Integrating the Computer Science and Computational Thinking in Three Rural Eastern North Carolina School Districts

无论是高中毕业生还是高等教育毕业生，农村青年和城市青年都必须做好充分准备，以便在全球舞台上占据一席之地。很大一部分儿童在农村学区接受教育，这些学区的管理人员在招聘和留住高素质教师以及为教师提供适当的专业发展方面可能面临挑战。对这一项目的兴趣和动机来自农村学区本身，提高了他们对学生未来的利益，而不是强加给外部解决方案。该项目建立在现有的研究实践者伙伴关系(RPP)所产生的信任和关系的基础上，使中学生能够受益于将特定的计算机科学和计算技能整合到特定的课程(艺术和音乐)中。RPP将有以下目标：(A)准备并在学术上装备校长以领导该项目；(B)准备并在学术上装备教师，以便将计算机科学和计算思维纳入其学科内容；(C)使学生了解计算机科学和计算思维对其生活和职业的重要性；以及(D)使家长和照顾者参与验证和维持该项目。为了实现这些目标，(A)校长将以大约每月为基础，在项目的三年中参与持续的专业发展，其中包括教育、监督实践、同伴指导和对其以学习为中心的领导能力的年度360度反馈，(B)教师将类似地参与整个学年的持续专业发展(面对面和通过完成大规模开放的在线课程)和按需/持续的教学指导，此外，还将参加大约每月进行的持续的指导同行审查过程，(三)定期征询和检讨学生对电脑科学和计算思维的认识；及。(四)透过社区学习交流，让家长和照顾者能够与教师和学生分享他们如何不断运用电脑科学和计算思维。该项目将增进人们对如何在农村学区引入教育创新的了解。通过对校长、教师和家长的持续教育，项目团队将研究和开发一种方法，以增强学生对计算机科学和计算思维对他们的生活和职业的重要性的理解。该项目将探索最主要的研究问题：在非核心学科领域，如艺术和音乐，计算思维(CT)和计算机科学(CS)原理可以在多大程度上被教师和学生学习？该项目将评估学生对CT/CS的理解，与教师一起进行教学查房和调整方案，以评估教师的实施和有效性，评估校长以学习为中心的领导能力，并使用Q方法评估所有学生、教师、校长和家长/照顾者对该计划效果的看法。

Rural youth and urban youth must be comparably well prepared to take their places on the global stage at both the high school graduate and higher education graduate levels. A large proportion of children are educated in rural school districts, in which district administrators may be challenged both to recruit and retain high quality teachers and to provide appropriate professional development for teachers. The interest and motivation for this project emerged from the rural school districts themselves, enhancing their stake in the future of their students, as opposed to imposing outside solutions. The project builds on the trust and relationships engendered by an existing Research Practitioner Partnership (RPP) to enable middle school students to benefit from the integration of specific computer science and computational skills into specific classes (art and music). The RPP will have the following objectives: (a) prepare and academically equip principals to lead the project, (b) prepare and academically equip teachers to integrate computer science and computational thinking into their subject content, (c) engage students in understanding the salience of computer science and computational thinking to their lives and careers, and (d) engage parents and caregivers in validating and sustaining the project. In order to attain these objectives, (a) principals will engage, on an approximately monthly basis, with ongoing professional development throughout the three years of the project that includes education, supervised practice, peer mentoring, and yearly 360-degree feedback on their learning-centered leadership, (b) teachers will similarly engage with ongoing professional development (both face-to-face and through completion of a massively open online course) and on-demand/continual instructional coaching throughout the school year, in addition to participating in approximately monthly ongoing guided peer review processes, (c) students' understanding of computer science and computational thinking will be solicited and reviewed on a regular ongoing basis, and (d) parents and caregivers will be empowered through Community Learning Exchanges to share with teachers and students the ways in which they utilize computer science and computational thinking on an ongoing basis. The project will advance knowledge of how to introduce an educational innovation in rural school districts. Through a combination of ongoing education of principals, teachers, and parents, the project team will research and develop an approach to enhancing students' understanding of the salience of computer science and computational thinking to their lives and careers. The project will explore the overarching research question: To what extent can Computational Thinking (CT) and Computer Science (CS) principles be integrated by teachers and learned by students in non-core subject areas such as art and music? The project will assess students' understanding of CT/CS, conduct instructional rounds and tuning protocols with teachers to assess the teachers' implementation and effectiveness, assess principals' learning-centered leadership, and assess the perceptions of all students, teachers, principals, and parents/caregivers on the efficacy of the program using Q-methodology.