- Cynthia Blitz
- Research Professor and Director
- CS Teaching and Learning Collaboratory: Addressing Issues of Equity and Engagement in CS Through a Research Practice Partnership
- Rutgers University
- Teresa Duncan
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresagarciaduncan/
- President
- CS Teaching and Learning Collaboratory: Addressing Issues of Equity and Engagement in CS Through a Research Practice Partnership
- Deacon Hill Research Associates
- Thu Nguyen
- https://thu-d-nguyen.cs.rutgers.edu/
- Professor
- CS Teaching and Learning Collaboratory: Addressing Issues of Equity and Engagement in CS Through a Research Practice Partnership
- Rutgers University
- Frances Trees
- https://www.cs.rutgers.edu/faculty/frances-p-trees
- Associate Teaching Professor
- CS Teaching and Learning Collaboratory: Addressing Issues of Equity and Engagement in CS Through a Research Practice Partnership
- Rutgers University
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Public Discussion
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Cynthia Blitz
Research Professor and Director
Welcome! We hope that you enjoy learning about our CS Teaching and Learning Collaboratory (CS-TLC) building capacity, rigor and equity in High School Computer Science Education through a Research-Practice Partnership. Our RPP brings together CS educators and researchers from a large public university, teachers and administrators from 10 diverse school districts in NJ and PA. We are excited for any questions and ideas, and we look forward to the discussion.
Molly Stuhlsatz
Research Scientist
Thanks for sharing your project! It’s great to see that you are doing the work through the RPP. After your 5-day institute with the district partners, how do you plan to keep them engaged in the work moving forward? Do you have ideas about how the project will impact the partner districts or other stakeholders?
Cynthia Blitz
Research Professor and Director
Thanks for your feedback! We will hold virtual RPP meetings, connect through CS for All Teachers, and conduct site visits throughout the academic year (post-summer institute). We know from past experience that keeping RPP team members engaged over the long-term takes work and commitment.
Anne Leftwich
I really appreciate your close working relationship with local districts. I would love to see the form of collaboration!
Cynthia Blitz
Research Professor and Director
Thanks, Anne. We truly value our relationships with teachers, administrators, and so many more K12 and higher ed educators, researchers, content experts, and industry folks - these relationships is what makes our work meaningful (and fun!).
The work you're involved in with ECEP and NCWIT, and, specifically, the State Summit Toolkit seems like something we might be able to utilize as well - https://stemforall2019.videohall.com/presentations/1510 - and we look forward to exploring it further.
Maros Navas
I would love to talk to you about Hands on Coding which was created by myself and 2 other NJ educators!!! www.handsoncoding.org
Cynthia Blitz
Cynthia Blitz
Research Professor and Director
Would be happy to hear more about Hands on Coding, especially since it was 'born' in NJ! Specifically, the learning objectives, how it can fit into what schools might already be doing (and/or if it's meant to be used outside of the classroom), and if you have any data supporting its efficacy. Thanks for the post, Maros
Daniel Capps
Associate Professor
What were some of the major ideas that came out of the summer workshop related to providing more opportunities and supports for underrepresented students in computer science?
Cynthia Blitz
Research Professor and Director
Thanks for asking, Daniel. Last summer we really focused on thinking about ways to engage all students once they are in a computer science class and our teacher partners focused on pushing their content pedagogical knowledge and their use of equitable teaching strategies further to ensure they heard all voices in the classroom. We also considered how to integrate more culturally relevant activities into the various curriculum - we worked with ECS-like curriculum along with AP CSP, specifically, but there was a connection made beyond any one curriculum. This summer we'll work in teams and focus, in part, and recruitment of students to CS classes - along with keeping them engaged and supported throughout their CS experience.
Courtney Arthur
Senior Curriculum and Instruction Designer
Thank you for sharing your work! I am curious about the challenges you encountered, if any, in introducing CS to these schools?
Cynthia Blitz
Research Professor and Director
Always challenges (!) but one of the benefits of working within an RPP - Researcher-Practitioner Partnership (RPP) - is that the entire RPP team works together, shares ideas and solutions that might have worked in one or more schools or districts, and think through how this particular solution might work (and how) in this other instance. Some of the challenges faced included a lack of understanding about what computer science is, finding and retaining enthusiastic and knowledgeable teachers, and incorporating computer science into the broader curriculum/sequence of classes in ways that will most benefit the learning. Thanks, Courtney, appreciate the question and would be happy to delve deeper if you're interested.
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