CompSciConnect: A Multi-Year Summer Program to Broaden Participation in Computing (original) (raw)
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Broadening Participation in Computing
Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
In order to enhance participation in computer science for girls of color, this study examines the outcomes of a rigorous out-ofschool culturally relevant computer science intervention designed to engage underrepresented students in computing. Findings demonstrated that within-race gender differences exist in early interest in computing. Female students of color demonstrated significantly lower engagement and interest in computing, suggesting that being a member of a marginalized gender group plays a unique role and has a multiplying (negative) effect. Further, there were still significant gender differences in computing engagement after participation in one summer of the computer science intervention. Promising outcomes were revealed among a group of students who chose to enroll in the optional Advanced Placement CS A preparatory course; there were no gender differences in enrollment and completion of the course. In examining longitudinal outcomes, gender is a significant predictor of majoring in computer science in college, with male students much more likely to major in computer science than female students. These findings have important implications for addressing the gender gap in computing, including understanding how the intersection of race and gender presents unique barriers and challenges for women of color in computing, and that interventions to broaden participation in computing must address the unique experiences of women of color.
Broadening Participation in Computing: Examining Experiences of Girls of Color
2017
In order to enhance participation in computer science for girls of color, this study examines the outcomes of a rigorous out-of-school culturally relevant computer science intervention designed to engage underrepresented students in computing. Findings demonstrated that within-race gender differences exist in early interest in computing. Female students of color demonstrated significantly lower engagement and interest in computing, suggesting that being a member of a marginalized gender group plays a unique role and has a multiplying (negative) effect. Further, there were still significant gender differences in computing engagement after participation in one summer of the computer science intervention. Promising outcomes were revealed among a group of students who chose to enroll in the optional Advanced Placement CS A preparatory course; there were no gender differences in enrollment and completion of the course. In examining longitudinal outcomes, gender is a significant predictor...
Broadening participation in computing: K12-community-college-university-graduate pathways
2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference, 2008
The Commonwealth Alliance for Information Technology Education (CAITE) is designing and carrying out comprehensive programs that address under-representation in information technology (IT). CAITE focuses on women and minorities in groups that are underrepresented in most aspects of the Massachusetts innovation economy -economically, academically, and socially disadvantaged residents -and supports multiple points of entry into a broad spectrum of IT educational programs that provide multiple opportunities for learning and careers. Community colleges are the linchpin of the CAITE approach and strategy because of the central role they play in reaching out to underserved populations and in serving as a gateway to careers and further higher education. CAITE focuses on high-school-to-community-college-touniversity-to-graduate school pathways, but also reaches out into middle schools and to adult populations. We report on our progress in the three CAITE regions (Boston, southeastern Massachusetts, and western Massachusetts). We describe the challenges of carrying out a multiple region, nine-institution project, our outcomes, and the assessment data collected on the CAITE programs.
Promoting and Supporting Computer Science Among Middle School Girls of Color
Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2020
BRIGHT-CS (Building Student Retention through Individuated Guided coHort Training in Computer Science) is a research and development project that 1) creates a computer science learning ecosystem for middle school Black girls and other girls of color and 2) researches the merits of the ecosystem in supporting persistence in CS to determine best practices for broadening participation to other marginalized student groups in computing. First, this paper describes the BRIGHT-CS program, from the structural, instructional, and curricular designs of the program to partnerships with local and community organizations that make up the ecosystem. Second, it presents the initial findings of research on the program and its impacts on student outcomes such as social-emotional attributes associated with persistence. The study employs a multi-method descriptive design. Data includes student surveys, interviews (from students, parents, instructors, teachers, and mentors), artifact reviews, and student observations. The study includes 46 students across four middle schools in two states. At the start of the program, 37% of the students reported being very interested in CS, and 72% reported being very confident in learning CS. This is much higher than a national benchmark of students. After four months of program implementation, the qualitative results show a more nuanced picture of the value of a learning ecosystem. First, the ecosystem offers implicit messaging about equity and success. Second, the ecosystem offers explicit messaging about personal challenges and improvement. Third, following the implicit and explicit messaging to students, students went from naïve confidence to authentic self-efficacy in CS.
STARS computing corps: Enhancing engagement of women and underrepresented students in computing
2015 Research in Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 2015
In this paper, we examine the impact of participation in a national community for broadening participation in computing that engages college students in computing-related service projects. Results of our study show that there are many benefits for undergraduate computing students who engage in such projects, including academic, career, and personal benefits, with students that are underrepresented in computing benefitting more than others. Higher degrees of student and faculty engagement in service projects are associated with greater benefits. Results also suggest that that an annual conference centered on training and reflection on service learning projects can help to build a strong sense of community among students who otherwise would not have access to a similar group of peers. These findings establish empirical support for the STARS Computing Corps model of engagement, a flexible approach that can be applied across a variety of institutional types to positively impact underrepresented students in computing.
Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 2017
Drawing from our two-year ethnography, we juxtapose the experiences of two cohorts in one culturally responsive computing program, examining how the program fostered girls' emerging identities as technosocial change agents. In presenting this in-depth and up-close exploration, we simultaneously identify conditions that both facilitated and limited the program's potential. Ultimately, we illustrate how these findings can enhance anthropological research and practice in youth identity, culturally responsive pedagogies, and computing education. [Culturally responsive pedagogies; computing education; diversity; youth identity] The last decade has sparked increasing concern over the underrepresentation of girls in technology and computing. In 2014, women held only 26% of U.S. computing occupations, down from 37% in the mid-1990s (U.S. Department of Labor 2015). Importantly, this decline has occurred at the same time that women's participation in other sciences has increased (U.S. Department of Labor 2015). These trends are even more troubling when considering women of color. Black women hold 3% of these jobs, Latinas hold 1%, and the sample size for Native American women is too small for accurate reporting (U.S. Department of Labor 2015). While Asian women, as a whole, are not numerically underrepresented (holding 5% of jobs vs. 2.5% of population), these statistics mask differences among subgroups, some of which do remain underrepresented. In addition, even when numerically represented, Asian women continue to face nuanced biases and barriers related to intersections of race and gender (Ong 2011). Such trends result in at least two costly consequences. First, this lack of diversity inhibits innovation by ignoring the varied perspectives these women could bring to developing new technologies and future worlds. Second, a lack of access to these increasingly influential fields threatens to exacerbate socioeconomic inequalities for women, particularly women of color. In light of these concerns, a wealth of research in gender and computing has emerged over the past two decades. Here we define computing as the creation or adaptation of new technologies. While access and use are important, it is the ability to create or adapt technologies that is increasingly vital if underrepresented groups are to have a say in what future worlds will look like. This research has identified key barriers to increasing girls' participation including disengaging computing curriculum, hostile classroom cultures, a lack of role models, and popular culture representations, among others (see Ashcraft et al. 2012 for a review of this research). These findings have, in turn, sparked recommendations for designing computing education programs to address these barriers, including implementing relevant curriculum, increasing girls' early exposure to computing
Youth APPLab: One Response to (Lacking) Computer Science Education for Students of Color
This paper discusses current conditions of computer science education for students of color and highlights the benefit of several successful projects in addition to Youth APPLab, a year-long winning project funded by the MacArthur Foundation"s 2010 Digital Media & Learning Competition. With proper guidance and motivation, African-American students are motivated and engaged in learning how to become software engineers. Starting with various visual programming environments, students quickly want to advance to text-based languages. These visual tools prove to be great introductions to computer programming but do not teach core concepts. Youth APPLab instructors have observed these and other project results and will use project success to offer subsequent sessions and build and test digital and paperbased tools and other teaching aids.
Broadening Participation of Hispanics in Computing: The CAHSI INCLUDES Alliance
2019
Elsa Q. Villa, Ph.D., is a research assistant professor at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in the College of Education, and is Director of the Center for Education Research and Policy Studies (CERPS). Dr. Villa received her doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction from New Mexico State University; she received a Master of Science degree in Computer Science and a Master of Arts in Education from UTEP. She has led and co-led numerous grants from corporate foundations and state and federal agencies, and has numerous publications in refereed journals and edited books. Her research interests include communities of practice, gender, transformative learning, and identity.
Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
The Exploring Computer Science (ECS) curriculum provides foundational knowledge of Computer Science (CS) to high school students as a stand-alone course. ECS began in the Los Angeles Unified School District in the late 2000s where it gained eminence for broadening participation in computing (BPC), with Latinx students representing over 70% of enrollment. This experience report describes a partnership that consists of three Universities, dozens of school districts, the ECS team, and other stakeholders to bring the ECS curriculum in mainly rural school districts in Alabama that have a majority African-American student population. Sixty in-service teachers (one teacher per school) have received professional learning opportunities to gain knowledge and skills to teach ECS. Signs of early broader impacts are emerging: 78% of our ECS enrollment are underrepresented minority (URM) students with nearly half of the cohort consisting of female students. Students reported they were engaged in working collaboratively and sharing responsibilities with others. Furthermore, students who reported being more involved in the ECS course had deeper confidence in their ability to succeed in CS, reported greater overall outcomes, had more confidence in development of 21 st century skills, found the course more relevant, were more motivated to persist in CS, and exhibited increased interest in CS careers. We provide a comprehensive description of the partnership's accomplishments and the evaluation findings on student CS experiences and on teacher self-efficacy in ECS preparation and instruction. Our findings contribute to the BPC literature, specifically for schools with predominantly African-American enrollment in rural communities.