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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. 

Research literature has documented how computer science (CS) teachers are often isolated in their schools and are less likely to collaborate as compared to other subject area teachers. This parallels an emerging body of literature around how teachers leverage professional development opportunities to engage in their practice. However, limited research has empirically studied how professional development opportunities lead to increases in teacher empowerment and spur broadening participation in CS efforts. In this study, we report on a networked improvement community (NIC) focused on connecting CS teachers to their peers, national experts, professional development providers, and researchers to impact teaching practices and guide implementation of policies that lead to increased female participation in CS courses. We report on the role of the NIC to support teachers as school and community change agents. Drawing from focus groups with participating teachers (n=20), we report on a two-year process of learning that involved identifying root causes for female underrepresentation and conducting teacher-led interventions within their classrooms and schools. We detail how a NIC offers a novel approach to facilitate collaboration and empower teachers to implement changes that can impact girls in computer science. Initial data indicate that the collaborative nature of the NIC and its teacher-directed approach to change led to a newfound sense of ownership and empowerment in NIC teachers for addressing the challenge of increasing female participation in CS. 

Collective impact is an approach for solving complex social problems at scale. The challenge of broadening participation in computing (BPC) is one such problem. The complexity of BPC is compounded by the decentralized nature of public education, where decisions are made primarily at the state level and subject to interpretation at the district level. As such, diversifying computer science (CS) pathways across the nation requires a systemic approach such as collective impact to engage all of the stakeholders who influence CS education and whose decisions can either facilitate or hinder BPC efforts. This experience report discusses how the collective impact framework has been used to advance the work of the Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) Alliance, an NSF funded BPC Alliance focused on states and state policy as the unit of change. We discuss how the five essential features of collective impact (common agenda, shared measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support) coalesce to facilitate ECEP's theory of change. The report highlights specific policy changes that ECEP states have addressed to promote BPC, the flipped accountability that results from a non-hierarchical leadership model, and the challenges of measuring systemic changes as an intermediary to BPC. 

This experience report details the lessons learned while launching a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) with 23 teachers in Texas as part of the NSF-funded Accelerating Women’s Success and Mastery in Computer Science (AWSM in CS) project. Conceived to address the persistent gender inequities in computer science (CS) education, the NIC was designed to bring together researchers and practitioners to collaboratively develop and implement solutions with the goal of increasing female participation in CS courses. This experience report explores the lessons learned, such as the importance of building a sense of community, trust, and collaboration, before jumping into problem solving as a NIC. Additionally, the report addresses considerations for sustaining the NIC virtually given the logistical constraints placed on teacher collaboration during the school year. 

The expansion of K-12 computer science (CS) has driven a dramatic need for educators who are trained in CS content and pedagogy [1]. This poster describes our effort to train teacher candidates (i.e., pre-service teachers who are students seeking degrees within a College of Education), who are specializing in secondary mathematics education, to be future CS educators. We specifically describe our collaboration to provide a blended preparatory six-week training for the ETS CS Praxis exam (5652), assisting our pre-service students in satisfying the CS certification requirements in our state before they graduate and begin their professional teaching career. Given the unique challenges of pre-service CS teacher preparation [2], blended models, which combine both in-person and online instruction, are an effective approach to building a pre-service program. Within our pre-service CS program, students first complete a two-course pathway that prepares them in AP CSP content and pedagogy experiences, including observations in local AP CSP classrooms [3]. After completing the two courses, our students participate in the blended version of the WeTeach_CS Praxis preparation course to achieve certification. The in-person support provided by the blended model contributed significantly to certification success in this project. With a cut-score of 149 for the Praxis exam, all 11 of our pre-service students who completed the course received a passing score (including one student with a perfect score of 200, and another student with a 195); the average score for our pre-service students was 175. An additional 11 in-service teachers, with diverse backgrounds in CS content knowledge, also participated in the blended Praxis preparation course, with an average score of 166. Given the unique challenges of pre-service CS teacher preparation, university pre-service CS teacher programs should look to innovative models of teacher support developed by in-service programs to make substantial gains in CS teacher certification. Incorporating an asynchronous online course that allows teachers with a wide range of prior experience in CS to learn at their own pace with in-person coursework and support appears to be a viable model for assisting non-CS major teacher candidates in achieving a CS certification. With the blended model, even teachers with no background knowledge in CS were successful. Within our pre-service CS program, students first complete a two-course pathway that prepares them in AP CSP content and pedagogy experiences, including observations in local AP CSP classrooms [3]. After completing the two courses, our students participate in the blended version of the WeTeach_CS Praxis preparation course to achieve certification. The in-person support provided by the blended model contributed significantly to certification success in this project. With a cut-score of 149 for the Praxis exam, all 11 of our pre-service students who completed the course received a passing score (including one student with a perfect score of 200, and another student with a 195); the average score for our pre-service students was 175. An additional 11 in-service teachers, with diverse backgrounds in CS content knowledge, also participated in the blended Praxis preparation course, with an average score of 166. Incorporating an asynchronous online course that allows teachers with a wide range of prior experience in CS to learn at their own pace with in-person coursework and support appears to be a viable model for assisting non-CS major teacher candidates in achieving a CS certification. With the blended model, even teachers with no background knowledge in CS were successful. 

Computer science education has been making dramatic increases in recent years. Across the US, different states are advancing computer science education through different policies. However, as a state makes choices to advance computer science education, it is critical to consider how these policies will broaden participation in computing (BPC). Many have indicated that only white and Asian males (who make up 30% of our population) currently have the opportunity/privilege to engage in computer science education. Therefore, as we implement state-level computer science education reform, it is critical that BPC remains as our guiding principle. Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) was created as an NSF national alliance to support state-level educational reform with regards to computer science. Over the past 6 years, this alliance of 22 states and Puerto Rico have worked together to share policies to advance BPC in each state. Through these experiences, ECEP has proposed that state change related to CS educational reform follows five stages: (1) Find your leader(s) and change agents; (2) understand the CS education landscape and identify the key issues/policies; (3) gather and organize your allies to establish goals and develop strategic plans and; (4) get initial funding to support change and; (5) building and utilizing data infrastructure that informs strategic BPC efforts. This study examined the ECEP alliance and the five-stage model through the 25,000+ documents and data sources over the past decade, specifically investigating how these five stages impacted states’ overall BPC efforts. Results indicated that these 5 stages seemed to support states’ BPC efforts.