Leveraging Local Resources for Inclusive Computer Science Classrooms: Reflections From Experienced High School Teachers Implementing E-Textiles

• In Event: Inclusion in Computer Science Education: Documenting, Designing, and Supporting Transformative Learning in Computer Science Classrooms

Abstract

While there have been many efforts focused on promoting equitable CS classrooms, what inclusion looks like and how to promote inclusion in CS classrooms is less clear. In the context of culturally-relevant teaching, this means learning about and leveraging different students’ cultural assets in the curriculum planning process (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Nakajima & Goode, 2019). When implementing personally-meaningful, student-driven curricula, inclusive teaching entails that CS teachers ensure students’ personal interests and cultural assets are central to the classroom work, allowing for deeper engagement and school-home connections from a diverse range of students (Ito, et al., 2013). That being said, promoting personally-meaningful projects presents new opportunities and challenges for inclusive teaching in CS classrooms. While efforts have been made to develop inclusive curricula, little research has focused on ways teachers apply curricula in their classrooms to promote inclusion.
To understand the challenges faced in promoting inclusion and the pedagogical strategies enacted to address those challenges, we draw on the reflections of 17 experienced CS teachers who implemented a new electronic textiles (e-textiles) curriculum built around a series of personally-relevant, student-driven projects. Over the last three years, we have co-developed this unit with some of the teachers to be implemented as part of Exploring Computer Science (ECS), a year-long, intro-level high school CS curriculum and teacher PD program that focuses on broadening participation in computing through equity-based, inquiry-focused pedagogy (Goode, Margolis, & Chapman, 2014). Through their reflections, we sought to understand how these teachers created inclusive CS learning environments locally in their classrooms with the e-textiles unit, as well as what challenges they faced and what solutions they enacted to address challenges during the unit.
We inductively analyzed and coded 17 experienced teachers’ weekly surveys and post-interviews and found that throughout the implementation of the unit, teachers adapted to the challenges of facilitating an open-ended, student-driven curriculum based on their knowledge of their students’ needs, recruited a wide array of resources to address these challenges, and adopted new perspectives of computing that reflected more creative, inclusive and relational ideals. In other words, teachers leveraged local resources and contexts to adapt classroom activities as well as developed new perspectives on computing as ways to foster inclusivity.
Teachers’ reflections highlight the potential benefits of experienced teachers engaging with equity-focused, personalized curricula as an opportunity to reflect on their own teaching practices while promoting inclusivity. Further, throughout their reflections on implementing the unit, teachers expressed anticipation for teaching the e-textiles unit again the following year, noting improvements they wanted to make based on their current implementation. This desire to teach the unit again and improve upon their teaching practices reflects the notion that experienced CS teachers want to grow in developing richer content knowledge and learn how to engage more diverse groups of learners in their classrooms (Hubbard & D’Silva, 2018; Nakajima & Goode, 2019). This presents an opportunity for future research to explore PD and curriculum implementation as a potential space for CS teachers to reflect on their local knowledge and expertise when considering ways to promote inclusivity in CS learning environments.

Authors

• Mia Shaw, New York University

• Yasmin B. Kafai, University of Pennsylvania

• Deborah Fields, Utah State University