Into the Loop:University-K-12 Alliance for Computer Science Education for African-American, Latino/a, and Female Students in the Second Largest School District in the Country (BPC)

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to improve the participation and success of African-American, Latino/a, and Female high school students in computing. In particular, the project concentrates on the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest and one of the most diverse school districts in the country. Most current high school computer science courses, curriculum, and pedagogy do not engage students with innovative, interdisciplinary applications in computing. The computer science pipeline is losing traditionally underrepresented students prior to college. By college, at the nations PhD-granting departments of computer science and engineering, just 7% of the computer science degrees are awarded to African-American and Latino/as of both sexes and just 17% to women (Taulbee Survey, 2006). This project builds on several successful activities from the past that the project team engaged in involving preparation of the targeted students for success in the computer science AP exam. While there is national recognition that the AP exam may suffer from a narrow programming view of CS, it is important to assure that there is equal access to AP CS for all students and that teachers are qualified to teach this college preparatory course. In addition, however, the project team is expanding the scope of their activities to transcend focused preparation for AP. They will participate in the design of more engaging computer science courses that will also qualify as part of a new core college-prepared/career-ready curriculum. The implementation plan for this project addresses what is involved in the process of expanding rigorous learning opportunities to underrepresented students; what schools must provide to maximize student success in these higher-level learning opportunities and what more is needed; the role of alliances and how they are built and sustained; and the extent to which a school district and individual schools either embrace the innovations or possibly push back against them. This project to broaden participation in computing takes into account the larger context of urban education and educational reform. This project identifies critical factors around which a national model for introducing and sustaining computer science education reform can coalesce.