An official website of the United States government
Some computing education researchers have shifted focus from broadening participation to justice-centered computing education (JCCE). JCCE teaches computing through its social-political implications, empowering students to create more just futures. While prior research theorizes and explores its classroom application, we know little about the collaborative processes instructors use to design and adapt curricula for such learning. We engaged in a 3-month curriculum co-design project as part of a research-practice partnership between a CS education researcher and an after-school STEAM instructor. Through duo-ethnography, we analyzed our curriculum design process. We highlight key emerging challenges and how we resolved them through the design process. Our findings focus on balancing students' technical proficiency with justice-centered pedagogy, showing that justice-centered curriculum design requires educators' ongoing content learning, reflection on positionality, and adaptability to students' needs, including those with disabilities. These findings bridge the theoretical discussion of justice-centered computing with the practical realities of curriculum design.
more »
« less
Centering Minoritized Students' Perspectives: What Makes CS Learning Consequential
Taking a justice-oriented approach to equity in Computer Science (CS) education, this paper questions the dominant discourse in CS education and asks what truly makes CS learning consequential from the perspective of youth. We define CS learning as consequential by focusing on its transformative impact on youth identity, agency, and perceptions of the world within and beyond CS classrooms, regardless of whether or not they pursue CS in the future. Our research-practice partnership used qualitative data, specifically longitudinal interview data with 30 students up to three years after they first experienced a high school CS class in a large public school district on the west coast serving majority Latinx, urban, low-income students. Our findings suggest that in order for CS learning to be meaningful and consequential for youth, learning must involve: 1) freedom for youth to express their interests, passions, and concerns; 2) opportunities for youth to expand their views of CS and self; and 3) teacher care for students, learning community, and subject matter. The findings have significant implications for the broader “CS for All” movement and future efforts to reform policy agendas aiming for a more justice-centered CS education.
more »
« less
- PAR ID:
- 10420454
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- SIGCSE
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 666 to 672
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Culturally responsive computing (CRC), that centers sociopolitical issues and transformational uses of technology, has been described as valuable for increasing engagement with computing, especially for historically underrepresented minoritized students. But what do high school students think? Through a sociocultural lens prioritizing student voices recorded in 56 interviews over a period of 2 years (1–3 years after students’ first experience with computer science (CS) education through Exploring Computer Science or Advanced Placement CS Principles in high school), this study centers the perspectives of 39 primarily low-income, Latine and Black youth from urban California and rural Mississippi public schools to understand what they perceive as the role of technology in our world and what they subsequently desire of their computing education. While none have studied CRC before, the majority responded with CRC ideas about the kind of pedagogy they believe would make for a more meaningful computing learning experience: They see computing as a form of power that impacts both good and bad in the world and want computing educators to prepare them to take on these issues of equity, ethics, social responsibility, and underrepresentation in the field. The students’ perspectives offer important pedagogical insight into how to support deeper engagement with computing in current CS for All initiatives, while also preparing youth for the rapidly evolving and increasingly complex computing landscape that impacts all of our lives.more » « less
-
Objectives We examine the community epistemologies in youth’s iterative refinements of STEM-rich inventions across settings and time. Iteration in STEM-rich engineering/invention work refers to re-thinking ideas/designs within prototyping processes (Cunningham & Kelly, 2017). The objective of this paper is to examine the political dimensions of iteration through a) how iteration involves pre- and post-design “lives” of inventions especially towards new social futures, and b) the intentional incorporation of cultural epistemologies towards advancing new forms of legitimate inventor knowledge/practice (Yosso, 2005). Framing We draw from critical justice and consequential learning studies. Critical justice focuses on recognizing diversity and addressing structural inequalities perpetuated through systemic racism and classism. It seeks re-shifted relations of power and position within multiple scales-of-activity in learning, intersected with historicized injustices in learning environments. Consequential learning examines what matters to people, and how associated values and practices, when coordinated through social activity, allows for imagining new social futures (Gutierrez, 2012). Viewing the iterative process of inventing through a justice-oriented consequential lens calls into question traditional modes of knowing, and challenges/expands who and what areas of expertise are recognized and valued. Methods Our study takes place in two community makerspaces in mid-sized cities. Both center community engagement and support youth in designing/inventing to address problems they and their communities care about. Both also support minoritized youth in inventing through engagement with a wide range of community/STEM stakeholders. In researcher-educator roles, we collaborated with both makerspaces to establish programs supporting youth in sustained engagement in STEM and making/inventing in culturally-sustaining ways. In our two-year, longitudinal critical ethnography, data were generated in weekly community making sessions between 2016-2018. Data include artifacts, youth conversation groups, and videos capturing youth interaction with STEM and community experts at various stages in their design process. Analysis involved multiple stages and levels of coding based on open-coding and constant comparison procedures. Findings We ground our paper in four in-depth longitudinal cases of youth’s iterative design work: Nila’s light-up #stopracism sign; Su’zanne’s massaging slipper, Sharon’s geodesic play dome, and Jazmyn’s portable fan. Across cases, we illustrate three findings. First, youth located broader injustices within local making/inventing discourses with support from community and STEM allies, suggesting youth drew from multiple epistemologies, some grounded in community cultural wealth, others in STEM. For example, Su’Zanne drew from a familial culture of care and resistance in recognizing injustices nested in homelessness while iterating a way to make her slipper “more massaging.” The geodesic dome youth-makers drew from collective solidarity/resistance in making a structure for younger peers due to unjust lack of play infrastructure. Second, iterative engagement involving community wealth afforded further design and inventing experiences and expanded ownership over inventions across many stakeholders. For example, youth turned Nila’s #stopracism sign on during group discussions when they felt that racism needed to be foregrounded. Third, the afterlife of youth invention processes impacted the emergent inventor-maker culture through influencing the iterative process. Significance Iterations expand hybridization of cultural knowledge/practice and STEM-rich inventing, re-shaping whose cultural knowledge matters, and fostering justice-oriented collective outcomes.more » « less
-
The future of AI will be determined in part by how its developers are educated. Thus, how computer science (CS) education incorporates instruction in various aspects of AI will have a substantial impact on AI's evolution. Understanding how and what CS educators think about AI education is, therefore, an important piece of the landscape in anticipating -- and shaping -- the future of AI. However, little is known about how educators perceive the role of AI education in CS education, and there is no consensus yet regarding what AI topics should be taught to all students. This paper helps to fill that gap by presenting a qualitative analysis of data collected from high school CS instructors, higher education CS faculty, and those working in the tech industry as they reflected on their priorities for high school CS instruction and on anticipated changes in high school, college, and workplace CS. We conclude with recommendations for the CS education research community around AI in K-12, particularly at the high school level.more » « less
-
Research Problem: K-12 school systems are racing to implement Computer Science (CS) education within classrooms across the United States. Prior research on education reform movements suggests that without rigorous research, combined with careful technical support for implementation, we should expect wide variation across districts in how they choose to implement computer science education as well as extreme inequality in which districts provide equitable opportunities to learn CS, with the most underserved students fairing the worst (Ahn & Quarles, 2016; Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015; Carlson, Borman, & Robinson, 2011; Gordon and Heck, 2019). It stands to reason that these same challenges are at play in the CS subfield of cybersecurity. Research Question: In what ways does the JROTC-CS experience impact the cognitive (e.g. knowledge and skills) and non-cognitive factors (e.g. social and emotional behaviors) of cadets in high school? Methodology: We used a qualitative study using a semi-structured interview protocol with JROTC cadets attending the schools involved in the intervention (n=17). The interview protocol focused on the types of cognitive and non-cognitive impacts the cadets experienced when participating in CS and Cybersecurity learning experiences. Data Collection: We conducted interviews with 17 cadets and coded the transcripts using a priori codes. Findings: Sixteen of the students reported an increase in their knowledge and skills through self-reported grades and self-perceived knowledge gained through the CS and cybersecurity experiences. While all of the students indicated that the courses and extracurricular activities were beneficial and interesting, only two of the students indicated they wanted to have a career in the computer science or cybersecurity field. However, the findings indicated a lack of school personnel support, specifically at the guidance counselor level. Finally, all of the students reported a strong sense of belonging in their CS and cybersecurity experiences leading to increased peer collaboration and support. Implications: Based on other evidence collected during the intervention, the intervention had multiple successes in expanding equitable experiences for cadets in the schools involved in the study. Guidance counselors and other personnel who are in a position to influence the future career choices of cadets may need more professional development; however, more research is needed to understand the ways in which they currently influence cadets.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3545945.3569878
