An official website of the United States government
The demand to enact state-level computer science (CS) policies rapidly increased across the United States in response to advances in emerging technologies (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, etc). The authors of this paper present the implications of K-12 CS education policies in the state of Tennessee, and recommendations to move towards justice-centered approaches after districts received Strategic CSforALL Resource Implementation Planning Tool (SCRIPT) workshops to help set goals and prioritize CS implementation. Evidence connected to the CS education literature accompanied by the authors, who are partners supporting local education agencies (LEAs), and qualitative findings from workshops provided further reasoning for policy recommendations.
more »
« less
Small Steps, Big Progress: Analyzing District Led Goals to Advance CS Education
The demand to provide high-quality computer science (CS) education to K-12 students across the United States continues to grow due to societal transformations driven by AI and cybersecurity. However, the impact of state initiatives and mandates on district leaders’ decision making remains an under-explored area in the literature. In 2022, CSforALL began work in Tennessee, a state poised to enact CS education policy, as part of a Research Practice Partnership (RPP). This study investigates the first eight school districts who participated in the Strategic CSforALL Resource and Implementation Planning Tool (SCRIPT) workshops in 2022 and 2023, setting goals based on the SCRIPT rubric. The study takes a general qualitative approach underpinned by the Capacity, Access, Participation, and Experience (CAPE) Framework [14] to develop a coding scheme analyzing the districts’ related rubric scores and goals, and to investigate the impacts on equity indicators. The districts participated in three SCRIPT workshops held in 2022 and 2023, and this study dives deeply into the initial goals as well as analyzing the ways the SCRIPT rubric aligned to the CAPE Framework to investigate how district leaders make decisions which impact teacher and student outcomes which lead to equitable high-quality CS education.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2122756
- PAR ID:
- 10530798
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 9798400704239
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 221 to 226
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- K12 CS Education CS Policy Research Practice Partnership (RPP) Local Education Agencies (LEAs) Capacity, Access, Participation, Experience (CAPE)
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Portland OR USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Computer Science for California (CSforCA) is a coalition of educators, industry leaders, nonprofit organizations, and higher education institutions advocating for high-quality computer science education, with an emphasis on girls, low-income students, and students of color. Seasons of CS is CSforCA’s year-round professional learning experience that aims to provide educators across the state of California access to quality training in computer science (CS) education that is standards aligned and culturally responsive. In order to (1) expand access to high quality computer science education throughout the state and (2) ensure that access is equitable, scalable and sustainable in the long-term, we concentrate on building the capacity of not just classroom teachers, but also school leaders, and counselors. Seasons of CS builds upon existing professional learning models across the country to increase access and broaden participation in computing (Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2022; Karlin et al., 2023; Yadav et al., 2021; Wachen et al., 2021; Goode et al., 2020) The CAPE Framework helps ground Seasons of CS’s comprehensive collective impact approach to systemic change through sharing data-driven practices that address equity-minded practices to broaden participation. For instance, in partnership with the Kapor Center, CSforCA has developed and implemented a data tool to identify and respond to local and statewide equity gaps in access to computer science education. It is through these data-driven practices that we can hold ourselves - and the state- accountable for increasing access to CS. Furthermore, an ongoing examination of local and statewide data helps our stakeholder groups determine whether our strategies are meeting their intended outcomes, instead of continuing, or worse, exacerbating existing inequities. Since increasing access to ongoing professional learning for teachers is a priority tactic to increasing access of CS education for students, we want to better understand the following: Does increased professional learning opportunities for teachers equip them to reduce barriers to increase access and engagement for students? Does increased professional learning opportunities for teachers equip them to reduce barriers to increased access and engagement for students of color in particular? In order to answer these questions, we developed a study that derives data from the CSforCA data tool, as well as interviews from 70 of the 700 participating educators six months after their summer professional learning experience. In these interviews, we asked participants about barriers to implementing the professional learning they participated in. Preliminary data demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the outcomes of this large-scale professional learning program and explores the degree to which professional learning increases access to computer science among Black, Brown, and Indigenous students. In addition, we provide analyses that demonstrate the limitations of data tools, which have grown in popularity, to demonstrate overall access to -and engagement in- CS education, uncovering where and how CS education is prospering.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Equity is arguably an agreed upon value within the Computer Science education (CSed) community, and perhaps even more so within efforts to universalize access to CSed within K12 settings through emerging `CS for All' initiatives. However, stakeholders often mean different things when referring to equity, with important implications for what CS teaching and learning looks like in schools. In this paper, we explore the question of how K12 school district actors' conceptualizations of equity manifest within their planning and implementation of district-wide CSed initiatives. Based on a research-practice partnership aimed at supporting and researching district-wide CSed initiatives, data presented - interviews with district faculty, district planning documents, meeting transcripts and field observations - were drawn from five participating school districts as they made decisions and enacted activities over 11 months in areas including vision-setting, curriculum, professional development, leadership efforts and use of formative data about implementation. Analyzing these data through equity frameworks found in CSed literature, we highlight three distinct but interconnected ways that district actors conceptualized equity within their CSed initiatives: (1) equity in who Computer Science is for, (2) equity in how Computer Science is taught, and (3) equity in what Computer Science is taught. Data show that these varied conceptualizations resulted in different kinds of decisions about CSed in districts. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of their relevance to equity-oriented CS education researchers, and what lessons they hold for policy-makers and education leaders engaged in their own efforts to support equitable computer science education.more » « less
-
The push to make computer science (CS) education available to all students has been closely followed by increased efforts to collect and report better data on where CS is offered, who is teaching CS, and which students have access to, enroll in, and ultimately benefit from learning CS. These efforts can be highly influential on the evolution of CS education policy, as education leaders and policymakers often rely heavily on data to make decisions. Because of this, it is critical that CS education researchers understand how to collect, analyze, and report data in ways that reflect reality without masking disparities between subpopulations. Similarly, it is important that CS education leaders and policymakers understand how to judiciously interpret the data and translate information into action to scale CS education in ways designed to eliminate inequities. To that end, this article expands on recent research regarding the use of data to assess and inform progress in scaling and broadening participation in CS education. We describe the CAPE framework for assessing equity with respect to the capacity for, access to, participation in, and experience of CS education and explicate how it can be applied to analyze and interpret data to inform policy decisions at multiple levels of educational systems. We provide examples using large, statewide datasets containing educational and demographic information for K-12 students and schools, thereby giving leaders and policymakers a roadmap to assess and address issues of equity in their own schools, districts, or states. We compare and contrast different approaches to measuring and reporting inequities and discuss how data can influence the future of CS education through its impact on policy.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)The rapid expansion of the Computer Science for All (CSforAll) movement in the United States has catalyzed promising policies, tools, and pedagogies for K-12 universal CS education. It has also created significant challenges for schools and districts, namely, decision-making around the programs, curricula, and professional development that will best align to their communities' broader visions and goals around equitable computing education for all.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630924
