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Including Students With Disabilities in CS for All: Research Findings and Implications for Practice

Fri, April 28, 8:15 to 10:15am, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, Floor: Meeting Room Level, Room 221 C

Abstract

1. Purposes
CS for All addresses the need to increase the level of inclusion of all students in CS education, especially for girls and students from diverse cultural backgrounds. However, participation of students with disabilities is often missing from this discourse. Approximately 6.4 million students with disabilities receive special education services in the US. Almost 95% of them attend regular schools, and usually, instruction occurs alongside their peers (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). This means that students with disabilities should have access to K-12 computer science (CS) instruction despite the anticipated challenges they face (Authors, in press). This study examined the unique challenges that students with disabilities face during computing instruction and began to develop interventions that address those challenges.

2. Perspectives
Wing (2006) calls on educators to provide all students with experiences promoting computational thinking (CT) as these experiences are important for everyone, not just those entering CS fields. (Wing, 2006). Regardless of increased interest in CT experiences in K-12 (e.g., Grover & Pea, 2013; Lee, Martin, & Apone, 2014), limited research has been done on CT instructional support for students with disabilities. The limited research on including students with disabilities in CS points towards the success of applying interventions and strategies that work in other content areas to CS education (Authors, 2016). However, it is often difficult for teachers to translate these practices to CS education. This study offers an inclusionary approach to K-8 CS for All wherein students with disabilities are taught CS alongside their peers.

3. Methods
This cross-case study included three students with disabilities at a mid-sized elementary school with a CS program. Students were purposefully selected based on documented disability and teachers reports of disengagement in CS activities.

4. Data sources and analysis
Data sources included teacher interviews, observations of the students during their CS instruction, and video screen recording of students’ on-screen behaviors and record their voices. Screen recordings were analyzed with Collaborative Computing Observation Instrument (C-COI), which analyzes on-screen behaviors of students during computing education.

5. Results
This study revealed that the students struggled with persistence and exhibited signs of frustration. When experiencing frustration, their primary response was to stop working and wait for an adult to intervene. Strategies most effective to support the students included: (1) explicit instruction about the purpose of individual blocks, (2) encouragement of collaborative problem solving, and (3) flexible tasks. Although the students were encouraged to collaborate, they did not seek student collaborators even when they struggled with the computing tasks.

6. Significance of the study
This study offers an inclusionary lens to CS instruction that relies on including scaffolded use of explicit instruction and promoting collaborative problem solving. It provided pedagogical approaches that proactively address the needs of students with disabilities within this instruction.

Authors