Jennifer Albert | API Profile

Jennifer

Albert

The Citadel

My Conference Goal:

Create a stronger proposal for my CISE EWF project.

My Project Goal:

The overarching goal of Kaleidoscope CT is to broaden participation in STEM by equitably engaging children and their families in hands-on STEM activities that develop computational thinking skills.

Project Working Title:

A Kaleidoscope of Computational Thinking: Engaging Children and Families through an Afterschool Program

Project Idea or Description:

The overarching goal of our CSforAll proposal, entitled A Kaleidoscope of Computational Thinking (hereafter, Kaleidoscope CT), is to broaden participation in STEM by equitably engaging children and their families in hands-on STEM activities that develop computational thinking skills. This project addresses the critical need for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) literacy and skills for all students (National Science and Technology Council, 2018) by investigating effective models of informal STEM learning through an afterschool program. Ultimately, we anticipate that our findings can serve as the foundation for the design of more scalable afterschool STEM programs and ongoing support for CT integration. We will work intensively with afterschool staff and families to support them in adapting and implementing interdisciplinary, CT-integrated lessons using culturally responsive, asset-based design. Kaleidoscope CT will directly impact 54 afterschool sites with at least 270 afterschool staff and approximately 4,500 students per year.

How will this idea advance broadening participation in computing?

We hypothesize, based on prior work, that our collaboratively-designed CT curriculum and PD will allow teachers to effectively integrate CT into their teaching and that the synergistic elements of this PD model will build the community necessary to make the integration successful, sustainable, and scalable. Further, we have purposefully designed this project to make connections between in-school and out-of-school learning spaces in order to more equitably reach underrepresented minority populations.