Developing Inclusive K-12 Computing Pathways for the League of Innovative Schools

We are supporting 12 school districts in the League of Innovative Schools to integrate computational thinking and computer science into their classrooms through a coherent and equitable K-12 pathway.

In this NSF pathways project, our Learning Sciences Team is partnering with three Core districts and nine Pilot districts from the League of Innovative Schools to develop a coherent computational thinking / computer science pathway via a researcher-practitioner partnership (RPP).

Each participating district’s curricular pathways will include computer science courses in high school and a mix of computational thinking (CT) and computer science activities integrated into existing coursework on the elementary and middle school levels. Each district is responsible for developing and refining its own CS and CT pathways. All districts’ efforts will be linked by a commitment to design, study, and improve the pathways to intentionally and effectively address equitable access to high-quality computing education. With each district, we are co-developing:

• A vision for curricular integration of CT and CS in each grade band, including attention to the “why” of CT and CS education from the perspectives of students, teachers and parents;
• Clear statements of competencies in terms of what students should know and be able to do in each grade band, annotated with short, illustrative examples and videos;
• Detailed curricular resources to support learning;
• Target teacher competencies and professional development activities
• Formative assessments for students and teachers to guide improvement