Computing for the Social Good: A Research-Practice Partnership to Increase Equity among Students and Parents

Etr Associates, Watsonville CA

Investigators

Abstract

A collaboration between Santa Cruz City Schools, the Santa Cruz Education Foundation, and Education, Training, Research (ETR), with additional researchers from Stanford University and the University of California builds on a previous NSF award for a research-practice partnership (RPP) to build capacity, and design and test a pathway for computer science (CS) education and computational thinking in 3rd-8th grade. Our RPP has identified three problems of practice that have relevance to national CS for All efforts, and are issues that district administrators believe can be addressed by the creation of a CS pathway: 1) inequity in academic literacy across demographic groups (the largest gaps between white and Latinx students), 2) increasingly segregated schools based on race and class, and 3) inequity in family access to and engagement with our digital society. This project will address these issues: 1) Motivate, prepare and support teachers to integrate equity-oriented computer science into core curriculum with supports for English language development, 2) Develop a K-8 pathway that attracts students and families by preparing them to be citizens who use CS for the social good, 3) Build family engagement and competence through computer literacy and leadership activities, and 4) Grow our Design-Based Implementation RPP that involves district administrators, principals, teachers, school staff, researchers, and education foundation board members. The project will generate activities and research knowledge that can be used to increase the number of girls and Latinx students who want to learn more computer science and have the capacity and interest to use CS for the social good. It will also be one of the first to generate and test units that integrate data science into K-8 and will produce a system for preparing K-8 teachers to infuse equity-oriented computer science education into their curriculum. Finally, it will identify strategies that schools can use to engage families and increase parents' confidence and competence to become leaders at their children's school and use computing to advance their own education and career. This project will contribute to our understanding of: 1) How to prepare and support K-8 teachers to infuse equity-oriented CS into their curriculum including which concepts are difficult for teachers to understand and integrate, and whether a social justice angle is motivating to them, 2) Which CS and computational thinking concepts can be used to support academic literacy and language development in K-8, 3) How CS for the social good can be used as a tool for identity exploration and to foster youth and parent leadership, 4) Which strategies will effectively engage Latinx and low income families in their school and CS, 5) How to build an RPP, and 6) The process and outcomes of RPPs--when and under what conditions RPPs can contribute to CS for All, including the skills, strategies, roles and identities that are needed for both the researchers and the practitioners. Using mixed-methods and a design-research strategy, the project will focus on designing data science curriculum that support students' learning through problems that impact social good in their neighborhoods. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.