Engaging Teachers and Neurodiverse Middle School Students in Tangible and Creative Computational Thinking Activities

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Students with disabilities, particularly those with autism, experience unequal outcomes in STEM education and employment. Despite frequently reported strengths and interests in STEM disciplines, individuals with autism often do not receive the support—those related to communication, transitions, and flexibility—needed to succeed. In working with teachers, parents, and employers, this project will create pathways to position students with autism spectrum disorder for success in school and also the larger community. Researchers from Arizona State University and the Neurodiversity Educational Research Center (NERC) and practitioners at Science Prep Academy (SPA) and Temple Grandin School will collaborate on the development of learning activities and workshops that engage middle-school aged children, community members, and employers in activities that integrate music, technology, and computational thinking. For the employers and community members, participation can lead to increased respect for neurodiverse children and job applicants and changes in STEM field’s hiring practices and workplace accommodations. Teachers engaged in the process of co-designing the learning experience and additional teachers engaged in workshops will be able to learn new approaches for supporting learning. Finally, this project aims to build pathways of support and facilitation for neurodiverse individuals that increase employment potential of students with autism in a more inclusive economy, where neurodiversity is a baseline rather than an exception. The project is based on embodied learning and cooperative learning approaches that inform the team’s development of Telematic Embodied Learning (TEL) activities: activities that engage participants in using movement and their bodies to understand concepts, and can be conducted in hybrid or remote teaching situations when students and teachers are in different locations. The project’s iterative co-design process and practitioner model are designed to provide data on the kinds of support and training teachers would need to equip neurodiverse students with computer science concepts. The project’s researchers will use a convergent mixed methods design to investigate the experiences of approximately 25 middle-school-aged children, 24 teachers, 15 parents, and 10 future employers through a combination of surveys, observations, interviews, and focus groups. The research aims to investigate how Telematic Embodied Learning approaches enriched with computational media foster computational thinking; how teachers who participate in the TEL workshops modify and diversify their teaching practices; how TEL approaches can be adapted in other schools; and how TEL approaches augment the learning of CT in computer science with developing socio-emotional skills impact future employment for neurodiverse children with autism. This project is funded through the CS for All: Research and RPPs program.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.