Justice-Focused Secondary CS Teacher Education

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The University of Washington will lead a researcher-practitioner partnership that leverages the team’s joint expertise in computer science (CS) education research, justice-focused secondary teacher education, high school CS teaching, RPP leadership, academic program administration, and community organizing to design, launch, and sustain a new justice-focused secondary CS teacher education program to serve the Puget Sound region’s high schools. All youth need to understand both the amazing power of computing, but also its potential for harm in their lives. They also deserve the education to harness this power, to amplify their voices and bend computing toward justice. To achieve this vision, this project will design, launch, and evaluate a sustainable, pre-service, justice-focused secondary CS endorsement program.University of Washington proposes to design, launch, and sustain a new justice-focused secondary CS teacher education program to serve the region’s high schools. The RPP has the shared goal of preparing secondary CS teachers who can empower all youth to bend computing toward justice. This goal is achieved through deeper engagement in two forms. First, teachers must have the content knowledge (CK) that while computing can amplify social change, it can also amplify injustice. Teachers must see that computing can rely on biased data; that algorithms can make unjust assumptions about identity; that people in power are increasingly delegating to algorithms decisions such as who is policed and how long someone goes to prison. Second, teachers must have the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that how one teaches CS determines which students learn and what students choose to do with their CS knowledge. By reconceptualizing CS CK and PCK in terms of justice, CS education has the power to broaden participation in CS, but also broaden civic discourse on the role of computing in society. The project team will collaboratively write with teachers a new justice-focused CS teacher education book that is free, online, and accessible, reframing CS content knowledge in the CSTA standards in justice terms. With this book, they will co-design with teachers four new CS teacher education courses on CS teaching methods, CS assessment, CS justice and equity, and a CS teaching field experience. Finally, they plan to pilot and launch the program, attracting both pre-service and in-service teachers, and sustaining their roles as CS teachers through a vibrant community of justice-focused CS educators.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.