In Lisa Moe’s sixth-grade classroom in California, you can find students recording Scratch tutorials for younger peers, heaps of cardboard for crafting, and creative lesson plans like animating a mythology-inspired TV series. One thing you’ll never find? Labels. Whether students define themselves as athletes, mathletes, or “bad students,” Lisa has made it her mission to show them that they can achieve anything they put their minds to. By centering students’ passions and uplifting their voices, Lisa’s creative approach to Computer Science education has turned even the most STEM-averse students into self-proclaimed ed-tech geniuses.

For Lisa, helping students understand what they’re capable of is personal. Childhood teachers told Lisa she wasn’t “math-brained.” Some even categorized her and her classmates into two groups: “my geniuses” and “the rest.” As she furthered her education and achieved her second Master’s Degree in Educational Technology, she realized that she was skilled at math, but her teachers had written her off because she wasn’t solving problems their way. This didactic approach left Lisa with a lasting impression of herself that was completely unfounded.

“Having that [experience] has led me into being a teacher not just of my students, but of other educators,” she says. “That is part of my passion, too — to uplift the voices of educators and help them uplift their students’ voices. What we say really holds weight … We could hear all the positive feedback in the world, but we always hold onto the negative things that were said to us.”

Now, students are the stars in Lisa’s classroom: from helping to choose tools like Scratch to weighing in on lesson plans, their feedback guides Lisa every step of the way. She believes that empowering students to take ownership of their learning has made all the difference in building their confidence and skills.

Motocross & Minecraft: Embracing Student Passions

Lisa celebrates the fact that students come to her classroom with knowledge not just from school, but from athletics, hobbies, and life experiences. Their interests inspire her to create unique lesson plans that make an impact on their learning for years to come.

Several years ago, Minecraft fever was sweeping Lisa’s classroom. A student’s mother asked Lisa to tell her child that playing Minecraft every day wouldn’t get him into college. Lisa suggested a different approach.

“I love for my students to see … all that they could be, all that their skills could lead them to. And just let them hear the human experience that no one had a straight shot from ‘I have this dream’ to ‘I got there.’ I like them to hear success, and define success on their own terms,” she says.

She invited her uncle, an architect, to talk to students about designing buildings. To bring the guest lecture to life, students explored the blueprints for their own school and discussed the design decisions the architects made. Then, Lisa channeled the class’s enthusiasm into a lesson plan: create a school in Minecraft or Scratch, using design parameters like extreme weather, transportation limitations, or drought conditions. For the Minecraft-loving student, the project was transformative. He’s since joined STEM afterschool clubs and hopes to attend a STEM high school, specializing in architecture and “making a difference with what he builds.”

Lisa’s classroom is full of stories like this. Last year, she taught a young motocross champion. The student thrived in competitions but struggled with her coursework, rushing through problems and struggling to understand the utility of academics. Lisa used Scratch to help the student see that she wasn’t “just an athlete”: she was a talented engineer with a strong grasp of mechanical concepts. Once she discovered what those skills could help her create, everything started to click.

“What I found with her is once she loved [coding], she’d get very focused and zero in,” says Lisa. “Well, that [focus] started to transfer into her academics. In her own words, she says, ‘I think I’m slowing down more. It’s like I’m debugging all of my work.’”

Now, that student is excelling in her sport and in the classroom. She started her own code club in middle school and is a leader in her peer group. Successes like these remind Lisa of why she loves using Scratch to bring subjects to life.

“[Scratch] is not just a Friday afternoon, ‘Go play for a few minutes.’ These are the skills that are going to build your students. They will transfer. I promise you,” she says. “Make it part of the curriculum. Integrate it into what you’re teaching across. And you’re going to see the reading come out. You’re going to see those writing skills improve. You’re going to see the math skills, the perseverance to have that productive struggle. This is a natural way of building confidence, of working through it. … It’s just so impactful for these kids, year after year. I’m such a believer in Scratch and letting their brains lead the classroom.”

What’s Next: Mythflix and Beyond

One of Lisa’s newest projects, “Mythflix,” was inspired by the many lesson plans before it that centered student agency, technology, and passion. Lisa invited students to create their own Netflix-inspired TV series reimagining classic Greek myths. As they plotted and animated their episodes in Scratch, they improved their literacy skills, learned to work with AI tools, and gained a deeper appreciation for the source material. While Lisa challenged them to make one episode, she says that every single student has made multiple, with some endeavoring to finish an entire series. The project also encouraged healthy collaboration between students, breaking down social and gender divides — peers who used to butt heads were voicing each other’s characters and swapping Scratch tips and tricks.

“Those labels? None of that exists,” says Lisa. “I could walk around and show you every [Mythflix] project and I could ask you, ‘Who’s my EL learner? Who’s gifted? Who’s my struggling reader or struggling with math?’ You wouldn’t know, because children will when they know they can.”

The energy around Mythflix was contagious — Lisa’s students are now teaching students in other classrooms to make their own animated series. Like Lisa, they’re energized by sharing their knowledge and empowering others to create. She’s been told that her students leave her class as “mini-mes,” spreading her motto everywhere they go: “Yes, you can!”

Next year, Lisa is building a computer science induction program to mentor new teachers and help them integrate computer science into their classrooms. She’s excited for the opportunity to expose more educators to the transformative power of programs like Scratch.

Her best advice for new Scratch teachers? “When it comes to coding and to CS, to STEM and project-based learning, failure is the fun part because we’re so used to ‘right or wrong’ in education. [Students] get to learn, OK, where are my mistakes? Let me grow from there. We have to show it’s OK to not know … Don’t be afraid to just try. Start small and then just let them go. They’re going to invent a whole new world that you’re not even seeing yet, but they’ll bring you there and you’ll be right along with them. You just have to loosen the reins and have fun with what you’re doing.”