More Like this

1. Developing teachers’ cultural competencies through co-design of robot-coding mathematics activities for Latinx and Black elementary school students

   https://doi.org/10.14324/LRE.22.1.11  

   Lyublinskaya, Irina; Okita, Sandra; Walker, Erica; Yan, Xiaoheng Kitty (February 2024, London Review of Education)

   This year-long case study involved the professional development of teachers in New York City elementary schools, who co-designed with researchers culturally relevant robot-coding mathematics activities to advance teachers’ understanding of culturally responsive mathematics pedagogy. Study findings indicated that co-designing culturally relevant robot-coding mathematics activities led to the development of teachers’ cultural competencies, deeper understanding of culturally responsive mathematics pedagogy and their students’ cultures, stronger agency, and ability to integrate culturally responsive pedagogy into their mathematics curriculum. Teachers also began to perceive the robot as a mathematical tool rather than a motivational add-on, and started to develop their own cultural lens while focusing less on school structure constraints. The study emphasises the importance of engaging teachers as active co-designers of culturally relevant coding curriculum in professional development programmes. 

   more » « less
2. Unplugged Robotics to Increase K-12 Students' Engineering Interest and Attitudes

   Miller, Blanca; Anderson, Mercedes; Major, Justin; Jurkiewicz, Melissa; Kirn, Adam (October 2018, Frontiers in Education)

   The impact of technology on workforce development and socio-economic prosperity has made K-12 computing engineering and STEM in general a national educational priority. However, the integration of computing remains obstructed by resources and lack of professional development to support students’ learning. Further challenging is that students’ STEM attitudes and interest do not matriculate with them into higher education. This issue is especially critical for traditionally underrepresented and underserved populations including females, racial/ethnic minority groups, and students of low-socioeconomic status (SES). To help mitigate these challenges, we developed an unplugged (computer-less) computing engineering and robotics lesson composed of three introductory computing concepts, sequencing, debugging, and sensing/ decision- making, using a small robot-arm and tangible programming blocks. Through students’ sequencing of operations, debugging, and executing of complex robotic behavior, we seek to determine if students’ interest or attitudes change toward engineering. Nine one-hour introductory pilot lessons with 148 students, grades 6-10, at two public middle schools, and one summer camp were conducted. For 43% of students, this was their first time participating in an engineering lesson. We measured students’ engineering interest and attitudes through a 15 question pre- and post-lesson survey and calculated aggregate factor scores for interest and attitudes. We found low-SES students’ a priori interests and attitudes tend to be lower and more varied than those of their high-SES peers. These preliminary results suggest that the integration of introductory computing and robotics lessons in low-SES classrooms may help students reach similar levels of engineering interest and attitudes as their high-SES peers. 

   more » « less
3. Implementing Culturally Responsive Coding Projects with Indigenous Communities

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3545947.3576299  

   Rich, Kathryn M.; Bowdon, Jill; Spang, Marissa (March 2023, SIGCSE 2023: Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2)

   Doyle, Maureen; Stephenson, Ben. (Ed.)

   This study took place in the context of a researcher-practitioner partnership (RPP) between a research organization, the Wyoming Department of Education, and three school districts serving primarily Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho students on the Wind River Reservation. The goal of the RPP is to integrate instruction on the Indian Education for All Wyoming social studies standards with the Wyoming computer science standards in elementary school in ways that are culturally responsive [1]. The project team provided 12 hours of professional development across three sessions, three professional learning community sessions, lesson plans, and model projects. Teachers were expected to implement three coding projects across the school year. The study team collected data via teacher interviews, surveys, and observations of professional development and professional learning community sessions [2]. Three problems of practice that emerged from our preliminary qualitative analysis [3] include: (a) how to support student interest and engagement in computer science especially upon first introduction of a coding platform, (b) how to find time in the school day for computer science and to develop methods for integrating computer science with other subjects, and (c) how to build collaboration across classrooms and districts. The poster will discuss the adaptations teachers made to address the first two problems of practice and the RPP's strategy for addressing the third problem of practice in our next year of implementation. These findings will be of interest to researchers and practitioners working to implement culturally responsive computer science instruction in elementary schools in Indigenous communities. 

   more » « less
4. Teacher practices for culturally responsive math modeling in grades K-2.

   Turner, E.; Carlson, M.; Aguirre, J.; Suh, J.; Brown, J.; Greene, M.; McVicar, E. (November 2024, North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   Lamberg, T. (Ed.)

   There is growing recognition that mathematical modeling can be a lever for equity in elementary mathematics classrooms. This study focuses on the impact of a professional development program focused on culturally responsive mathematical modeling on 8 kindergarten through 2nd grade teachers’ practices in modeling lessons. We use a project developed observation tool to evaluate two video recorded modeling lessons from each teacher (16 total). Findings focus on patterns in the strengths and challenges in primary grade teachers’ practices for teaching modeling, including how teachers’ practices align with culturally responsive teaching. We discuss implications of our findings for the design and refinement of professional development. 

   more » « less
5. Workshops and Co-design Can Help Teachers Integrate Computational Thinking into Their K-12 STEM Classes

   Wu, S.; Peel, A.; Bain, C.; Anton, G.; Horn, M.; Wilensky, U. (April 2020, Proceedings of International Conference on Computational Thinking Education 2020)

   Kong, S.C. (Ed.)

   This work aims to help high school STEM teachers integrate computational thinking (CT) into their classrooms by engaging teachers as curriculum co-designers. K-12 teachers who are not trained in computer science may not see the value of CT in STEM classrooms and how to engage their students in computational practices that reflect the practices of STEM professionals. To this end, we developed a 4-week professional development workshop for eight science and mathematics high school teachers to co-design computationally enhanced curriculum with our team of researchers. The workshop first provided an introduction to computational practices and tools for STEM education. Then, teachers engaged in co-design to enhance their science and mathematics curricula with computational practices in STEM. Data from surveys and interviews showed that teachers learned about computational thinking, computational tools, coding, and the value of collaboration after the professional development. Further, they were able to integrate multiple computational tools that engage their students in CT-STEM practices. These findings suggest that teachers can learn to use computational practices and tools through workshops, and that teachers collaborating with researchers in co-design to develop computational enhanced STEM curriculum may be a powerful way to engage students and teachers with CT in K-12 classrooms. 

   more » « less