Connecting K-16 Curriculum & Policy: Making Computer Science Engaging, Accessible, and Hospitable for Underrepresented Students

In this episode I unpack Goode’s (2010) publication titled “Connecting K-16 curriculum & policy: Making computer science engaging, accessible, and hospitable for underrepresented students” which discusses the development process behind the Exploring Computer Science curriculum, as well as the policy work that occurred in parallel with the the curriculum development.

Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
if you're new to listening to this
podcast each week alternates between an
interview with a guest
and a solo episode where i unpack some
scholarship in this particular episode i
am unpacking the paper titled
connecting k-16 curriculum and policy
making computer science engaging
accessible and hospitable for
underrepresented students
and this paper is by joanna goode as
always in the show notes there are links
to this paper in the description
all you have to do is simply click on
the title and if you click on the
author's last name then it'll take you
to their google scholar profiles where
you can read more
publications by this particular author
all right so here's the abstract for
this paper it's very short
quote in this paper a case 16 computer
science reform effort is described as an
effort that depends on curriculum
development
professional development and
collaborative policy strategies
end quote if i were to summarize this
paper into a single sentence i would say
this paper
unpacks the development process behind
the exploring computer science
curriculum ecs
as well as the policy work that occurred
in parallel with the curriculum
development
so this week's episode is going to focus
in particular on some of the broader
policy and curriculum related things
that we can do to broaden
and diversify computer science education
but the episode two weeks from now is
going to talk about what individual
educators can do to
broaden and diversify their own programs
in the classroom
so this week's is going to be about
larger implications and two weeks from
now is going to be about
implications for individuals all right
so this paper begins by talking about cc
which is an acronym for computer science
equity alliance
so the letter c s e a and this began in
in the la unified school district los
angeles
unified school district all right so
here's a quote from page 22 that kind of
talks about what cc is
so quote charged with the results of a
three-year qualitative research study
which highlighted
instructional and structural barriers to
computer science education for girls and
students of color
this alliance includes educational
researchers university computer
scientists
k-12 school district officials and
leadership from the computer science
teachers association
csta end quote all right so cc was all
about trying to increase enrollment and
diversify
students who are taking the apcs course
now here are some findings
from the approach that cc took this
approach of providing instructional and
pedagogical resources
and structural support to teachers led
to staggering results
the number of students studying apcs in
l.a
unified school district tripled girls
quadrupled
latinos quintupled african americans
doubled
however formative and summative research
identified a significant tension between
the alliance's goals
of accessibility and the goals of the
apcs course
teacher interviews revealed that as a
first course in computer science
the learning curve was too steep for the
students to learn apcs content in time
for the may exam
teachers also reported that the course's
focus on program
methodologies in java failed to attract
the interest in students
who were not already enamored with
computing end quote
okay so obviously it's great that the
percentages and numbers of
students who took apcs in la unified
school district
grew that's great things are more
diverse as a result of cc
however it was very clear that there
were some problems in terms of
who could take the apcs course and
because there were no alternatives in
terms of computer science that
didn't have an ap label to it or exist
under the ap umbrella they wanted to
create some kind of other
curriculum that could be used so
exploring computer science
came out of this need so although cc
doesn't exist anymore
a recent discussion among csta chapter
leaders
at a conference a couple weeks ago at
the time of this recording
many of the leaders actually called for
this alliance to come back in some form
or another to kind of help with some of
the equity issues that are
still pervasive within computer science
as a profession
and within the field of computer science
education in terms of
who is participating and in what ways
now one way that you could actually
participate in equity
through csta the computer science
teachers association is to become an
equity fellow
now by the time this episode actually
comes out you won't be able to apply for
this year's equity fellowship
however i will include a link in the
show notes so you can learn more about
it so that way you can apply to it for
next year which i believe it came this
year with a two thousand dollar stipend
and it allows you to connect more with
other educators
who are also seeking to improve equity
in computer science okay so to recap
so far we have cc which was trying to
increase
enrollment in ap cs courses and whatnot
and offerings
and students were applying and it was
more diverse than it was in the past
however they identified some issues so
as a result
one of the recommendations was to create
a computer science curriculum that was
more accessible and did not require
the same prerequisites that an ap course
did
so this is where exploring computer
science curriculum comes into play
okay so what is exploring computer
science the curriculum
so here's a quote from page 23. it's
sought to
develop quote knowledge and content
learning theory
and the communities from which students
draw their informal knowledge about the
world
end quote so the framework was developed
in collaborations with
researchers and practitioners which
honestly i wish there was more of that a
lot of curriculum
is developed by people who either have
not been in a classroom so for example
like software development companies who
are just trying to create this new fancy
software or by researchers
who are cs education researchers who
have worked at the undergraduate level
but have not actually taught in a k-12
setting
so to kind of work through some of the
shortcomings
and lack of experience you can
collaborate with people
so if you're an educator who's
interested in these kind of curricular
initiatives what i'd recommend doing is
like reaching out to
some of the professors in the colleges
near where you live
or where you previously attended and see
if there are ways that you can
collaborate with them to
create content like this so this
curriculum aligns with
many of the things that have been
discussed by guests and myself
in other episodes in the interviews
so here's a quote from page 23 that just
kind of summarizes the overall approach
quote the course adopts an inquiry-based
learning environment which requires
students to engage in complex computing
projects
ongoing opportunities for collaboration
communication
and multiple ways of knowing are
embedded into the design of the course
end quote in general i really like
inquiry based approaches to learning
where you're using questions to kind of
guide further
understanding especially when it's
embedded within
an individual's interest or within some
kind of a community problem or need
okay so the team that developed this was
a team of k-12
and university cs experts who created
some different course topics
which resulted in six instructional
units and they are one
human computer interaction two problem
solving
three web design four introduction to
programming
five robotics and six computing
applications
now it was kind of funny reading through
this because the web design
in particular at one point they
mentioned like basically designing a
myspace page
which just thinking back to myspace that
just seems like
a century ago as opposed to a decade ago
a lot has certainly changed since ecs
first came out
now on the curriculum writing team they
did have five teachers actually
assist with writing this which again i
really appreciate and when they piloted
this
they piloted it at seven different high
schools
where they had just under 300 students
and it was comprised of
percent who were black or latino
okay so they created this curriculum and
then they implement it
in high school setting what were the
results of this particular pilot study
so here's a quote from page 23 using pre
and post survey instruments
research showed that participation in
the course resulted in
change students perceptions of the
usefulness of computer science in a
positive direction
change students beliefs about the appeal
of computer science in a positive
direction
increase students perceptions of
computer science as enjoyable and
stimulating
increase students motivation to stick
with a difficult problem
students willingness to have the answer
given to them instead of working it out
decreased
end quote now if i get nerdy real quick
so the p
values on this indicate that at the
worst case scenario there's a 95
probability that this correlation
existed and on the best case scenario on
one of those indicators in particular it
was 99.9
correlated which all of these are
statistically significant
and likely suggests that ecs help
improve
each one of these things that i just
read off which is great
now that we know what ecs is a little
bit about and we know what some of the
topics are within it and we know what
some of the results are from
using this particular curriculum let's
talk about some of the other things that
went on
in parallel with the curriculum
implementation itself
so one of them is pd so pd focused in
particular on modeling engaging pedagogy
so for example computer science that was
quote taught through role playing
jigsaw activities pair and small group
collaboration
structured tinkering multiple solutions
utilizing manipulatives
simulations english language learner
modifications
journal reflections and
interdisciplinary connections
rather than providing the answers the
instructors facilitated participant
discussions of problems
and drew from the rich and varied
expertise in the classroom end quote
that's from page 24. i really like their
approach to pd by having a variety of
things going on in it this is what we
also model at boot up pd which is where
i work the nonprofit
and we too are all about facilitating in
terms of if a teacher has a question we
usually respond with
several more questions to kind of help
guide them towards the understanding
or pairing them with other experts in
the room who may have
solved similar problems or at least be
able to assist with solving it and this
gets it so that teachers are
starting to think through okay what do i
need to know to be able to facilitate
this in a classroom setting
rather than relying on somebody else
that's an outsider to provide
expertise so another thing that they
really focus on in pd which is something
that i also recommend
is developing a community in practice
that included
both novice and veteran k-12 educators
and one of the things that they also
included actually was
cs educators from the university level
so people who taught like
undergraduate or graduate computer
science courses now if you are
interested in actually kind of
developing a community of practice i do
recommend either checking out
csta computer science teachers
association
or check out cs for all teachers
which is different than cs for all so
i'll include a link to both csta
and cs for all teachers in the show
notes
which by the way cs for all teachers is
basically a discussion forum
where you can go into different subforms
based on different categories such as
like elementary computer science or high
school computer science
or even a specific curriculum and then
you can kind of share and discuss in
there
another important aspect about this
curriculum is they had ongoing follow-up
sessions
so rather than just saying okay we're
going to spend a week learning this
thing and then
you're certified as knowing everything
you need to know for life
instead they would follow up with more
professional development offerings
throughout the school year
this is the approach that we also use at
boot up pd
in that a typical district that works
with us will see them over the course of
two years
about four pd's each year so like one
per quarter
and the reason why we particularly like
it is because we're able to introduce an
idea
teachers are then able to go and apply
it into the classroom
over the course of a month or two and
then when we come back we kind of unpack
and dive deeper
based off of their experiences that they
had in the classroom so we're constantly
introducing new ideas while also giving
time to implement the ideas into the
classroom in case people have questions
okay now at the policy level the author
indicates that
policy was multi-tiered so the state
released a call for new college
preparation courses
so the team collaborated to get to the
release of
exploring computer science as a cte
course now at the district level they
had to get district approval
to include this new course into their
classes
now here's a quote from page 25 that
gets at the importance of having
district administrators on a team to
assist with
this quote without this insider status
maneuvering within this complex system
would be difficult given the tight
resources and multiple demands of school
districts
end quote so if you are a researcher
who's trying to get something
implemented
highly recommend having district
administrators who can help guide you
through this process
and basically be an insider for you if
you are a teacher who is trying to get
some implementation it helps to have
friends in higher up positions
that can also help with this as well and
on that note teachers themselves
also helped with implementation at the
school level because they're able to
make connections
and get other teachers to sign up to
participate in
this particular curriculum offering so
here are the final takeaways
from the paper itself
so one this entire process was very
collaborative so there were researchers
involved there were curriculum
developers involved there were
administrators and policy makers there
were teachers etc
this was a large undertaking and two
weeks from now i'm going to unpack
another paper by joanna good
that is specifically going to talk about
what individual teachers can do to help
diversify their programs
rather than focusing on this big picture
stuff that i'm talking about in this
particular episode
another key takeaway is that the
curriculum resources that they developed
are adaptable elsewhere so at the time
of the writing there were limited
opportunities
for computer science curriculum however
we now have the opposite problem that we
have a ton
of options out there one of the things
that i really like about
a key takeaway that was highlighted is
that the resources could be adapted to
fit different
populations different demographics
different locations etc
this is very important when trying to
create some kind of a curriculum that
can be implemented anywhere
so as an example all the curriculum
resources that i create for boot up
have google docs and slide decks and
other things that teachers can make
copies of and then they can modify
to include their own content in addition
to the stuff that i have created for
them
another key takeaway was that
researchers and curriculum developers
need to work with teachers
but here's a quote from page 26 quote
working with teachers is critical
because the implementation of reforming
computer science education ultimately
takes place in the classroom setting
end quote now i've ranted about this
enough on other episodes
the short summary is basically that
there are a lot of well-intentioned
software development companies who are
creating the next greatest thing that
they think
computer science educators need but they
actually don't have any experience
teaching in the classroom so the
resources that they create
are not super helpful for students or
for teachers
but they do look nice and the final key
takeaway from this is that success was
measured based on broadening
participation
not on signing up to be a cs major so
this is
really important and is something that
is reiterated by other guests that have
been on the show and
some of the stuff that i have mentioned
in other episodes as well
not everybody who goes into computer
science education in the k-12 setting
needs to come out or even should come
out
with the desire to join computer science
professionally
you could just do it for fun like some
of the earlier unpacking scholarship
episodes i talk about mod culture and
the implications in the k-12 setting
mod culturally is something that you can
do for fun you don't have to get a
job doing it although many people do for
example i mentioned in other episodes
that i
proposed to my wife by modifying the
video game minecraft
that's just one example of a way that
you could use computer science without
having to do it for a vocation
okay so in each unpacking scholarship
episode i like to kind of
share some of my lingering questions or
thoughts so one of my questions is
if you can't afford professional
development for
educators in your district how could you
use model professional developments like
ecs
or what i've talked about at boot up in
other episodes in this episode
to provide pd to your own district the
reason why i bring this up is because i
did this
in the former district that i was in so
it was a k-8 district
and i provided the pd for it because the
district
couldn't bring in outside professional
development what i recommend
if you are in a similar position and
have this question is to
listen to the episode with clark merkley
which provides some suggestions
on things you can do to get grant
support and funds
for professional development but two
also consider
what your expertises are and the people
that you know and in the communities
that you will hopefully
join like cs brawl teachers and csta
and then see what kind of professional
development you can piecemeal
for your district now i will give the
caveat that this is a much harder
approach
it's going to require a lot more time on
your end
but it is cheaper than hiring outside
organizations
okay so another question that i have is
how my individual
teachers start grassroots cs
implementation rather than relying on
top-down implementation
like was discussed in this particular
paper
so the episode two weeks from now will
actually kind of provide some
suggestions
for what you can do as an individual
educator in your classroom to diversify
your class and your program so just
giving you a little tease
for the episode for two weeks from now
so now that i've kind of unpacked the
multi-faceted nature of what goes into
computer science implementation what i
would encourage you to do is think about
what expertise and roles you might be
able to
contribute to projects like this and how
you might be able to create a team
with other people who have different
connections and expertise
and understandings that could assist
with creating a project like this for
your district
your community or your state now the
reason why i'm bringing this up is
because
a lot of grant funding is being diverted
and rerouted towards other initiatives
that have come up as a result of covid
and people having to work from home so
for example better internet
access to devices things like that so
money that may have gone towards
professional development
is now being funneled into other areas
and so we
need to kind of start a grassroots
movement in some communities
by working together with researchers and
organizations and curriculum developers
to continue computer science education
and to ensure that it doesn't take a
back burner so we can focus on
reading writing arithmetic and i could
honestly rant for a very long time
about why only focusing on those three
areas
is problematic but maybe i'll save that
for another unpacking scholarship
episode
anyways so two weeks from now is going
to be another unpacking scholarship
episode where i'll kind of talk about
what you can do as an
individual educator in your program but
next week is going to be another
interview
and if you'd be so kind please consider
sharing the podcast
with anyone else who might be interested
in computer science education
for example if you do want to develop a
team of people who can
work together to kind of solve this
problem of lack of support for computer
science in your community
perhaps you can share this episode with
them thank you so much for listening
hope you're all staying safe and are
having a wonderful week i will talk to
you
next week

Article

Goode, J. (2010). Connecting K-16 curriculum & policy: Making computer science engaging, accessible, and hospitable for underrepresented students. SIGCSE’10 - Proceedings of the 41st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 22–26.

Abstract

“In this paper, a K-16 computer science reform effort is described as an effort that depends on curriculum development, professional development, and collaborative policy strategies.”

Author Keywords

Gender & ethnicity, wider access, pedagogy, CS reform, CS policy, curriculum

My One Sentence Summary

This paper unpacks the development process behind the Exploring Computer Science curriculum, as well as the policy work that occurred in parallel with the curriculum development.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

If you can't afford PD for other educators in your district, how could you use model PDs like ECS or what I've talked about in other episodes to provide PD to your own district?
How might individual teachers start grassroots CS implementation rather than relying on top down implementation?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- Advice for School Administrators Interested in CSforALL with Clark Merkley
  - In this interview with Clark Merkley, we discuss what Clark has learned over the years working with administrators across the nation who are interested in implementing CS education in their district.
- Computer Game Mods, Modders, Modding, and the Mod Scene
  - In this episode I unpack Scacchi’s (2010) publication titled “Computer game mods, modders, modding, and the mod scene,” which examines modding practices within the mod scene, and discusses the social and corporate pressures that influence this culture.
- Contemporary Venues of Curriculum Inquiry
  - In this episode I unpack an excerpt from Schubert’s (2008) publication titled “Curriculum inquiry,” which describes different venues or types of curriculum that educators and education researchers should consider.
- Educational Aims, Objectives, and Other Aspirations
  - In this episode I unpack Eisner’s (2002) publication titled “Educational aims, objectives, and other aspirations,” which problematizes behavioral education objectives and discuss two alternative approaches.
- Exploring Computer Science with Joanna Goode
  - In this interview with Joanna Goode, we discuss corporate influence through neoliberal practices in CS education, reflecting on engaging all students in CS programs, considerations around equity and inclusion in CS education, layers of curriculum design and implementation, discussing and problematizing integration, influences of policy and administrative support (or the lack of) on CS education, Joanna’s experience with developing Exploring Computer Science, and much more.
- How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
  - In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
- Images of Curriculum
  - In this episode I unpack an excerpt from Schubert’s (1986) book titled “Curriculum: Perspective, paradigm, and possibility,” which describes different examples, intents, and criticisms of “images” or “characterizations” of curriculum.
- Increasing Diversity in K-12 Computer Science: Strategies from the Field
  - In this episode I unpack Goode’s (2008) publication titled “Increasing diversity in K-12 computer science: Strategies from the field,”which provides suggestions for educators who are interested in increasing the diversity of their CS classes or programs.
- Learning through Game Modding
  - In this episode I unpack El-Nasr and Smith’s (2006) publication titled “Learning through game modding,” which describes two case studies on modifying video games to learn software development and design, as well as programming, artistic, and video game concepts.
- The Centrality of Curriculum and the Function of Standards: The Curriculum is a Mind-altering Device
  - In this episode I unpack Eisner’s (2002) publication titled “The centrality of curriculum and the function of standards: The curriculum is a mind-altering device,” which problematizes curricula and standards by discussing how both can deprofessionalize the field of education.
- Understanding Women Modders Using the Serious Leisure Perspective
  - In this episode I unpack Trancred et al.’s (2020) publication titled “Understanding women modders using the serious leisure perspective,” which discusses a survey that investigated motivations for participating in modding practices among women.
- When the Game is Not Enough: Motivations and Practices Among Computer Game Modding Culture
  - In this episode I unpack Sotamaa's (2010) publication titled “When the game is not enough: Motivations and practices among computer game modding culture,” which is a case study that explores the attitudes, motivations, and practices of 29 people who create mods for the game Operation Flashpoint.
- More episodes related to culturally-relevant pedagogy/curricula
- More episodes related to curriculum
- More episodes related to equity
- More episodes related to implementation
- All other episodes
Learn more about the Exploring Computer Science curriculum
Learn more about the CSTA Equity Fellowship
Learn more about the CS content I’ve developed
Some communities of practice you can engage in: