Lisa Moe, known on social media as @MissMoeTeaches, is a sixth-grade teacher at Philistine Rondo School of Discovery in the Corona-Norco Unified School District of Riverside County, CA. In 2020, she was named an Edwin Carr Fellow in elementary educational technology by the College of Education at California State University, Fullerton. CUE’s Inland Area chapter (IACUE) named her the Blended and Online Educator of the Year in 2021, and she has also been featured as a leading woman in STEM on CBS’s Mission Unstoppable. Lisa currently serves on the IACUE board, where she hopes to continue making a positive impact on STEAM, computer science, and educational technology.
Lisa’s district, the eighth largest school district in California, currently lacks a comprehensive computer science program. Armed with a recent grant from the Infosys Pathfinders Foundation, though, Lisa plans to change that. Students in her district have historically been unable to access coding and engineering devices, while field trip opportunities relating to STEAM, coding, and making have been prohibitively expensive. This grant will support Lisa’s students in planning and implementing field trips for historically underrepresented students at other district schools to attend a day of coding and making, all in a fun, engaging, student-led format.
“I am not just teaching computer science,” Lisa says. “I am teaching my students to remove societal labels and limitations and use their curiosity, creativity, and learning to pay it forward.” Through this grant-funded program, students who have had limited exposure to computer science will have the chance to see and learn from their peers engaging with tech. Learning from students just like themselves, these kids will gain a fresh interest in computer science and coding, and begin to develop their own computer science identities. Lisa’s hope is that this experience will “light a fire back at their own schools to do more with educational technology.”
The spirit of sharing experiences, lessons, and results breathes through all of Lisa’s work. She loves showing her students how they can use technology as a tool for their creative expression and personal growth. One of her proudest moments was when she appeared on the CBS show Mission Unstoppable and was able to showcase three of her students’ innovative micro:bit projects. She says, “If we can nurture empathy, compassion, and respect in our students through the use of computer science, they will use computer science to make a positive difference in our world.”
Lisa knows that the generosity and vision of other computer science educators has made a positive difference in her life and the lives of her students. Networking with educators and tech companies on social media gave her new tools and ideas to disrupt equities in her last two school districts, and she currently serves on the board of Inland Area CUE, where she partners with educators she describes as “phenomenal” and “visionary” to support the mission of computer science equity and access across the region.
Lisa sees the CSTA Equity Fellowship as a wonderful opportunity to deepen her learning and expand her professional network. Knowing how much her past collaborations have supported better opportunities for her students, she can’t wait to learn from her cohort and work together on finding new solutions to promote social justice in the educational technology space. “I am a firm believer that as educators and leaders, we need to share ideas, collaborate, and learn together to be the best teachers, role models, and mentors to our students possible,” says Lisa.Inspired by her own experiences of learning from and with her fellow educational technology professionals, Lisa would love to develop a peer mentorship program to support new and veteran CS educators. She knows that the learning and growth she experiences as an Equity Fellow will enrich her teaching practice, and she’s excited to get started. “As I have always told my students,” she says, “whatever I learn, they will learn.”
