CER: MyCS - Middle Years Computer Science

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Harvey Mudd College will adapt exemplary educational resources to create MyCS, a CS curriculum whose goal is to develop positive computational identities among middle-school students. A positive computational identity subsumes self-efficacy, enjoyment, and future engagement with creating computation. The project's approach existing pedagogical resources into three distinct MyCS variations. Inspired by UCLA's high-school course, Exploring Computer Science (ECS), the first variation broadly explores computational concepts and skills. The second variation is a depth-based development of programming skills through Scratch and web technologies, adapting several successful middle- and high-school courses. The third variation is a hybrid that punctuates skill-building in Scratch and web programming with curricular breaks contextualizing those skills. The project investigates how teachers and students respond to these different MyCS realizations. The project team will compare results within and among the primary partnering school district, Pomona Unified in Pomona, CA, along with our two secondary partnering districts, Lihue, HI and San Bernardino, CA. In order to maximize the number of students reached, the project focuses on middle-school teacher development through summer workshops and academic-year support.Computation has become a crucial component of every modern endeavor. It has not, however, become a component of every modern student's identity. That is, the number of students who feel that "computation is something that people like me create" lags significantly behind the demand for computational creativity, both now and in the foreseeable future. Because of their pivotal role in early identity-formation, the middle-school years provide a window of opportunity to build a positive computational identity and to prime the pump for the ambitious CS10k project. To that end, this project develops, deploys, and assesses several variations of a middle-years computer-science curriculum, MyCS. The project team will build MyCS communities within targeted schools in three districts, each with a large majority of students from a distinct group underrepresented in STEM fields. Two key benefits will result. First, those communities will continue to develop computationally confident students even after the project concludes. Second, assessments will cull less effective variations and facets of MyCS, leaving a ready-to-go curriculum that will succeed in further regional deployment and will be prepared for larger-scale vetting, national trials, and broader adaptations.