Embedding computational thinking into school-wide curriculum: leveraging professional learning communities at a pre-K to 5th grade school

Computational thinking (CT) has been widely recognized as a pre-requisite for complex problem solving both within and beyond STEM fields. Furthermore, these capacities for creative and critical approaches to solving problems have been shown to occur spontaneously among children as young as four. However, without a pedagogy that systematically supports and extends these cognitive skills, they do not develop into the formal and sophisticated forms of critical thinking necessary for the digital age. This research-practice partnership (RPP) will collaborate with the entire staff of one pre-K to 5th grade school to develop and validate a sequential, grade-based curriculum and assessment system for school-wide CT development. Using the professional development structure of professional learning communities (PLCs), teachers will work with faculty facilitators in three separate grade bands to address inquiry questions that connect their own instructional goals to components of CT. Teachers will engage in iterative inquiry-based cycles, refining instructional approaches within their classrooms, in ways akin to action research. PLC meetings will involve brainstorming, data sharing and feedback over a two-year period. Outside experts will review teacher collected data to formalize a grade-based sequence of both instruction and assessment system of CT integration into all subjects. These results will be disseminated to researcher and practitioner audiences, designed for adoption by elementary schools. This RPP will leverage the pre-existing school culture and curriculum of a pre-K to 5th grade school to co-design methods for integration of CT including data literacy (DL) that can be implemented across subject areas. Teachers' prior knowledge of constructivist pedagogy will be expanded to include CT/DL as a useful and necessary component of children's cognitive repertoires during project-based learning activities. A co-created school-based makerspace will provide concrete support for understanding big ideas in DL-such as AI, while the school's culturally responsive curriculum will serve as the basis for personally meaningful problem solving. By norming all methods of assessment and intervention on the students and teachers of a high poverty, urban public school, the results will offer a comprehensive approach for CT/DL integration, ensuring the implementation models developed will be transferable to a wide array of elementary school contexts. 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.