Collaborative Research: Districts Helping Districts: Scaling Inclusive CT Pathways

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While all 50 U.S. states have adopted computer science education policies and standards, equity remains a persistently common challenge, with recent state-based studies reporting that many high school CS courses have enrollments no more diverse than they were 20 years ago. This partnership between Digital Promise Global and the Broward County School Board will address ongoing equity dilemmas by creating a professional learning community of school districts working to expand CS education for their students. This approach recognizes the crucial role of districts in designing and implementing inclusive computing pathways that coherently connect core computing competencies to the district’s adoption of state standards, available resources, and teacher professional development opportunities. The partnership builds on prior work and will engage eight school districts across the country that serve a variety of geographies, district sizes and student populations.This research-practitioner partnership (RPP) between Digital Promise Global and the Broward County School Board builds upon prior work that designed inclusive K-12 computing pathways. Key to this scale-up is the crucial role of school districts in addressing ongoing equity dilemmas and student achievement gaps in K-12 computing. The project team includes eight diverse school districts, who collectively explore practices for sustainably scaling the inclusive CT pathways model that partnering districts have individually designed and implemented over the past three years. The RPP will leverage the CT Pathways Toolkit designed from prior work and implement a teacher-led model of professional learning at scale for district administrators and instructors. The goal is for district leaders and teachers to develop skills and support systems to effectively implement cumulative, consistent, and competency-based learning opportunities in each grade, K-12.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.