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All About HQIM

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Agenda

5 min - Welcome Back

15 min - Gap Analysis Review

15 min - Overview of Curriculum and HQIM

30 min - Focus on Culturally Responsive and Linguistically Sustaining

15 min - How to use the Curriculum Guide

30 min - Assessing Curriculum for District Needs

5 min - Next CS Engage Events

Welcome Back!

In Zoom, please rename yourself to include your district.

Share your favorite warm winter comfort food in the chat or out loud with the group.

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Goals for Today

Review your Gap Analysis as a team
Understand why HQIM is important
Consider what matters most to your district for curriculum
Feel confident about using DESE curriculum guide resources
Discuss and document what your requirements are for DLCS curriculum
Feel more prepared for the March Curriculum Fair

Image by fabrikasimf on Freepik

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Geographic Equity In Your District

The quality of a student’s education should not depend on household income.

All students should be accessing high quality instructional materials with the same number of classroom hours for each grade level in every school across your district

This means you need to know what you’re already teaching and if you cover all of the DLCS standards in every school across your district

Neighborhood Data for some cities and towns in the CS Engage Grant

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District Gap Analysis Review

In district breakout rooms,

Open your grade span Gap Analysis spreadsheet, which should be complete
Find the (new!) Grade Level Data Summary Sheet to fill out based on your gap analysis work

This should take 15 minutes to discuss with your team, especially #1 and #6

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What Is Curriculum?

Curricular materials are resources teachers use to facilitate sequences of learning experiences

A curriculum is a sequence of student learning experiences teachers facilitate using curricular materials as a foundation (not a script!)

Image by Freepik

DESE - Paula 6-13

A curriculum provides you with a progression for student learning. It should provide varying activities for students to explore and practice the content topics in ways that provides for diverse engagement to interest different learning styles. It should allow for student choice and student voice as they explore the possibilities of digital literacy and computer science.

It can be enhanced for your classroom context and it shouldn’t feel like a script. However, it should be followed with fidelity to ensure that students are getting the full scope of standards covered by the curriculum. I’ve heard teachers say “students didn’t like the unplugged problem solving activities, they want to be on the computer, so I skipped them” That is not what we want, we want to build their skills, and their persistence through some unplugged activities prior to jumping onto the computer.

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Curricular materials are a powerful way to narrow opportunity gaps and accelerate student learning:

“Even when we controlled for prior academic achievement, classrooms with more low-income students had fewer high-quality academic experiences than others.”

Image by Freepik

DESE - Paula 6-13

The use of curricular materials - and implementing with fidelity - really supports our commitment to equity. Especially when we have teachers with varying levels of comfort and experience with computer science, the materials help to support teachers at all levels. It provides a consistent progression of content knowledge no matter who the teacher might be. It also provides consistency as a child moves up to the next grade and has a new teacher. Many DLCS teachers who are developing their own lessons focus on what they are interested in - one teacher may like Scratch and the next teacher wants to use Legos, however, the students are still only doing basic programming with no progression other than using a different language. It is like doing long division in two different grades while only changing the way in which you line up the problem.

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Teachers spend �7-12 hours per week�searching for and creating instructional resources (free and paid), drawing from a variety of sources, many of them unvetted.

Goldberg, M. (2016). Classroom Trends: Teachers as Buyers of Instructional Materials and Users of Technology. K-12 Market Advisors.

Shutterstock 1243873426

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96% �of teachers �use Google to find lessons and materials

Nearly 75% �of teachers �use Pinterest to find lessons and materials

Opfer, V., Kaufman, J., Thompson, L. (2016). Implementation of K-12 State Standards for Mathematics and English Language Arts and Literacy. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

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Type in the chat:

What do you think is a problem with teachers finding their own teaching materials online?

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What are culturally responsive learning environments?

Leveraging student culture to improve and deepen learning
Connecting in-school learning to out-of-school living
Promoting educational equity and excellence
Creating community among students and staff from a variety of cultural, social, and ethnic backgrounds
Developing student agency, efficacy, and empowerment
Empowering students to see themselves as computer scientists

Gay, Geneva. “Teaching To and Through Cultural Diversity.” Curriculum Inquiry, vol. 43, no. 1, 2013, pp. 48–70. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23524357

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What can this look like in CS in your school?

Acknowledge racism in CS and enact anti-racist practices in CS classrooms.
Create inclusive and equitable classroom cultures.
Pedagogy and curriculum are rigorous, relevant, and encourage socio-political critiques.
Student voice, agency, and self-determination are prioritized in CS classrooms.
Family and community cultural assets are incorporated in CS classrooms.
Diverse professionals and role models provide exposure to a range of CS careers.

Each core component has a course of action in the Kapor Center framework document.

In a breakout room, read your selected core component and discuss specific examples of courses of action that can be taken to implement it in CS.

The Kapor Center in California has written the “Culturally Responsive and Culturally Sustaining Computer Science Education framework” In it they have identified 6 components that should exist for culturally responsive CS education. [Read the 6 components]

For each component listed here, the Kapor Center has provided some possible courses of action. We are going to go into breakout rooms, each room will read the core component and courses of action for your room (your room number should be on the top left of your window when you are in the room). You will read and then you will discuss what can this look like in your school? Even if you are a predominantly white school, these are important for all students to hear in the course of learning CS.

I want to acknowledge that we are all at different levels of knowledge on anti-racist practices and comfort levels in discussing these topics. I admit that I am still learning so these discussions help us to open our minds to new possibilities. During your brainstorming we ask that you take an assets-based approach to counter the deficit-based approach that has historically been used to marginalize students of color, females, and other groups in CS.

Beginning on page 7 of the document. 10 minutes - we need 6 breakout groups

One note, when they talk about “white supremacy” they are not talking about “white supremacists” but rather the [quote] “idea that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to those of People of Color.” [endquote] (from The Standing Up for Racial Justice coalition)

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Share Out: Aha Moments

Acknowledge racism in CS and enact anti-racist practices in CS classrooms.
Create inclusive and equitable classroom cultures.
Pedagogy and curriculum are rigorous, relevant, and encourage socio-political critiques.
Student voice, agency, and self-determination are prioritized in CS classrooms.
Family and community cultural assets are incorporated in CS classrooms.
Diverse professionals and role models provide exposure to a range of CS careers.

Thank you for having these conversations. What Aha moment of insight or inspiration did you have? I’d love to hear one person from each group.

It’s important to revisit these components as you implement DLCS in your classrooms because most curricula are not yet culturally responsive and sustaining. This is an area where the teacher will probably need to supplement. Code.org has amazing videos with a diversity of ages, genders, ethnicities, and races - others may as well. Even if you do not select their curriculum, you can still use the videos to supplement the curriculum you do select. If the curriculum you select has videos that aren’t diverse, perhaps have your students re-record the videos, or create their own to supplement. That’s a great digital literacy activity.

One note, when they talk about “white supremacy” they are not talking about “white supremacists” but rather the [quote] “idea that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to those of People of Color.” [endquote] (from The Standing Up for Racial Justice coalition)

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Type in the Chat: What do you notice is different in these two character selection screens?

Tynker: not in Curriculum Guide

Scratch: in several curricula in the Curriculum Guide

Both from 2024!

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What are linguistically sustaining practices?

Promoting multilingualism as an asset
Distinguishing conversational proficiency from academic proficiency
Leveraging home language skills when learning a second language
Unpacking language expectations embedded in classroom tasks
Designing scaffolds and explicit language instruction for all students
Exploring diverse linguistic perspectives that affirm student identities

WIDA Guiding Principles of Language Development

Lucas, T. & Villegas, Ana. (2010). The Missing Piece in Teacher Education: The Preparation of Linguistically Responsive Teachers. National Society for the Study of Education. 109. 297-318. 10.1177/016146811011201402.

Image by storyset on Freepik

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How to use the Curriculum Guide

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If you’re following along in the PDF, look at page 3-4

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Comprehensive Curricula have an orange asterisk *

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Each Curriculum Has Details

Is it comprehensive?
Is it standalone or integrated?

What programming language does it use?
Does it align to the standards you need? (based on Gap Analysis)
How teacher-friendly is it?
What are the technology requirements?
What are the costs?

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The Appendix has important information!

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Detailed Standards Alignment

For each grade span, each curriculum has side-by-side notes on which standards it covers

Some curriculum like Be Internet Awesome has substantial coverage in just one area of the standards

Comprehensive curriculum like Code.org Computer Science Fundamentals has coverage in most areas of the standards

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Look for a strong horse, not a perfect unicorn

Major Tom | Bluey Wiki

Future Twilight Sparkle by MintyTreats31 on DeviantArt

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The CURATE rubric looks at curriculum aspects beyond standards

CUrriculum RAtings by TEachers (CURATE)

CURATE for DLCS

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With your district, compare the topics covered by each DLCS Comprehensive Curriculum option to your Gap Analysis

Discuss:

Which comprehensive curriculum seems best for you? Why?
What are other important factors beyond standards alignment?

Scroll down to see these questions in the document

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What are you looking for in a curriculum?

This grant covers classroom devices (excluding student computers) associated with the curriculum and PD, but not the cost of the curriculum

Complete the Curriculum Fair Preparation document to guide your selection and questions for vendors at the Curriculum Fair in March

If possible, please plan to bring a set of student devices with you in March to test out the materials with your district’s Chromebooks, etc

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Next CS Engage Events with NEW DATES

March Curriculum Fair, March 7, 11am - 2pm, Embassy Suites Marlborough
May DLCS Summit, May 23, 8am - 3pm, Doubletree Hilton Westborough
June “Intro to CS” PD, June 25-27, Devens Common Center

Recruit your finalized list of staff for the “Intro to CS” June workshop and let NJ know so that your budget for Fiscal Year 2024 can be adjusted correctly

It is okay if your original estimates were inaccurate, please just finalize and update them ASAP. Email nj.rees@mass.gov before Friday February 23rd

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Resource Links

Your District Folders: https://www.csforma.org/district-folders/

Curriculum Guide

Curriculum Fair Registration

DLCS Summit 2024 - Call for Presentations

DLCS K-12 Reading List