BC's Marina Umaschi Bers leads a session at the conference. (Photos by Jessica Blake-West)

‘A Palette of Virtues’

International symposium focuses on reframing computer science education to include a character-building focus

An international symposium held at șÚÁÏčÙÍű College in late May focused on computer science education, but with a mission: reframing it as an ambitious, human-centered endeavor that builds character.

Titled “A Palette of Virtues: A Humanistic Education Through Computer Science,” the conference—hosted by BC's Developmental Technologies Research Group on May 28-30—attracted 28 educators, researchers and innovators from non-profit organizations, universities, and governmental institutions in nine countries who have collaborated with the  Lynch School of Education and Human Development-based group over the past three years.

The research team—known as DevTech and founded and directed by Marina Umaschi Bers, the Augustus Long Professor of Education at the Lynch School—advances playful, developmentally appropriate technologies and pedagogical approaches that foster young children's creative learning about computational thinking, computer programming, robotics, crafting literacies and engineering skills—and, critically, about making the world a better place.

The “palette of virtues”—a metaphor coined by Bers in her 2022 book, Beyond Coding: How Children Learn Human Values through Programing — stresses that coding and creating projects can go well beyond computational thinking to promote the development of human values, character strengths and personal growth.

Marina Bers illustrating the 'palette of virtues' with a color palette

Marina Umaschi Bers explains the 'palette of virtunes.'

“By equipping educators to teach computational thinking, coding, and robotics while intentionally emphasizing virtues and character development alongside the technical skills, it’s possible for diverse cultural and religious groups to find points of connection, work together toward a common goal, and find shared meaning and purpose,” said Bers, who holds a secondary appointment in BC’s Computer Science Department. “The goal is to educate young children who can grow as autonomous individuals, who are capable of thinking systematically and independently, can problem solve creatively, and who strive to achieve the social good by collaborating with each other.”

The philosophy closely aligns with BC’s commitment to the Jesuit-based tradition of formative education, a holistic approach to instruction that nurtures and integrates students’ intellectual, spiritual, ethical and social development.

Recognized nationally and internationally as a pioneering interdisciplinary research lab, DevTech was launched by Bers in 2001 at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University; in 2022, Bers and the team moved to the Lynch School.

“The symposium’s goal is to help you find and create your ‘palette of virtues’ that represent the human values that can be nurtured and that represent your own learning environment,” said Bers at the welcome reception at the DevTech Workshop in Carney Hall. “The palette will then guide what and how you teach in the classroom and the practices you develop.”  

The “palette of virtues”—a metaphor coined by Bers in her 2022 book Beyond Coding: How Children Learn Human Values through Programing—stresses that coding and creating projects can go well beyond computational thinking to promote the development of human values, character strengths and personal growth.

In addition to a tour of the BC campus, and a dinner at the Hatchery Makerspace at 245 Beacon Street, attendees presented their respective uses, adaptations and translations of the Coding as Another Language (CAL) curriculum, and ScratchJr, a programming language for five-to-seven-year-old children developed by Bers and DevTech in 2014.  The group—representing six continents—also explored DevTech’s newest ScratchJr prototypes by building a robot and designing physical blocks to tell stories about CAL “playgrounds” around the world. 

The multinational guests were universally laudatory of the three-day symposium as it came to a close.

“I was inspired by the collective work,” said Tim Dixon, a computer science consultant at the Maryland Center for Computer Education. “It will continue to supply motivation for me when my daily work starts to get me down.”

Stamatios Papadakis, an assistant professor in Educational Technology at the University of Crete in Greece, underscored that the conference fed his enthusiasm.

“The people here are passionate about their work,” he said.  “I have much gratitude to be a part of this community.” 

Bers noted that the common computer language that the attendees share “broke down the divides” that often exist when an international group assembles.

“We come from different parts of the world, but we face many of the same challenges and are inspired by a shared goal,” said Bers in closing.  “There was a lot of energy here.  It’s like the wind; you can’t see it, but you see the trees moving.  We built a coding playground and brought the head and heart together in our effort to improve the world.” 

The symposium was funded by a grant from the Siegel Family Endowment, a foundation focused on understanding and shaping the impact of technology on society, and founded in 2011 by David M. Siegel, a co-founder and co-chair of financial sciences company Two Sigma. 

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