NSF Awards: 2118453
The Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education (AIICE) aims to increase the entry, retention, and course/degree completion rates of high-school and undergraduate students from groups that are historically underrepresented in computing through evidence-based, identity-inclusive interventions. AIICE’s collective impact approach to broadening participation convenes national leaders in K-16 CS education to transform high-school and postsecondary CS education using innovative strategies that target the people (educators), policies [state (K-12) and institutional (postsecondary) policies, as well as postsecondary accreditation criteria], and practices (classroom/department cultures) that directly impact student entry, retention, and course/degree completion.
Shaundra Daily
Professor of the Practice
We are thrilled to engage with you around AiiCE's approach to broadening participation in computing. We're in our first year, but excited for potential collaborations with folks who are excited to transform institutions to ensure that ALL students, no matter how they identify, can see themselves in computing. In additional to general feedback, we'd love to know:
Rebecca Dovi
Roxana Hadad
Associate Director
Excellent work, Shaundra! I'm curious about the policy development. What is the recommended process for changing policies? How can we make sure we aren't unintentionally creating policies that reinforce existing inequities, as so often happens with policies aimed at marginalized students?
Stacy Klein-Gardner
Alicia Washington
Professor of the Practice
The current policy under development is not aimed at marginalized students. We are working with ABET/CSAB, who is making policy level changes at the postsecondary level. There are also K-12 teacher advocacy toolkits and groups that are being developed for them to use in their districts/states.
Because we are still in Y1, these are our starting points. CSAB currently has a DEI committee that has worked for 2 years on updating harmonized/non-harmonized ABET criteria to be more inclusive of identity. I serve on that committee. This is also under public review until June. The committee has already made updates based on feedback received. We're leveraging the final version to also develop training of program evaluators and department heads on what this means and how to interpret them for their specific institutions.
Roxana Hadad
Associate Director
These advocacy toolkits are going to be incredibly useful, Nicki. Congratulations on such an exciting project!
Alicia Washington
Anita Crowder
This is such an important project. I look forward to seeing how your Alliance can help shift the attitudes inherent in the environment, not just those of the marginalized students.
Shaundra Daily
Professor of the Practice
Thanks Anita. Yes! That's exactly our focus - moving away from "fixing" marginalized students and focusing on the environment itself.
Rebecca Dovi
Anita Crowder
Emily McLeod
Director of Teaching and Learning, Code.org
Hi, Shaundra, thanks for sharing your project—work to make computer science education more inclusive is so critical to the future of the field, and I love that you are focused on systemic change rather than asking students to adapt. I’d love to learn more about your plans for this work, though I know it is early days! What is your planned approach to supporting educators to create more inclusive environments, and will that approach be the same for high school and postsecondary? Have you identified the kinds of policy changes you’ll be targeting? Looking ahead to outcomes, how will you be measuring the impact of the Alliance? Look forward to learning more about this important work!
Rosa Alfaro
Rebecca Dovi
Shaundra Daily
Professor of the Practice
Thanks, Emily. Great questions.
Our alliance has 4 constellations made up of partners tackling things in different ways, and strategies may differ between k-12 and higher ed. There are many different projects, but I'll share a few below.
Training, led by Dr. Valerie Barr, will be looking at higher education (faculty, staff, grad students) through the 3C fellows program out of Duke as well as TA training through Mount Holyoke's MaGE.
Policy, led by Dr. Nicki Washington, will be working with ABET (through CSAB) to incorporate DEI into higher ed policies in higher ed and at the k-12 with CSTA's initiatives. Policies might be at the classroom level up to the institution level and will be focused on ensuring students with marginalized identities have equitable access and opportunities.
Dr. Joanna Goode is leading Curricula and Pedagogy, which will include a number of efforts at k-12 levels as well as collaboration with higher ed to bridge efforts that incorporate identity into curricula.
Dr. Allison Scott (Kapor) oversees Research. This really informs the other constellations with respect to best practices in this space.
Finally, DO-IT will be ensuring that constellations are paying attention to disability and accessibility throughout.
We're developing shared measures now, but intend to look beyond head counts to measures such as cultural competence and climate to understand impact.
Stacy Klein-Gardner
Jan Cuny
Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
Those were great questions Emily. The answers show a really thoughtful approach and a terrific set of collaborators.
Shaundra Daily
Alicia Washington
Emily McLeod
Director of Teaching and Learning, Code.org
Agreed, Jan -- what a superstar team to be working on this important issue! Can't wait to see what the outcomes are as the project ramps up.
Shaundra Daily
Stacy Klein-Gardner
Great project! I am excited about some of the common themes with the Engineering for US All (e4usa) project in engineering and Youth Engineering Solutions (YES) in engineering and computational thinking. I would love to hear more about your planned K-12 projects that will help bring in identity development in CS curricula.
Shaundra Daily
Professor of the Practice
Thanks, Stacy! I think you would be very interested in things happening with CSTA. They will have monthly webinars on identity-inclusive topics, an annual summit for high school teacher professional development, and an advocacy toolkit to support k-12 policy change. If you have activities that are focused on people, policies and practices, I'm sure there's overlap. Happy to discuss more.
Kristina Anna Kramarczuk
Thank you for sharing (and creating) this important project. What I appreciate most is that you are targeting the system and drawing attention to the fact that short-term DEI approaches are temporary fixes to a system that harmfully marginalizes and excludes many students (especially when the system is narrowed down to the computing community). I am looking forward to seeing the types of policy changes that you promote/develop for the higher ed level and am interested in how you will get faculty to commit to these changes. In response to Dr. Shaundra Daily's response to one of the previous questions, I was wondering if the work by Dr. Washington and Dr. Goode will be coordinated, and if so, what that might look like when trying to make sure the policies are interpreted and enacted in meaningful ways by other stakeholders?
Alicia Washington
Alicia Washington
Professor of the Practice
Thanks Kristina. Yes, we are working together.
Re: higher ed and faculty commitment, this is the reason we have CSAB as a partner. Given the forthcoming changes to ABET program/general criteria wrt DEI, Donna Reese (CSAB and Sr. Personnel on this project) and I are both part of the CSAB DEI committee. We will be working to ensure evaluators/departments have resources and training to help shift this.
Also, as we all know, when ABET mandates it, departments (and faculty) move.
Jan Cuny
Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
Emily's question above on asks about how you will know that you're succeeding. That's a very tough question, especially in an organization with so many moving parts. Certainly not necessary (or likely) that you've at the 1 year mark but as the Alliance grows and its need for funding continues, it will be critical. Do you have any initial ideas about how even to go about coming up with answers on this one?
Shaundra Daily
Professor of the Practice
Jan, definitely a tough question, and we are working through what this will look like in collaboration with a number of partners including the Kapor Center. We expect there will be more short term outcomes related to numbers of people interacting with alliance activities, increased knowledge and self-efficacy, and potential implementation of new policies and practices. But we also believe there will be impacts related to climate in departments/classrooms, cultural competence of educators/administrators, as well as increased participation in courses, more people entering majors, and retention. It's VERY messy, with lots of confounds; however, we're working on various strategies to better understand how this approach ultimately leads to inclusive computing environments/institutions.
Jan Cuny
Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
Yes. It's messy. You might want to look at what some of the NSF BPC Alliance or INCLUDES projects are doing but in general, I think they are encountering the same kinds of issues. You might also look more closely at a small group of institutions as they participate in AIICE activities.
Shaundra Daily
Cali Anicha
Great beginning question: "What do computer scientists look like?" - really surfaces our stereotypes... Also very heartening that you are looking beyond the 'traditional solutions' - which may be important and beneficial - just not beneficial enough! I appreciated the inclusion of images of disability (wheelchair users) -- It is important to include disability as one intersectional aspect of diversity - one that often includes a marginalized identity as a disabled student or scholar.
Our project also focuses on systemic/structural issues - with disability at the center!
https://stemforall2022.videohall.com/presentati...
Shaundra Daily
Professor of the Practice
Thanks for your comment. Yes! We are familiar with your work and very excited to have Do-IT as partners in the alliance.
Jan Cuny
Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
AIICE seems off to a great start. THANKS for the work you're doing!
Shaundra Daily
Alan Peterfreund
Great video. As part of the the ENgineering PLUS INCUDES Alliance (also in year 1) we too are looking not just at tracking progress but also how to better connect people to easy to use data that can be localized and actionable. One excellent tool that has been expanded to include engineering is bpcnet.org/statistics
Claire Duggan
Shaundra Daily
Professor of the Practice
Thanks for the pointer!
Nuria Jaumot-Pascual
Such a well made video! Loved the drawing hand and the images you used.
I appreciated how you separated the "traditional solutions" and your project's vision. If mentoring, affinity groups, panels, and identity-based programming are traditional, are the project's vision "non-traditional solutions"? The video mentions "identity-inclusive strategies." Do you have examples of what those strategies might look like?
Thanks again you for sharing this video. I look forward to learning more about AIICE.
Shaundra Daily
Professor of the Practice
Thanks for your response. Our co-presenter, Dominique, is an UG student in CS with an amazingly creative eye. We're proud of the work she does.
With respect to the shift, it's related to focusing on institutional transformation rather than more student-focused activities. We are not saying student-focused activities are wrong (all of us create and invent them actively), we're saying we have to do what you've referred to as non-traditional as well.
These activities focus on people, policies and practices.
The Cultural Competence in Computing (3C) Fellows program supports grad students, faculty, and admin in their understanding of identity as they develop new modules, courses, workshops, and policies. Check out our Twitter feed (@identityincs) for examples.
Claire Duggan
Great video, How you addressing the barriers to admission to Computer Science programs? Are you collaborating with STEM PUSH and their work? https://www.stempushnetwork.org/
"The STEM PUSH, an NSF INCLUDES Alliance, is a national network of of pre-college STEM programs, STEM and culturally responsive pedagogy experts, formal and informal education practitioners, college admissions professionals, the accreditation sector, and other higher education representatives. It is establishing a powerful collaborative improvement space using the networked improvement community (NIC) model and a “next generation” accreditation model that will serve as a mechanism for communicating the power of precollege programs to admissions offices."
Shaundra Daily
Professor of the Practice
By barriers do you mean enrollment caps? Entry exams? GPA requirements? Our partner, the Center for Inclusive Computing, works directly on these challenges. We're only in our first year, and working to get infrastructure in place, so we not currently collaborating with STEM PUSH; however, we are familiar with their activities and hope to do so.