CATCHing CS Equity: Counselors, Administrators, and Teachers Collaborating Holistically for Systemic Change
Improving equity in Computer Science (CS) education across multiple dimensions—from enrollment to experience—benefits from the collaboration of classroom teachers and school leaders. This paper presents the findings of an innovative pilot community of practice (CoP) program that brought together cross-functional teams consisting of CS teachers, school counselors, and administrators. These teams met monthly for equity-focused workshops for one school year. In designing the program, we made extensive use of pre-existing materials from affordable, high-quality, research-based programs, demonstrating potential new benefits from sequencing and synthesizing existing programs. Evidence from surveys and interviews shows that the CoP promoted cross-functional learning and fostered collaboration between teachers and administrators that would not have happened without the catalyst of the project. Participants felt motivated by the program, and they generated ideas that turned into actionable projects to promote CS education equity in their various schools. Although this initiative was well received, there are areas which will be improved in subsequent years, including recruitment of schools, the structure of workshops, and evaluation. This pilot demonstrates the role that equity-centered CoPs composed of cross-functional teams can play in achieving systemic improvement of CS education equity.
Fri 22 MarDisplayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change
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13:45 25mTalk | Breaking Stereotypes and Feeding the STEM Pipeline Papers Naja Mack Morgan State University, Michael Adeleke Morgan State University, Elijah Ballou Morgan State University, Destiny Davis Morgan State University, Vincent Ingram Morgan State University, Katlyn Cox Morgan State University DOI | ||
14:10 25mTalk | CATCHing CS Equity: Counselors, Administrators, and Teachers Collaborating Holistically for Systemic Change Papers Manee Ngozi M Nnamani Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Salome Otero Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Teaching Systems Lab, Julie Smith Institute for Advancing Computing Education, Josh Sheldon Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Teaching Systems Lab, Deborah Boisvert CSforMA, Inc., Justin Reich Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Teaching Systems Lab DOI | ||
14:35 25mTalk | Multi-Pronged Pedagogical Approaches to Broaden Participation in Computing and Students’ Computing Persistence: A robustness analysis of the STARS Computing Corps’ impact on students’ intentions to persist in computingMSI Papers Lauren Wyatt Kent State University, Susan Fisk Kent State University, Clarissa Thompson Kent State University, Jamie Payton Temple University, Veronica Catete North Carolina State University, Audrey Rorrer UNC Charlotte, Tiffany Barnes North Carolina State University, Tom McKlin The Findings Group DOI |