EAGER: Building a Pipeline to STEM Careers in South Central Los Angeles Through Computer Science

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

Building a Pipeline to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Careers in South Central Los Angeles is an effort use computational skill development as a catalyst for broader academic achievement. The work develops a year long computing seminar that serves as a complement to the Exploring Computer Science course in a high school in Los Angeles. The seminar is robust in its attempt to address the factors that impede academic achievement of a subset of boys of color in the lower quartile of performance in mathematics. The study operationalizes computing education as a means of igniting broader academic achievement. The premise of the work focuses on infusing into computing instruction established techniques from the learning sciences that are effective in addressing the broader social and institutional factors that often hinder students' academic achievement. The deployment of more Exploring Computer Science (ECS) courses has not by itself mitigated some of the academic achievement gaps correlated with race and gender. This work is an attempt to develop a complement to ECS and courses like it, to serve students operating under difficult academic circumstances.