Collaborative Research: Developing a Systemic, Scalable Model to Broaden Participation in Middle School Computer Science

African-American, Latinx and students from low socio-economic households too often do not have opportunities to learn computer science and computational thinking (CS/CT), concepts that are crucial for participation in the 21st century workforce and citizenry. These limited opportunities are often the result of systemic practices in schools that impact a wide range of connected parts of the school including leadership, access to CS/CT resources for students and teachers, CS/CT learning opportunities for students and teachers, and prior experiences and encouragement to participate in CS/CT. This project will build on a long-standing Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) between NC State University's Friday Institute for Educational Innovation and a middle school in Wake County Public School System to deepen the RPP to further develop conceptual, theoretical, and applied frameworks for CS/CT. Additionally, the project will scale this RPP work to another newly-forming CS/CT focused magnet through a developing partnership with UNC Charlotte and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to replicate the RPP for a new 'Computer science and coding' magnet program. Since mathematics and science classes are taken by all middle school students, the project will use this academic context as the focus of the project's work. This proposal specifically targets middle schools in both Charlotte and Raleigh with relatively high African-American and Latinx populations, and free and reduced lunch percentages, to scale the existing RPP. The project goals are to provide equitable access to underrepresented students in computing; to prepare middle school students for computing curriculum in high school; to develop and test effective CS/CT modules that integrate in existing math and science curriculum; to investigate CS/CT-focused systemic barriers and supports; and to propagate RPP findings to other schools and districts.

The STEM ecosystems framework is an emerging model for framing the barriers and support structures students have in STEM learning, including CS/CT that recognizes that effective CS/CT learning is the product of the entire connected academic enterprise--with elements including school leadership, teacher and student CS/CT resources, and available CS/CT learning opportunities, along with prior experiences, encouragement, and training in CS/CT. The project will adapt the STEM ecosystem model as a scalable, generalizable approach for systematic, school-wide integration of CS/CT into required math and science courses. Within the context of two magnet middle schools seeking to integrate CS/CT across their curricula, this work will be guided by the following overarching research questions: 1. What are the barriers to developing a STEM ecosystem that supports CS/CT for every student through integration into middle school science and math courses? 2. What factors or interventions are needed to support the development of a CS/CT focused STEM ecosystem that supports everyone in a school? 3. What are the indicators of success for a CS/CT focused STEM ecosystem in a school? 4. How does the ecosystem prepare and engage all students, especially those from underrepresented student groups, for CS/CT work in high school? To address the first two research questions, data will include meeting notes for thematic analyses from RPP leadership teams, interviews with teachers and school leaders, observational and self-report survey data from teachers and school leadership. Additionally, professional development workshop data will be included to triangulate responses from interviews and surveys. To address the third research question, data will include student demographic data, participation in STEM activities, classroom observations, student engagement as measured by demographics exposed to CS/CT within and external to the curriculum, activity observations of engagement levels, self-report data of attitudes, learning and future interest in CS/CT, teacher observations of learning and engagement, activity/module ratings from students, teachers, observers, class artifacts (portfolios or projects), and End of Grades science and math performance. For Question 4, members of the project and RPP teams, with input from the Advisory Board will perform an annual review of NC high school CS course syllabi against emerging K12 CS standards. Lesson plans and artifacts of student work from Reedy Creek and Northside will be sampled and compared against current high school expectations for CS academic work.

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.