Computer Science for Appalachia: Expanding a Research-Practice Partnership to Integrate Computer Science and Literacy in Rural East Tennessee Schools

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This project supports teachers in teaching computer science (CS) in substantial and meaningful ways that build on the cultural and linguistic resources of students in East Tennessee. Building on an existing Research Practice Partnership, the team is developing a CS-Literacy curriculum with a focus on storytelling as a regionally relevant practice. In addition, the team is developing teacher professional development to support the curriculum. Design-based research guides the planning, development, and refinement of the curriculum and teacher professional development. Participating teachers will implement the curriculum in their classrooms to support students’ learning of CS and literacy. The teacher participants will form a CS for Appalachia Teacher Network in order to provide educators with a community to make sense of CS Literacy integration in their schools and classrooms. The findings will provide a model for how rural school districts create opportunities for teachers and students to engage meaningfully with CS in elementary grades.Three strands of research guide this project. The first strand focuses on teacher identity related to CS and the role of the teacher PD in shaping CS identify. Data will be collected via surveys, interviews, and video recordings of work sessions. Inductive/deductive coding of qualitative data will be used to provide rich descriptions of teacher identify related to CS and quantitative data will be summarized using descriptive statistics. The second strand of research focuses on student learning and engagement related to CS. Data will include student assessments, work products, and exit tickets that capture student engagement. Content analysis will be used to analyze student assessments and descriptive statistics as well as hierarchical linear modeling will be used to analyze student learning and engagement over time. The third strand focuses on the CS for Appalachia Teacher Network. Data will be collected via teacher surveys. Network analyses will be conducted as well as regression analyses to determine the characteristics and factors that contribute to greater or fewer connections among the network participants. The findings from this project will contribute to knowledge about the importance and utility of teacher networks for supporting improvement and reform efforts in CS education.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.