Three Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone–serving districts formed a researcher–practitioner partnership with the Wyoming Department of Education, the American Institutes for Research®, and BootUp Professional Development to advance the computer science (CS) education of their elementary students in ways that strengthen their Indigenous identities and knowledges. In this paper, we share experiences from 2019 to 2022 with our curriculum development, professional development (PD), and classroom implementation. The researcher–practitioner partnership developed student and teacher materials to support elementary CS lessons aligned to Wyoming’s CS standards and “Indian Education for All” social studies standards. Indigenous community members served as experts to codesign culturally relevant resources. Teachers explored the curriculum resources during three 4-hour virtual and in-person PD sessions. The sessions were designed to position the teachers as designers of CS projects they eventually implemented in their classrooms. Projects completed by students included simulated interviews with Indigenous heroes and animations of students introducing themselves in their Native languages. Teachers described several positive effects of the Scratch lessons on students, including high engagement, increased confidence, and successful application of several CS concepts. The teachers also provided enthusiastic positive reviews of the ways the CS lessons allowed students to explore their Indigenous identities while preparing to productively use technology in their futures. The Wind River Elementary CS Collaborative is one model for how a researcher–practitioner partnership can utilize diverse forms of expertise, ways of knowing, and Indigenous language to engage in curriculum design, PD, and classroom implementation that supports culturally sustaining CS pedagogies in Indigenous communities.
Read MoreEducators in the USA and elsewhere are struggling right now. With relatively low pay for the skills needed to teach computer science, an ever-increasing list of responsibilities and risks placed on educators, and a work week that stretches beyond 40 hours, it’s no wonder that so many computing educators are burned out. In my interviews with more than 50 computer science educators and scholars on the #CSK8 Podcast, I frequently ask guests how they attempt to prevent burnout. This article uses Asian Efficiency’s TEA framework (helloworld.cc/TEA) to discuss how guests are intentional with their time, energy, and attention.
Read MoreAs popular music practices continue to evolve and expand in parallel with technological and social changes, popular music educators can engage in reflective practices that problematize the current curricular offerings and music-making experiences in relation to the ways people engage with music outside of school. My own particular interest when looking at popular music-making practices is to explore music-making and learning that blurs or disrupts disciplinary boundaries and silos. This chapter briefly introduces some of the ways people blur the disciplinary boundaries between popular music and computer science, which raises questions about the places and purposes of such engagement.
Read MoreMany scholars have produced powerful equity-centered curricular and pedagogical approaches relevant to CS educators. However, well-intentioned educators and curriculum providers who intend to use culturally relevant approaches may mistakenly apply these frameworks and unintentionally enact what we refer to as “culturally specific” approaches to education. Such approaches fail to account for students’ multifaceted experiences of culture and identity in the design of their learning experiences, ignoring their specific needs, goals, and desires for their learning. Rather than delivering content for groups of culturally specific identities, this position paper describes a “cartographical” curricular and pedagogical approach informed by a rhizomatic philosophy of learning that fosters dialogue among students as individuals with unique identities, interests, and needs that teachers and students explore together through computer science education. We position rhizomatic pedagogy as an additional lens to apply alongside other frameworks for fostering equity—one that establishes a set of strategies for engaging students in dialogue around their learning experiences, empowering learners to participate in the co-construction of their educational spaces, and building curricula that express hyper-local, deeply situated, student-centered teaching and learning practices.
Read MoreInterest in coding education has exploded in the past five years, especially in elementary and early secondary education. Teachers who are largely new to coding are expected to guide entire student bodies through the fundamentals of coding and computational thinking. But little is known about which coding and computational thinking (CT) concepts teachers feel most comfortable with and which concepts they struggle with. This study describes 127 elementary coding teachers’ changes in their beliefs about teaching coding and CT as they participated in year-long continuous professional development. Novice elementary coding teachers demonstrated most growth in their self-efficacy for teaching sequences, algorithms and loops. They were less secure in their knowledge of conditionals, variables, and functions. For computational thinking, teachers were most confident in their ability to identify patterns, think algorithmically, understand logic, and evaluate outcomes, showing less growth with decomposition and abstraction.
Read MoreThis short chapter provides an example of how to code a hip version of Hot Cross Buns using Sonic Pi.
Read MoreSince the introduction of music education within public schools, curricular offerings have not developed in parallel with the myriad of practices popular musicians engage with outside school contexts. In other academic disciplines such as computer science, curricula and practices are iterative in nature and are responsive to the ever-changing practices that people engage with outside educational contexts. Although popular musicians are using computer science practices for music-related purposes, such practices are seldom discussed within music education scholarship. This article begins with an exploration of such intersections by describing hardware practices popular musicians use to modify, design or build electronic devices for music-related purposes. The following section introduces coding practices that people use to create and modify music software, as well as to make music with code. The article concludes by unpacking potential implications and considerations for educators interested in the intersections of popular musicianship and computer science practices.
Read MoreThis study examined discussion forum posts within a website dedicated to a medium and genre of music (chiptunes) with potential for music-centered making, a phrase I use to describe maker culture practices that revolve around music-related purposes. Three research questions guided this study: (1) What chiptune-related practices did members of chipmusic.org discuss between December 30th, 2009 and November 13th, 2017? (2) What do chipmusic.org discussion forum posts reveal about the multidisciplinary aspects of chiptunes? (3) What import might music-centered making evident within chipmusic.org discussion forum posts hold for music education? To address these research questions, I engaged in corpus-assisted discourse analysis tools and techniques to reveal and analyze patterns of discourse within 245,098 discussion forum posts within chipmusic.org. The analysis cycle consisted of (a) using corpus analysis techniques to reveal patterns of discourse across and within data consisting of 10,892,645 words, and (b) using discourse analysis techniques for a close reading of revealed patterns.
Findings revealed seven interconnected themes of chiptune-related practices: (a) composition practices, (b) performance practices, (c) maker practices, (d) coding practices, (e) entrepreneurial practices, (f), visual art practices, and (g) community practices. Members of chipmusic.org primarily discussed composing and performing chiptunes on a variety of instruments, as well as through retro computer and video game hardware. Members also discussed modifying and creating hardware and software for a multitude of electronic devices. Some members engaged in entrepreneurial practices to promote, sell, buy, and trade with other members. Throughout each of the revealed themes, members engaged in visual art practices, as well as community practices such as collective learning, collaborating, constructive criticism, competitive events, and collective efficacy.
Findings suggest the revealed themes incorporated practices from a multitude of academic disciplines or fields of study for music-related purposes. However, I argue that many of the music-related practices people discussed within chipmusic.org are not apparent within music education discourse, curricula, or standards. I call for an expansion of music education discourse and practices to include additional ways of being musical through practices that might borrow from multiple academic disciplines or fields of study for music-related purposes.
Read MoreCoding environments and curricula with puzzles and challenges often utilize engaging platforms which guide young coders to learn fundamental coding concepts and practices. These environments and curricula often progress from simple through complex algorithmic sequences with clearly defined solutions. This approach not only provides useful resources for young coders new to coding, but for adults new to teaching, facilitating, or evaluating coding classes. Articles continues . . .
Read More