Search for: All records

The experiences of underrepresented women and ethnic minorities in computer science (CS) fields are at the heart of understanding the factors that impact the critical transitions students face when entering into Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) careers. The research, conducted using a grounded theory approach, gauges student and teacher perspectives, specifically investigating minoritized student perspectives that influence their entrance and continuation into an educational pathway. The study’s outcomes underscore the crucial roles of (1) Student Family Encouragement, (2) School and Community Engagement, and (3) Professional/Teacher Mentorship as critical junctions that school districts should be aware of when creating student pathways into college and career, particularly for underrepresented groups. 

Scientific outreach to K12 education typically centers around the direct dissemination of scientific findings or by engaging students in citizen science data collection. Rather than viewing science outreach purely through the lens of knowledge transmission or through the lens of specific data collection practices, we present a view of science outreach as a bridge to bring K12 students into ecologists’ communities of practice. We exemplify this outreach model using the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Schoolyard program as an example. The schoolyard program brings middle-school and high-school students into the Luquillo LTER community of practice through authentic scientific inquiry with long-term ecological data. Long-term data provides an essential means for students to investigate large-scale, long-term phenomena and develop essential data science skills. 

In the early stages of K-12 Computer Science (CS) curriculum development, standards were not yet established, and the primary objective, especially in younger grades, was to spark students' interest in CS. While this remains a vital goal, the development of the CS standards underscores the importance of standards-aligned curriculum, ensuring equitable, content rich CS education for all students. We show that standards alignment is most useful when it includes details about which aspects of the standards a curriculum aligns with. This paper describes our process of decomposing five middle school CS standards into granular learning targets using an evidence-centered design approach and mapping the learning targets onto individual lessons from one widely popular middle school CS curriculum. We discuss the potential implications of this work on curriculum design, curriculum selection, and teacher professional learning. 

This study analyzes the impact of the Chicago Alliance for Equity in Computer Science (CAFÉCS) Research Practice Partnership (RPP) on the Chicago Public School (CPS) Office of Computer Science (OCS). Using a qualitative analysis drawing on data from leadership team meetings, published articles and presentations, and evaluation reports from 11 years of the partnership, we utilized a framework developed by the CAFÉCS leadership team to document the impact on district (1) Programs, (2) Research, (3) Organizational Structures, and (4) Policies leading to (5) Equitable Results for students, condensed as PROSPER. In particular, we explore the role of the RPP in supporting a 500% increase in graduating students who completed at least one high school computer science (CS) course between 2016 and 2020 in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). This study adds to the existing literature on assessing the impact of RPPs through the development of the PROSPER Framework, which may be a useful tool to help RPPs examine impacts on partner districts. 

This study investigated how Chicago Public Schools (CPS) computer science (CS) teachers and instructional coaches navigated remote professional development (PD) during the pandemic. Analyzing multiple sources of qualitative data, we explored how coaches adapted PD to address teachers’ unique needs and how teachers experienced remote PD. We found that the coaching team designed PD to help teachers translate key instructional strategies into the remote learning environment and increasingly centered their PD design efforts on improving teacher engagement and wellbeing. Teachers primarily valued the relational aspects of PD, including opportunities for collaboration and personalized support from instructional coaches. Leveraging an ecological framework, we found that the pandemic and remote learning contexts amplified preexisting PD challenges experienced by teachers and coaches. Findings suggest that PD researchers and designers should focus on teacher wellbeing and that districts should invest in flexible and adaptable PD structures to meet CS teachers’ varied needs. 

Experience with geographic information systems (GIS) can improve students’ spatial skills and provide a foundation for success in STEM (Jant et al., 2019). Researchers and educators co-designed a GIS unit in which high school students learned to use ArcGIS software by exploring geospatial patterns in their local communities. Across three teachers, 134 students participated in the unit and completed a geospatial problem-solving assessment. Students’ performance on the assessment significantly increased from pre- to post-test. Students whose teachers had more GIS experience and completed graded GIS assessments scored higher on geospatial assessments and used more spatial language than students whose teachers had less GIS experience and graded on participation. Students’ expectancy, value, and cost of computer science varied across teachers, and may be linked to students’ ability to devote time to mapbuilding and their engagement with a GIS careers guide. We discuss the impacts of teacher training and lesson implementation on students’ geospatial thinking. 

The goal of this qualitative research is to understand equitable teaching practices of computer science classrooms in the Chicago Public Schools through the video analysis specifically for the Latinx students. Data was collected through video recording from 10 different CPS classrooms. The videos were analyzed qualitative to determine the inquiry driven equitable practices. Though the equitable practices were identified based on the classroom video analysis, literature review on equitable practices and core ECS philosophy informed us to recognize and group the themes and their indicators of equity. This research plays a crucial role in terms of informing the current equitable teaching practices based on the videos in ECS classrooms in Chicago, also the research identifies a need to study further cultural references in terms of teaching computer science curriculum. This research has significance for designing professional development for marginalized population in computer science and possibly for other STEM areas. 

Students’ engagement with geographic information systems (GIS) can improve spatial skills, which are predictors of STEM success (Jant et al., 2019). We used a survey motivated by Eccles’s (2009) expectancy-value-cost framework to assess students’ perceptions of their computer science (CS) courses before and after participation in a GIS unit. The unit provided opportunities to apply GIS to inquiry-based projects focused on solving problems in their own communities. Across four teachers, 158 students participated in the GIS unit and completed the survey. We found that students’ reports of classroom equity predicted their expectancy for success in CS and their desire to take additional CS courses or major in CS. We also examined students’ performance on a geospatial problem-solving assessment to investigate their understanding of GIS and their spatial reasoning. 

As states and districts adopt policies and programs to broaden participation in computer science, there is a growing need to effectively develop and support more computer science teachers. Instructional coaching is a form of professional development that districts can implement to provide ongoing support to teachers. In Chicago, a recent policy change made computer science a high school graduation requirement. The district adopted the Exploring Computer Science (ECS) curriculum and professional development program as the primary means for fulfilling the requirement. As part of the district’s effort to consistently offer equitable computer science experiences for all students, an emphasis was placed on supporting ECS teachers through coaching. Over the past five years, the district developed, implemented, and refined an instructional coaching model for ECS teachers. The coaching model continues to scale up across the district, with over 50 teachers participating in the 2019-2020 school year. The coaching team also adapted the model in response to the shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, the authors share details of the ECS coaching model in Chicago, its impact, and lessons learned from the past five years of implementation. 

Abstract Collaboration between ecologists and learning scientists can give rise to powerful models for scientific outreach within ecology. This paper presents a process by which learning scientists and ecologists codesigned a science curriculum that invites students to join an ecological community of practice. In theJourney to El Yunquemiddle school science curriculum, students engage with simulation models generated from data gathered by Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research (LUQ LTER) scientists.Journey to El Yunquestudents can explore post‐hurricane population changes in yagrumo (Cecropia schreberiana), tabonuco (Dacryodes excelsa), coquís (Eleutherodactylus coquí), snails (Caracolus caracola), anoles (Anolis stratulusandA. gundlachi), veiled stinkhorn mushrooms (Dictyophora indusiata), and caterpillars (Historis odius). Ecology‐based revisions toJourney to El Yunquehave included adding models of the effects of repeated hurricanes on limiting factors, based in part on findings from a canopy trimming experiment. Revisions based on classroom testing include simplifying student‐facing model controls to allow students to focus on the essential model components. The ongoing collaboration that keeps theJourney to El Yunquecurriculum on the cutting edge of ecological and educational advances has been sustained for over two decades. We attribute the longevity of this work to (1) the long‐term nature of LUQ LTER, (2) a sustained interdisciplinary collaboration, and (3) our long‐term relationships with schools.