Collaborative Research: Universal Design through Professional Development and Systems Change to Increase Access to K-8 Computer Science Education for Learners with Disabilities

This project will support professional development opportunities for computer science (CS) teachers of grades K-8 including general education and special education classes. Focusing on students' first experiences with computing in school contexts, this project seeks to fundamentally improve the level of engagement and learning for all K-8 learners, including those with disabilities, in CS and robotics education. Through a Networked Improvement Community Research-Practice Partnership, this project will work in three school contexts: Broward County Public Schools in Florida, Chicago Public Schools in Illinois, and the Computer Science Teachers Association's nationwide community of practice. The collaborative partnership will (1) bring together cohorts of general and special education teachers in both face-to-face and online professional development focusing on Universal Design for Learning and High Leverage Practices, (2) investigate the needs, barriers, and strategies for general and special education teachers to meet the needs of all students in K-8 CS education, (3) build and disseminate a shared practical knowledge base about ways in which professional development for general and special education teachers can contribute to CS education for all, and (4) share information about what K-8 students can accomplish in STEM education. This project is a Networked Improvement Community Research-Practice Partnership aimed at addressing a shared problem of practice related to the engagement of all learners in CS education. The partnership will leverage improvement science and design-based implementation research to develop improvement goals and utilize a shared set of measures to understand variation and make progress across a variety of contexts. Necessary steps to ensuring quality CS education for all students include: (1) strengthening the partnership through developing a shared theory of improvement, (2) developing and revising shared systems of measures, (3) valuing practitioner expertise and shared leadership, (4) capacity-building through ongoing teacher professional development and professional learning communities, and (5) cycles of design-based implementation improvement cycles. As a networked improvement community, the project will investigate the level of engagement of all learners across different K-8 CS instructional settings, including catalysts and barriers to engagement across the school contexts; and how instructional practices such as Universal Design for Learning, High Leverage Practices and accessibility are enacted by general and special education teachers across multiple K-8 CS settings. Lastly, the project will use a mixed methods approach to understand each partners' unique contexts and large-scale quantitative analysis of the participation of K-8 students across settings. This project is funded through the Computer Science for All: Research and RPPs program. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.