Episode 6: Equitable CS teaching strategies with Luther Tychonievich
The goal of this blog and podcast series is to bring CS education research into the K-8 classroom. In this episode, I take a deep dive into two papers: Tapestry Workshops: Helping High School Teachers Grow and Diversify Computing and Lessons Learned from Providing Hundreds of Hours of Diversity Training with Luther Tychonievich. He is an Associate Professor of CS at the University of Virginia. I first met Luther when he got involved with the CS Institute in 2019, helping us bring the equitable CS teaching strategies he talks about in this episode to K-8 teachers.
The goal of this blog and podcast series is to bring CS education research into the K-8 classroom. In this episode, I take a deep dive into
Research paper takeaways:
Context:
Focus primarily on increasing women's representation of computing which bottomed out around 17% in 2010.
Taught high school teachers how to get more students into their CS classes and how to help those students have a better experience.
Tried a lot of different things to see what worked.
The baseline keeps changing, so workshops aren’t static.
Results:
CS teachers wanted more time connecting with each other because often they were the only one doing CS at their school.
Follow-up surveys revealed that there were increases in the total number of students taught and in gender diversity.
Over time many part-time CS positions became full-time with a near demographic match based on the schools they were in.
Verified that they could train the trainer so others could run workshops.
Takeaways for K-8 Teachers/Administrators:
Things that don't seem like they would matter that much, have surprisingly large impact. For instance, you should invite females into your class and encourage them to invite their friends. If they come in groups, the sense of belonging they feel will result in an increase in happiness, success, and quantity of those students in your class.
We can't fix all of the problems and make discrimination go away, but we can do a lot with equitable strategies to improve our classrooms.
These strategies require some short-term effort, but actually make things easier long-term because your students will be happier and more engaged.
Pick one strategy, decide what you are going to do with it, and share your commitment with others.
High school focus - how do you create CS classroom environments that help students thrive?
K-8 focus - what do we mean by teaching computing and why is teaching computing unlike other subjects, especially the experimentation culture of CS?
Resources:
Luther Tychonievich
In Memoriam: Joann Cohoon
Tapestry Workshop
CS Institute
Experimentation culture in CS (video with Luther)
Creating equitable CS experiences handbook