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In an age where artificial intelligence (AI) plays an increasingly pivotal role in daily life, it is essential to equip our youngest learners with foundational knowledge of AI. The AI by 8 project aims to empower kindergarten through second grade teachers in rural North Carolina by introducing AI concepts through engaging, unplugged activities integrated into English Language Arts (ELA) instruction. This initiative seeks to address the gap in AI education expertise among early childhood educators and seeks to foster a generation of students who are well-prepared to navigate a technology-driven future. We present in this poster the guiding theoretical framework for our work, outlining the objectives of the research-practice partnership, and our initial efforts at recruiting rural K-2 teachers. 

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.