BPC-DP: DEPICT - Engaging a Diverse Student Population in Computational Thinking through Creative Writing and Performances

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Often youth have a difficult time connecting the work of computer science with helping society, a goal that many report as very important for their career choices. This project aims to broaden the appeal of computing to students who may not consider themselves as belonging in a technical field by infusing computer science concepts into language and arts-dominant high school courses. By highlighting the ways in which learning computing is like learning a new language or translating between technical and more informal speech, the project team will align the skill sets needed to those of the bilingual population of two southern New Mexico high schools. The project will build a sequence of opportunities to engage students in computing experiences both in and out of school, with a focus on recruiting women and Hispanic students. At the same time, the project will provide professional development opportunities for teachers to better understand how to leverage computing concepts and skills to teach creative subjects. DEPICT (Discover Computational Thinking through Creative Writing) investigates a novel intervention to broaden participation to computing of women and Hispanic high school students. The novelty of DEPICT lies in two aspects. First, DEPICT builds on an area that has not been deeply exploited in the past, i.e., the combination of creative writing and production of movies/plays. The appeal of this area comes from its popularity among students, especially women and Hispanic, and the high level of self-efficacy demonstrated by students in the corresponding courses. The second novelty comes from the use of this creative domain as a target for the infusion of CT - i.e., we use CT as a methodology to teach the creative domain, contending that relevant concepts of CT are already present in the domain, and they simply need to be extrapolated. This allows us to progressively build CT competency through the learning of the creative domain, leveraging the students' self-efficacy in the creative domain to build self-efficacy in CT. DEPICT creates a pipeline to prepare students for the AP CS Principles test and offers them a "preparation edge" over other students entering more formal CS courses. High school teachers are part of DEPICT and they will be provided with professional development and in-class help to gain ownership of the new course materials - enabling a transformative impact that will sustain and grow over time. DEPICT operates in two diverse high schools (a traditional rural school and a modern urban school) in southern New Mexico.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.