Increasing Urban Youth Participation in Computing through Mentorship and Coding Resources

让代表性不足和服务不足的学生参与计算机科学是未来劳动力发展的重要目标。这个项目的主要目标是在新泽西州的纽瓦克市创建一个由年轻程序员（主要是中学生）、导师和教师组成的可持续生态系统。为了实现这样一个生态系统，该项目将：1）为代表性不足和服务不足的中学生提供计算教育; 2）让父母参与并教育他们关于计算思维和计算对孩子的教育，职业生涯和未来生活的重要性; 3）发展和维护编程中的导师-学员关系; 4）教实践（和潜在的未来）教师介绍编程概念，以及如何传递它们;和5）充分参与教师在研究解决问题的周期。为了完成这些任务，该项目每学期将在参与的中学校园为中学生举办为期10周的星期六课程。在该项目开始之前，该项目将在当地一所中学举行家长之夜，向家长介绍该项目、计算以及为什么他们的孩子应该参加该项目。每个星期六将包括一个7小时的一天，分为上午会议（建立一个网站与HTML和CSS）和下午会议（学习文本和块编程语言）。每隔一周，来自社区的嘉宾演讲者将简要介绍她/他的职业生涯，以及它是如何通过计算推进。每个班级将有至少一名来自中学的教师和至少两名大学生，他们将共同教授班级并相互学习。一旦学生完成了为期10周的课程，该项目将邀请他们加入埃塞克斯县城市联盟的编码之家，这是纽瓦克市中心的一个指定空间，供当地K-8和大学生继续他们的编码活动。在这里，学生可以互相学习，项目工作，并发展导师/学员关系。这个研究和开发项目有可能告知其他社区将计算教育融入他们的学校，让家长参与，为实践教师提供学习计算主题的机会，并为大学生提供实践教学经验（他们也可能有兴趣成为K-8教师）。该项目由学生和教师的信息技术经验和所有程序的计算机科学支持。这项研究将为父母的动机/教育提供新的见解，如何有效地培训实践教师的计算思维，如何促进大学生合作教师进入教学行业（如果他们愿意），以及如何创建一个生态系统，让学生通过社区编码空间参与编程。该项目将解决以下研究问题：我们社区的父母（或监护人）的具体需求是什么，该项目如何帮助他们帮助他们的孩子取得成功？该项目如何在一个非侵入性的安全环境中培训实习（和潜在的未来）教师？中学教师如何在与项目团队的公平研究实践伙伴关系的背景下制定针对计算的教学内容知识？该项目如何提供和准备可访问的，相关的，有效的近同行导师和角色模型谁是知识渊博的计算新泽西州中学生？数据将主要包括：调查问卷的回复;家长之夜活动、教师访谈和教师观察的书面记录;纽瓦克儿童代码参与中学的出勤记录;城市联盟的访客日志（家长之夜活动和编码之家参与）; Gidget网站的服务器日志以及纽瓦克儿童代码学生Scratch和code.org项目的在线存储库。该项目将使用前后分析和定性数据编码来描述干预措施的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Engaging underrepresented and underserved students in computer science is an important goal for the development of the future workforce. The primary goal of this project is to create a sustainable ecosystem of young programmers (primarily middle school students), mentors, and teachers in the city of Newark, NJ. To achieve such an ecosystem, the project will: 1) Provide computing education to underrepresented and underserved middle school students; 2) Involve parents in and educate them about the importance of computational thinking and computing for their children's education, career, and future life; 3) Develop and maintain mentor-mentee relationships in coding; 4) Teach practicing (and potential future) teachers introductory programming concepts and how to pass them on; and 5) Fully involve teachers in the research problem-solving cycle. To accomplish these tasks, the project will run 10-week Saturday programs for middle school students each semester at participating middle school campuses. Before the start of the program, the project will have a parents' night at a local middle school to educate parents about the program, computing, and why their children should participate in the program. Each Saturday will consist of a 7-hour day, split into a morning session (building a website with HTML and CSS) and an afternoon session (learning text and block programming languages). Every other week, a guest speaker from the community will give a brief presentation of her/his career and how it was advanced by computing. Each class will have a minimum of one teacher from the middle school and a minimum of two university students who will co-teach the class and learn from each other. Once the students have finished their 10-week program, the project will invite them to join the Coding House of the Urban League of Essex County, a designated space in central Newark for local K-8 and university students to continue with their coding activities. Here, the students can learn from each other, work on projects, and develop mentor/mentee relationships. This research and development project has the potential to inform other communities about integrating computing education into their schools, involving parents, providing opportunities for practicing teachers to learn about computing topics, and giving university students practical teaching experience (who may also become interested in becoming alternate path K-8 teachers themselves). This project is supported by the Information Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers and Computer Science for All programs. This research will contribute new insights into parental motivation/education, how to effectively train practicing teachers in computational thinking, how to facilitate the entry of university student co-teachers into the teaching profession (if they wish), and how to create an ecosystem to keep students engaged with programming through a community coding space. The project will address the following research questions: What are the specific needs of our community's parents (or guardians), and how can the project assist them to help their children succeed? How can the project train practicing (and potential future) teachers in a non-invasive, safe environment? How can middle school teachers formulate pedagogical content knowledge targeted towards computing in the context of an equitable Research-Practice Partnership with the project team? How can the project provide and prepare accessible, relatable, and effective near-peer mentors and role-models who are knowledgably in computing to NJ middle school students? Data will primarily consist of: responses from questionnaires; written notes from Parents' Night events, teacher interviews, and teacher observations; attendance records from Newark Kids Code's participating middle schools; visitor logs from the Urban League (Parents' Night events and Coding House participation); server logs from Gidget website and online repositories of Newark Kids Code Student Scratch and code.org projects. The project will use pre-post analysis and coding of qualitative data to describe the impacts of the interventions.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.