CS4OK: RPP-infused Workforce Development with Disruptive Innovations for the Intersectional Underserved

Rapidly advancing technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), are fundamentally changing the educational landscape and posing new challenges to educators. This high school strand research-practice partnership between University of Central Oklahoma, code.org, and tribal leaders of the Kiawa tribe aims to support tribal educators in Oklahoma through a multi-layered professional development model. The RPP will co-design computer science curricular interventions that integrate emerging, disruptive technologies, such as AI. This project has the potential to support CS teachers’ professional currency and knowledge in adapting and teaching technology-enriched CS curriculum in a culturally-sustaining way. With differentiated teacher PD strategies and innovative PD interventions, the goal of this project is to generate new knowledge on how to empower tribal educators with innovative knowledge and teaching techniques to prepare tribal students for the CS education-career pathways. These include new insights on (1) what motivates and deters CS teachers to maintain professional currency; (2) what CS teachers encounter when adapting and teaching technology-enriched CS curriculum with AI-powered tools in multi-modality environments; and (3) how teacher trainees rank their overall experience. The steps to be taken are the follows: (1) RPPs will be engaged in shared participation to plan, research, develop, pilot, and evaluate the program efficacy of teacher workshop, and project effectiveness; (2) tribal educators will be recruited and trained to adapt an existing CS curriculum and teach it to their students with AI-powered tools; (3) knowledge and the technological infrastructure derived from prior NSF grants will be leveraged to enhance content modules with emerging, disruptive technologies, culturally-resonant pedagogy to honor tribal heritage, interdisciplinary content, and real-world context with wider CS applications relevant to daily lives, delivered in non-traditional settings via multi-modalities, including hybrid and virtual simulations; (4) a tribal teacher network will be established to share innovative practices and manage knowledge with tribal educators and intersectional students; and (5) PD interventions will be designed with a data-centric lens to help students apply CS to other disciplines and transfer computational-thinking (CT) analytical skills, and AI literacy into domains of emerging careers. 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.