Collaborative Proposal: BPC-DP: Incorporating Cultural Tools for Math and Computing Concepts into the Boys and Girls Clubs of America

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Texas A&M University, in collaboration with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Auburn University, proposes to use culturally responsive approaches to attract and retain high school students to computer science. They will expand two frameworks that have been developed for math education into computing education. The AADMLSS City Stroll (African American Distributed Multiple Learning Styles System) and CSDT (Culturally Situated Design Tools) are interactive environments that use culturally relevant cues to teach math. AADMLSS City Stroll system is a game-like environment that includes instruction, practice, and assessment. CSDTs are web-based applets, based on ethnomathematics, that is, the mathematical knowledge embedded in cultural designs such as cornrow hairstyles, Native American beadwork, Latino percussion rhythms, etc. The essential idea of CSDTs is one of translating knowledge from informal to formal systems. The goals of the proposed project are: (1) to assist the efforts to extend the work on these math educational tools to include computing; (2) to develop a institutional "pipeline" such that K-12 students successfully participating in these activities can maximize their odds of entering undergraduate programs in computing; and (3) extend the current work with CSDTs and AADMLSS, from the local or regional scale to the national scale, by incorporating it into the Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BGCA).