Browsing by Author "Ruiz, Pati"
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Item Computational Thinking Boosters: Algorithmic Thinking 3-8(Digital Promise, 2021-01) Tackett, Traci; Ruiz, Pati; Iwatani, EmiA 30-minute webinar, designed originally for third through eighth-grade teachers in KY Appalachia, introduces ideas for integrating computational thinking (and specifically the notion of algorithms) into lessons across different content areas.Item Computational Thinking Boosters: Algorithmic Thinking in K-2(Digital Promise, 2021-01) Tackett, Traci; Ruiz, Pati; Iwatani, EmiA 35-minute webinar, designed originally for kindergarten through second-grade teachers in KY Appalachia, introduces ideas for integrating computational thinking (and specifically the notion of algorithms) into lessons across different content areas.Item Computational Thinking Boosters: Data & Analysis in K-2(Digital Promise, 2020-11) Tackett, Traci; Ruiz, Pati; Iwatani, EmiA 20-minute webinar, designed originally for third through eighth-grade teachers in KY Appalachia, introduces ideas for integrating computational thinking (and specifically the notion of data and analysis) into lessons across different content areas.Item Computational Thinking Boosters: Data and Analysis 3-8(Digital Promise, 2020-11) Tackett, Traci; Ruiz, Pati; Iwatani, EmiA 25-minute webinar, designed originally for third through eighth-grade teachers in KY Appalachia, introduces ideas for integrating computational thinking (and specifically the notion of data and analysis) into lessons across different content areas.Item Computational Thinking for an Inclusive World: A Resource for Educators to Learn and Lead(Digital Promise, 2021-12) Mills, Kelly; Coenraad, Merijke; Ruiz, Pati; Burke, Quinn; Weisgrau, JoshTechnology is becoming more integral across professional fields and within our daily lives, especially since the onset of the pandemic. As such, opportunities to learn computational thinking are important to all students—not only the ones who will eventually study computer science or enter the information technology industry. However, large inequalities continue to exist in access to equipment and learning opportunities needed to build computational thinking skills for students that experience marginalization. We call all educators to integrate computational thinking into disciplinary learning across PreK-12 education, while centering inclusivity, to equip students with the skills they need to participate in our increasingly technological world and promote justice for students and society at large. This report issues two calls to action for educators to design inclusive computing learning opportunities for students: (1) integrate computational thinking into disciplinary learning, and (2) build capacity for computational thinking with shared leadership and professional learning. Inspired by the frameworks, strategies, and examples of inclusive computational thinking integration, readers can take away practical implications to reach learners in their contexts.Item Computational Thinking for an Inclusive World: A Resource for Educators to Learn and Lead, Quick Start and Discussion Guide(Digital Promise, 2021-12) Mills, Kelly; Coenraad, Merijke; Ruiz, Pati; Burke, Quinn; Weisgrau, JoshWe call all educators to integrate computational thinking into disciplinary learning across PreK-12 education, while centering inclusivity, to equip students with the skills they need to participate in our increasingly technological world and promote justice for students and society at large. This quick start and discussion guide is a resource for educators to learn about and build capacity for students to engage in computational thinking.Item Delivering virtual K-8 computing professional development in rural KY(Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), 2021-05) Ruiz, Pati; Iwatani, Emi; Burke, QuinnTeachers living and working in rural areas in the United States often lack access to high-quality professional development (PD) opportunities. As computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) education pathways increasingly develop in rural districts, it is essential to provide quality PD for their teachers so they can identify opportunities for and plan to embed CS and CT learning in their classrooms. A key element in delivering high-quality PD is understanding the specific educational and wider cultural needs of the community where it will be delivered, something we call “mining cultural capital”. In this poster, we report on the delivery of four 30-minute virtual PD sessions within two rural school districts in Eastern Kentucky: Pikeville Independent and Floyd County Schools. The virtual sessions were specifically geared toward elementary and middle school teachers. The sessions were led by a long-time educator in the region who worked to curate relevant examples and delivered the PD via a recorded video conference. The recordings are available for teachers in the region to watch and re-watch as they develop their lessons. Survey results showed that participating teachers found the PD to be valuable. Furthermore, feedback from teachers suggests that access to these short just-in-time PD sessions provided valuable learning opportunities and also sparked new lesson ideas for teachers.Item Emerging Technology Adoption Framework: For PK-12 Education(Digital Promise, 2022-10) Ruiz, Pati; Richard, Eleanor; Chillmon, Carly; Shah, Zohal; Kurth, Adam; Fekete, Andy; Glazer, Kip; Pattenhouse, Megan; Fusco, Judi; Fennelly-Atkinson, Rita; Lin, Lin; Arriola, Sheryl; Lockett, David; Crawford-Meyer, Valerie; Karim, Sana; Hampton, Sarah; Beckford, BelindaThe Emerging Technology Adoption Framework was created with education community members to help ensure that educational leaders, technology specialists, teachers, students, and families are all part of the evaluation and adoption process for placing emerging technologies in PK-12 classrooms. We engaged an Emerging Technology Advisory Board through Educator CIRCLS based out of The Center for Integrative Research in Computing and Learning Sciences (CIRCLS) and gathered additional feedback from researchers, policy experts, the edtech community, educators, and families to ground our work through a community of experts. This framework is specifically designed to include community members in the process of making informed evaluation and procurement decisions and outlines the important criteria to consider during three stages of emerging technology implementation: (1) initial evaluation, (2) adoption, and (3) post-adoption. Each criterion has specific questions that can be asked of decision makers, district leaders, technology researchers and developers, educators, and students and families, as well as resources and people who might serve as resources when answering these questions.Item Empathy Interviews for Developing Inclusive Computing Pathways(Center for Inclusive Innovation, Digital Promise, 2021) Coenraad, Merijke; Hodge, Malliron; Ruiz, Pati; Mills, Kelly; Burke, QuinnThis interview protocol includes five steps to conduct an empathy interview. In the Empathize Phase of designing an inclusive computing pathway, empathy interviews are conducted. Empathy interviews allow you to hear the stories and experiences of someone who will use what you are designing and learn about their realities, in this case, a student.Item Pivoting in a Pandemic: Transitioning from In-person to Virtual K-8 Computing Professional Development(Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), 2021-03) Burke, Quinn; Iwatani, Emi; Ruiz, Pati; Tackett, Traci; Owens, AileenThis poster reports on year one of a three-year NSF-funded Research Practitioner Partnership (RPP) to develop a K-8 pipeline for computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) education within two rural school districts in Eastern Kentucky: Pikeville Independent School District and Floyd County Schools. Economically devastated by the departure of the coal industry, these communities are committed to developing high-quality computing curricula for all students, beginning in their earliest years. The poster has two components. First, through a mixture of qualitative measures, the poster reports on the genesis and development of the RPP. It focuses on the RPP's origin in leveraging the districts' existing relationship with Pennsylvania's South Fayette School District, which has developed one of the nation's leading programs for teacher professional development (PD) in K-12 computing. The second component of the poster focuses on the development of a series of summer workshops for Kentucky Appalachia K-8 instructors to learn the basics of CS and CT and how to integrate these skills and concepts into existing K-8 coursework. Of course, the RPP faced new challenges with COVID-19 most notably, the need to offer these summer workshops remotely, and adjusting the objectives and research questions accordingly. Through focus groups with the PD instructional team and survey responses from the KY teacher workshop participants, the poster will report on the pedagogical implications of offering teacher PD exclusively online and what the ramifications have been for Pikeville and Floyd County children with the return to school in the Fall of 2020.Item Resisting Edtech Colonialism through Inclusive Innovation in Kentucky Appalachia(Digital Promise, 2021-09) Iwatani, Emi; Ruiz, Pati; Burke, Quinn; Owens, Aileen; Tackett, TraciColonialism occurs “when one nation subjugates another, conquering its population and exploiting it, often while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people” (National Geographic, 2019). With K-12 public school systems increasingly becoming 1-to-1, hundreds of millions of tax dollars being directed towards computer science and computational thinking (CS/CT) education, and educational technology (edtech) companies vying to capture the K-12 market share, it behooves us to wonder: Whose interests are CS/CT edtech are promoting? While “CS/CT edtech” is not a nation, it has potential to act like a colonizer because (1) it has its own language and culture that it aims to promote, (2) has great economic and political clout, and (3) the culture and values currently promoted are fairly monolithic. The NSF-funded researcher-practitioner partnership Tough As Nails project faces this tension head-on because the program objective is to create a K-8 CS/CT curricular pathway in two school districts in Kentucky Appalachia, where the researchers are from Silicon Valley with little familiarity with Appalachian culture and education. Our core project team (from CA, KY, and PA) has so far resisted “edtech colonialism” by upholding shared visions of “student agency is core,” “Kentucky leads the development” and “competencies first (then themes, then tools).”Item School Policies for Integrating AI in Classroom Practices(CIRCLS, 2021-09) Jackson, Tanner; Pakhira, Deblina; Narayanan, Arun Balajiee Lekshmi; Ruiz, Pati; Fusco, Judi; Glazer, Kip; Eaglin, Phillip; Eguchi, AmyRecent shifts in the delivery of learning experiences have accelerated the importance of emerging technologies in schools and classrooms. The urgency for educators to become familiar with emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) necessitates additional policies including specific safeguards for all. Educators are in a position of responsibility and should be fully aware of the latest technologies, such as AI, so they can make good decisions and educate students as informed citizens and future workforce. Educators must be considered and supported as full partners in developing and implementing these tools in all learning environments. The goal of this policy brief is to delineate areas that require educator attention around AI so they are empowered to develop recommendations that support literacy on AI that work within their contexts. In this context, we define literacy as general competency around how AI works, the types of data it collects, and how that data can be used. By doing so, we aim to provide useful guidance to build additional knowledge and skills, including the ethical and unbiased decisions by educators in selecting and using AI systems and technologies in classroom environments.Item Student Empathy Interviews: An Instrument For Considering More Inclusive K-12 Computing Pathways(2021-05-26) Ruiz, Pati; Mills, Kelly; Burke, Quinn; Coenraad, MerijkeThis presentation shares the development and use of empathy interviews at Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) which is the fifth largest school district in the state. At this district, equity challenges have arisen as the city has grown rapidly over the past decade, shifting from a rural and predominantly White college town to a burgeoning tech sector with a significant influx of Latinx families. During the first two years of participation in the Developing Inclusive K-12 Computing Pathways Research Practice Partnership (CT Pathways), the district developed a computing pathways document to guide schools and teachers in the integration of computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT). After a year piloting their pathway, an Inclusive CT Pathways Committee was formed to review the existing pathways document and ensure it was ably addressing the district’s overall equity goal of better serving students from Black and Latinx communities. As an orientation step to personalize this goal and understand it within the context of their own classrooms and schools, teachers on the Inclusive CT Committee conducted empathy interviews to learn more about the computing experiences of their students. Teachers reflected upon the structure of the interview protocol, the insights they gained, and the potential opportunities the approach afforded them to address misconceptions about computing. They described the interviews as opportunities to learn more about designing supports, on-ramps, and more inclusive computing opportunities for students.Item Understanding and Supporting District Systems Change Around Computer Science Education(AERA Annual Conference Proceedings, 2021-04) Burke, Quinn; Roschelle, Jeremy; Ruiz, Pati; Weisgrau, JoshForty states have undertaken recent initiatives to expand access to computer science, including the development of comprehensive K-12 computing standards (Code.org, 2019). Yet while standards represent a necessary scaffold for states to support implementation, ultimately the challenge of a tailored computing agenda (Burke et al., 2020; Coburn, Hill, & Spillane, 2016) falls to the individual districts themselves. Given the wider history of inequitable K-12 computing opportunities (Margolis, Goode, & Ryoo, 2015), districts are faced with the challenges of (i) ensuring equitable student access to high-quality CS content, (ii) developing integrated systems for teacher development and instructional feedback, and (iii) articulating coherent curricular learning progressions across grade levels. The “State of the States Landscape” report (Stanton et al., 2017) reveals that although the majority of U.S. states have CS standards, districts must promptly tackle these challenges to foster genuinely equitable programs. This study examines the development of equitable pathways in three unique school districts: Iowa City Community School District (IA), a college-town district serving 14,000 students which is rapidly becoming more urban and diverse and seeks to increase participation among English language learner students; Indian Prairie School District (IL) a suburban district west of Chicago, serving 28,000 students and committed to improve achievement for students from low income families; Talladega County Schools (AL), a rural school district of 7,500 students in the central part of the state, with a focus on increasing participation among females. This three-year study investigates the why, what, and how of developing a comprehensive K-12 computing pathway. First, in terms of why, to what extent has each district been able to identify and articulate a unified vision for CS education? To what extent does this vision correspond to existing district resources, as well as adhere to their stated commitment(s) to educational equity? Second, in terms of what, how does a district’s vision for K-12 computing help define what qualifies as computing and where it is to be integrated into schools? What are the computing competencies (i.e., using algorithms, computational modeling) each district identifies and to what degree have teachers been able to understand and value these competencies? Third and last, in terms of how, what is the process that each district adopts to translate these designated competencies into actual classroom practice? And how do they measure success in terms of student work, teacher feedback, and wider community engagement? At the close of our second year of research, participating districts have already addressed the first two elements of why? and what? They continue to address the third element of how? as they ramp up pilot coursework in select schools over year three, a challenge now compounded by the nationwide pandemic. Through teacher and administrative interviews and surveys, as well as wider feedback from district-specific chamber of commerce/ technology committees, this presentation will identify and compare the various rationales for equity-driven computing pathways, examine to what degree they help leadership teams articulate a district-wide framework, and how such a framework took hold within classrooms.Item The Valuable Role of Edtech Coaches during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A National Survey(Digital Promise, 2020-08) Bakhshaei, Mahsa; Seylar, John; Ruiz, Pati; Vang, Mai ChouThis report presents findings from a survey of edtech coaches on how their role changed when schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and provides district and school leaders with insights on the value of edtech coaches in moving instruction online in effective ways.