Co-Designing an Agenda of Consequence: Advancing the Opportunity for a Data-Inclusive Approach to Preservice Teacher Education

• In Event: Co-Constructing Systemic Support for Sustaining Humanizing and Inclusive Computer Science Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives:
Amidst a world awash with data, there is increased recognition of the critical role of data science (DS) in preparing a future citizenry who can gather, analyze and represent data (LaMar & Boaler, 2021; Franklin & Bargagliotti, 2020). Now more than ever, students need to engage in DS practices through a critical lens as they question assumptions and seek answers to questions such as: Who is collecting data? For what purpose? Yet, despite the acknowledgement that DS is critical, it is often overlooked in preservice education and K-12 classrooms, or taught in isolation as a single, discrete topic rather than as an integration of mathematics and CS applied in relevant and meaningful ways (Engel, 2017). In this paper, we share the promising approach of co-constructing ways to integrate DS into existing pre-service methods courses by interrogating assumptions that underlie how and where DS should be taught. Through this paper, we highlight our approach as a collaborative research team as we interrogate ways to define and enact DS in systemic ways in teacher education.

Perspective:
Addressing DS as a door to CS in math, science, and social studies pre-service teacher pathways may also expand access to CS and data literacy. By using the CAPE framework (Fletcher & Warner, 2021) as our lens to examine teacher preparation, we view preservice teacher pathways as an “integral component…of the systems that support computing education” (Fletcher & Warner, 2021, p. 23). We posit that taking a DS-inclusive perspective to designing math, science, and social studies methods and content courses may bolster teacher capacity in DS. This study will explore how faculty teaching math, science, and social studies methods and content courses in colleges of education define DS, conceptualize DS as related to their course content, make connections between DS and CS and align with state standards.


Methods/Data:
We engaged in participatory action research (Kemmis, 2006; Kindon, Pain & Kesby, 2007) using qualitative methodology grounded in ethnography, culturally probing (Gaver, Dunne, and Pacenti, 1999) DS in the pre-service teacher context. Initial data was collected and analyzed using Fairclough's (2001) critical discourse analysis that included course syllabi and K-12 state standards.

Results/Findings:
Initial findings indicate the need to clearly define DS and make explicit connections to specific content standards and practices pertaining to each content area respectively in order to integrate DS in meaningful and relevant ways.

Scholarly Significance:
By identifying how teachers across disciplines define and conceptualize DS, we identify opportunities within the pre-service teacher pathway where DS and CS may be integrated in interdisciplinary ways (DeLyser et al., 2018) through the lens of DS.This work addresses a key systemic issue in equity by building the capacity of preservice faculty in DS ensuring that DS can be taught and addressed by teachers across content areas in relevant and sustainable ways.

Conference theme:
Rather than maintaining an inequitable status quo, this research is at the center of co-constructing with preservice education communities an agenda of consequence to integrate DS in ways that disrupt current approaches.

Author

• Janice Mak, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author