Drawing on Kinship: Rurally Sustaining Computational Thinking Pathways

Digital Promise Global, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Communities in rural Appalachia have a rich cultural history of innovating solutions to a myriad of local challenges. The underlying problem solving skills inherent to this “Appalachian Ingenuity” are conceptually similar to those used in computational thinking. This partnership between Digital Promise Global, Floyd County Schools, and Pikeville Independent School District in Eastern Kentucky will leverage these similarities to help educators and students understand computer science in a more intuitive way, increasing the agency and participation of Appalachian youth in computing. By supporting K-8 students to connect computing with their heritage as problem-solvers, this project will help address the pressing priority of many rural communities to cultivate rural STEM talent for explicit use in rural communities. This Research Practitioner Partnership between Digital Promise Global, Floyd County Schools, and Pikeville Independent School District builds on prior work to create a rurally sustaining computational thinking (CT) pathway that benefits students and the broader community. The project team will use a design-based research approach to support small teams of teacher-leaders in two Eastern KY districts of Floyd and Pikeville to create, implement, study and refine CT lessons that are connected to their local cultural heritage of problem solving. The team will conduct explanatory case study research with an evaluation orientation to examine how, why and which elements of a rurally sustaining CT pathway appear to influence students’ perceived importance and usefulness of CT, and their expectations of success to learn and use these skills. 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.