Posts to Pedagogy: Designing for Visible Learning
This is the second installment in a series of reflections on our work at Howard University last summer, and more broadly, the last seven years of my instructional leadership practice. Each piece offers a window into the design choices and learning environments that have shaped how I support students and educators in computational, collaborative, and culturally responsive learning spaces.
Last summer, I co-taught a data science program at Howard University with a group of sharp, curious undergraduates majoring in the humanities and social sciences. Most of them had never coded before. Many weren’t even sure how data science could connect to their work. But they showed up ready to stretch.
The purpose of this article is to reflect on a shift in what we believe is possible for students—how they learn, how they contribute, and what they can accomplish when the culture of the classroom is intentionally designed to surface their thinking, make it visible, and strengthen it through collective engagement.
To make the leap from curiosity to confidence, we didn’t just teach content—we shaped the culture.
We built a computational learning culture that prioritized safety, collaboration, and public student thinking. Using platforms like Padlet to post shared principles, surface reflections, and respond to one another, students gradually came to see learning as a communal process. That shift—toward openness, ambiguity, and interdependence—was central to what made the experience work.
We designed the classroom to feel more like a shared digital space than a traditional lecture hall:
students contributed to a public dashboard every day,
ideas were posted, commented on, and revised in view of everyone,
we made time to talk about what we were noticing in each other’s work.
In short, we borrowed the best parts of social media: visible thinking, quick reactions, and a sense of collective rhythm. Students could see when an idea landed. They could quote each other. They could remix code and share it back.
When Learning Feels Like Co-Creation
The social dynamic wasn’t just for vibes—it helped students engage with content they initially found overwhelming.
They started taking more risks with code because they knew someone would be there to help clean it up. They brainstormed project ideas by bouncing drafts back and forth. They developed a strong eye for interpreting each other’s data visualizations.
One of the most surprising outcomes was how often students referenced each other’s insights during discussions. Instead of waiting for the instructor to validate ideas, they looked to each other. We didn’t plan that—it emerged organically once students could see how their own thinking influenced the group.
That visibility matters. A good idea doesn’t need to be loud to be heard. It needs a system that makes sharing feel natural and worthwhile.
Social Media, but Make It Learning
It’s worth noting that many teachers—especially math teachers—are moving in the opposite direction, embracing analog tools and unplugged activities in response to pandemic-era ed tech fatigue. The shift is understandable: students have spent years tethered to screens, and it’s no secret that digital platforms often invite distraction, especially for teens and tweens.
But abandoning tech altogether can sometimes mean losing opportunities to support rich, public student thinking. The challenge isn’t the presence of devices—it’s how we design learning around them. In our classroom, technology didn’t replace thinking. It helped us witness and strengthen it.
Social media teaches us that engagement drives visibility. That resharing gives ideas life. That sentiment—likes, emojis, retweets—shapes the collective mood of a conversation.
So what happens when we bring that design logic into the classroom?
We saw students resharing each other's language and ideas during class discussions—“as X said earlier…” or “I liked how Y interpreted that variable…” We saw people using ChatGPT to revise group code, and then reposting it to our dashboard like a remix. We saw ideas spiral outward—refined, extended, echoed—until a group understanding emerged.
In other words: the affordances of social media—the ways it lets us express thought and feeling simultaneously—can be repurposed for learning. When done well, this doesn’t dilute the rigor. It deepens it.
Because let’s be honest: it’s hard to think clearly when you feel alone, invisible, or confused. But when your idea is seen, cited, and extended by someone else? That’s where momentum builds.
Designing for Shared Momentum
The experience taught me that some of the most powerful learning happens when we treat classroom spaces like creative ecosystems—where knowledge circulates, ideas build on each other, and people feel safe taking intellectual risks.
The platforms we used weren’t fancy. But the way students used them? That was the magic. They didn’t just consume content. They shaped it, shared it, and moved it forward—together.
What might become possible if we treated student thinking not just as a product to be measured, but as a public process to be supported and celebrated?