work and the way that you can begin to even ask some of these questions and then to answer them.

Chiu: Yeah, that's a great question. I've been lucky enough, in my graduate school training, I worked very closely with teachers and different partners, and it was just instilled in me that you really can't do this work out of context. It really needs to be grounded within educational school settings and partners.

And so, I've been really fortunate that around this area I've been able to work very closely with the local school districts. I think that's the ground truth for us. Right? If it doesn't work in a classroom, it's not going to work. And so we, most of my research is what's called participatory design or design based research, where we're working with teachers as co-designers to make sure that these types of AI technologies or these other types of technologies are going to work in classrooms.

And so those partnerships are crucial and central to the work. We've been also fortunate to develop other collaborations, with nonprofits, local organizations. 

I had a piece of advice when I started, which was, somebody talking about how, you know, it's really important to say no, but oftentimes you might want to say yes to more meetings than you would normally, just to be able to think about what people are doing and to make connections. And so I've tried to say yes to more meetings and to say yes to more collaborations because, it is, really, one of the most rewarding parts of my job is to be able to, think about and to work with all of the colleagues that I've been fortunate enough to, to work with, not only within UVA because my work does span the School of Engineering, the School of Data Science, the College of Arts and Sciences, but also the local community.

As I was saying before, there's been a tremendous network, that we've been growing globally as part of the global center. So, yeah, absolutely important. And, and that's just so unfortunate I can't name all the names here. I would love to name all the names, but I've been just so fortunate to be able to work with so many fabulously talented people.

Breen: I think that's great. Here's a tougher question. Let's just pretend it's ten years from now. What would you like to know? What answers to which questions would you hope to know in ten years?

Chiu: That is a really tough question. Something that is very front of my mind right now is that we're starting a school. So, we were one of the few selected to start lab schools in Virginia as part of the governor's initiative. And so, we are doing a slightly different model of a lab school.

Lab schools are traditionally where students are pulled out and brought in to its own its own school or sort of contained school. We decided, working closely with Charlottesville City Schools that we didn't want to do a pull-out model. We wanted to push in and provide these types of experiences for all students in Charlottesville City Schools.

What we're doing right now is trying to create innovative learning environments that are computationally rich, that are personally meaningful to students in this sort of push-in model. And so, in ten years, what I would really love to know is, is this model like, how can we make this model successful, sustainable and replicable into other schools in terms of thinking about, like I was talking about before, making school more personally relevant and meaningful to more students.

Breen: That sounds very exciting. Well, Jennie, I am so grateful for your time. I'm so grateful for your scholarship and the work that you're doing. And, I'm just. Yeah, thrilled you could be here. Thanks for being here. And I can't wait to have you back.

Chiu: Again, thank you so much, Audrey. This has been amazing.

Breen: You are very welcome.