Clifford Lee

Beyond access: broadening participation in high school computer science

Broadening participation” and “equity” are now common parlance among computer science reform educators who are challenging the underrepresentation in computer science. However, what do we all mean by these words and phrases? In this article, we discuss the key theoretical components of our strategy for broadening participation and increasing equity in computer science education. We do so through a description of our goals of our Exploring Computer Science program—a K-12/university collaboration between Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). For us, broadening participation goes beyond issues of access to computer science (CS) learning; we also must transform CS classroom culture and teaching in ways that engage and deepen how diverse students learn. High standards for learning and equity are two foundational elements that must be coupled together. Our mission goes beyond the “pipeline” issue of who ends up majoring in CS in college. Rather, our mission is to democratize CS learning and assure that all students have access to CS knowledge. In today’s world, this knowledge is a critical part of being an educated citizen1 and being qualified for 21st century opportunities across a growing number of fields and professions.

Democratizing computer science knowledge: transforming the face of computer science through public high school education

Despite the fact that computer science (CS) is the driver of technological innovations across all disciplines and aspects of our lives, including participatory media, high school CS too commonly fails to incorporate the perspectives and concerns of low-income students of color. This article describes a partnership program – Exploring Computer Science (ECS) – that directly counters this problem in our nations second largest school district. With a mission of democratizing CS learning, we argue that despite the constraints of working within public schools, it is imperative to do so. We discuss the ECS program based on inquiry, culturally relevant curriculum, and equity-oriented pedagogy. We describe two ECS-affiliated projects that highlight the importance of authorship, purpose, and agency for student learning and engagement: DietSens using mobile technology to study community health, and a project in which students create video games about social issues. Our work offers a counter-narrative to those who have written off the possibilities of working within public schools and a debunking of the too widespread myth within our educational system that females and students of color are inherently uninterested in rigorous CS learning.

None but Ourselves Can Free Our Minds: Critical Computational Literacy as a Pedagogy of Resistance.

ABSTRACT Critical computational literacy (CCL) is a new pedagogical and conceptual framework that combines the strengths of critical literacy and computational thinking. Through CCL, young people conceptualize, create, and disseminate digital projects that break silences, expose important truths, and challenge unjust systems, all the while building skills such as coding and design. This empirical study of CCL is based at Youth Radio, a nationally recognized multimedia production company in Oakland, California. Using embedded ethnographic methods, we focus on one collaborative project inside Youth Radios Interactive department, where young people partnered with adult colleagues to produce a web-based interactive map of gentrification in a West Oakland neighborhood. Findings demonstrate a highly sophisticated knowledge production process where youth are simultaneously contending with content, message, audience, aesthetics, design, functionality, execution, and the long-term ramifications or “digital afterlife” of their work. Through learning environments organized around critical computational literacy, young people emerge as critical problem-solvers unified by the technical know-how and the critical consciousness necessary for them to leverage digital tools for social transformation.

Critical computational empowerment: Engaging youth as shapers of the digital future

While there is growing recognition of the need to support young learners as they develop computational thinking (CT) skills, this paper advocates for an increased focus on computational identity (CI) and digital empowerment (DE) in particular, as we posit that these CT skills will help young learners become self-motivated, innovative creators. When nurturing identity and empowerment, it is a persistent challenge to provide youth with real-world experiences and suitable development tools. This paper advances two key approaches to address these issues: 1) A critical computational literacy approach to engage youth in developing personally meaningful applications that have impact in the real world; 2) the use of a tool, like MIT App Inventor, that lowers barriers to creating useful, impactful technology. Using two case-based studies, we show how these two approaches have supported youth in developing applications that respond to meaningful challenges in their communities and helped them to establish their computational identities and digital empowerment.