Self-Authoring Computer Science Identities: E-Textile Portfolios as Ideational Resources for High School Students

• In Event: 34.079 - Interactive Stitch Sampler of Equitable Learning and Teaching With E-Textiles in K–12 Education

Abstract

OBJECTIVE. In computer science education, there is a growing need to understand identities issues--particularly for underrepresented groups such as women and people of color (Margolis, Estrella, Goode, Holme, & Nao, 2008)--in order to increase access, deepen participation, and diversify perspectives. However, developing a CS identity is challenging due to pervasive stereotypes of the field being white and male (Hansen et al., 2017; Cheryan, Plaut, Handron, & Hudson, 2013) as well as isolating (Diekman, Brown, Johnston, & Clark, 2010). The utilization of learner-generated reflective portfolios accompanying the development of electronic textile (e-textile) artifacts can serve as ideational resources for student self-authorship—places where students reflect and position themselves in relation to how they develop disciplinary identities and participate in disciplinary practices in CS. Through portfolios, students are afforded the opportunity to leverage their sense of self in relation to CS, allowing them to situate themselves on an inbound trajectory of participation in CS.
PERSPECTIVES. By drawing from Bell, Van Horne, & Cheng’s (2017) argument for the relevance of developing students’ STEM identities and Nasir and Cook’s (2009) “ideational resources” as avenues for students developing and establishing their identity within a particular learning space (p. 44), we propose that reflective portfolios can serve as ideational resources that support students’ self-authorship of disciplinary identities in CS. We intend to explore the following questions: 1) how do students use reflective portfolios to express their own voices and self-authorship in relation to computer science? How does the use of reflective portfolios shape students’ perceptions of computer science?
METHODS & DATA. We co-developed an e-textiles unit consisting of four projects and a digital, reflective portfolio for a year-long computing introduction course providing equity-focused and inquiry-based teaching (Goode, et al., 2012). Data for this project included portfolios from 55 high-school students from 2 different classes. We conducted multiple rounds of grounded, comparative analysis (see Charmaz, 2002), developing coding categories based on how students described their relation to computer science.
FINDINGS. The portfolios served as ideational resources where students were afforded the space to develop their own narratives about CS and their place in the field (Nasir & Cook, 2009), authoring who they were in relation to CS by identifying the resources, skills, and personal qualities they found essential to constructing their artifacts. Students linked themselves with CS through the coding, circuitry, and crafting skills they learned, noted the role socioemotional characteristics and relationships played in constructing their projects, and authored new and expanded understandings of CS. In developing the self-narratives in their portfolios, students were afforded the space to develop disciplinary identities and participate in disciplinary practices in CS (Bell, Van Horne, & Cheng, 2017).
SIGNIFICANCE. Reflective portfolios have the potential to serve as powerful accompaniments to artifact-development, particularly as a means to assess computational thinking, learn how to communicate within the discipline of CS, and develop self-narratives that support disciplinary identification with CS. In developing their portfolios, students authored CS identities that expanded what it means to identify with a discipline as well as designed CS as a space where they (mostly) belonged.

Author

• Mia Shaw, University of Pennsylvania