NSF Awards: 2122511
This video provides an overview of the need for professional development and coaching around equity in Computer Science. The aim is to help viewers understand the "Coaching for Equity" project, on whole, which was launched in January of 2022.
A walkthrough of the video: We will first define the problem we are addressing in coaching for computer science and give a high-level explanation of our approach and methodologies. It will also highlight the perceived benefits and ways to engage both coaches and teachers throughout the project timeline. We will include a mix of classroom footage, voice-overs, brief interviews with team members, and graphics related to the data and our methods of approach.
Would you like to learn more? Please take a moment to watch and see how you can get involved. If you have comments or questions, please post them and we’ll be sure to follow up!
Valerie Lockhart
Executive Director - Code Savvy
Thank you so much for checking out our video!
Coaching for Equity in Computer Science is just kicking off, but we are so excited about the impact we will have over the next three years.
We are still recruiting teachers who are interested in receiving coaching through our programs (both nationwide and those focused in Minnesota) so please share this video with anyone who may be interested. You can also contact us through our website: https://www.cscoachingforequity.org/
Emily McLeod
Director of Teaching and Learning, Code.org
Thank you for sharing this project—effective supports for teachers are a crucial component of sustaining CS programs over time, and I appreciate the focus on equitable teaching practices. I’m curious to learn a little more about the audience for your coaching program—is it designed for new CS teachers, or experienced CS teachers? (Or both!) Is CS content a focus of the project or is it primarily about using equitable teaching practices?
Jennifer Rosato
Director
Thanks for checking out the video, Emily! I think the coaching focus will be driven in part by the goals the teacher sets for the year. They will need to include a goal around equitable teaching practices, but we want to address content challenges if they have them as well. Content is not a requirement, though. We're still trying to figure out exactly how to set those guidelines for the coachee, so if you have any suggestions, please share!
Roxana Hadad
Associate Director
Fantastic project. Coaching is such an effective model, and we really need an approach that prioritizes equity in CS. Can you talk more about what the training for the coaches looks like?
Pauline Lake
Curriculum and PD Coordinator
Hi Roxana! We are currently planning a 23.5 hour virtual training for coaches in summer 2022. It will be split into four days of sessions that will introduce the coaches to the project as well help them understand what effective coaching is as well as understand the coaching process (cycles). Our plan is to also include some sessions that will help the coaches understand how equity can be addressed in coaching, especially around supporting our three target student populations (i.e. females, students with disabilities, and english learners). The summer training is just the beginning though as we hope to help build a professional learning community among the coaches on an ongoing basis throughout the academic year. Since we'll be virtual, we're also looking into doing some asynchronous work such as a book reading. We'd love to hear your suggestions for book readings if you have them.
Roxana Hadad
Associate Director
This sounds excellent, Pauline! I want to take part myself!
I would highly recommend Stuck in the Shallow End and/or Power On! for book readings. I might be biased because they are written by my brilliant colleagues at UCLA Jane Margolis and Jean Ryoo, but I genuinely think they would be great for this purpose.
Emily McLeod
Pauline Lake
Pauline Lake
Curriculum and PD Coordinator
We invite you and others in your network to sign up https://www.cscoachingforequity.org/get-involved
Excellent recommendations! We're actually including the Power On! book for our PD Facilitator orientation this weekend and have it on the list to consider for this project as well.
Roxana Hadad
Associate Director
Thank you, Pauline! To clarify, is this only open to educators in MN, or our California educators can sign up, as well?
Pauline Lake
Curriculum and PD Coordinator
We have two programs that we are developing: Code Savvy is specifically for MN teachers and NCCSE's is national. California educators are welcome to apply to be coaches with NCCSE or they can apply to be coached through the NCCSE program if they are teaching AP CSA or AP CSP in 2022-23.
Roxana Hadad
Associate Director
Fantastic! Thank you, Pauline! We at CS Equity Project at UCLA are interested in coaching administrators, so I'm very curious about the structure of your training. This is super exciting!
Lawanda Cummings
We have been working with corporate partners to begin the process of incorporating CS educational into our STEM offerings. This is amazing and I love the focus on sustained supp
Jan Cuny
Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
Interesting project, nice that you are combining it with an equity approach. Realizing that it's still early days on this project, how do you plan to evaluate success? In particular are you going to do any classroom observations to see whether or not the equity training affects a teacher's practice?
Jennifer Rosato
Director
Hi Jan! The coaches will be doing the observations of the teachers and the research team will be looking at the artifacts from the observations. We are planning to use CSTA's CS Instructional Practice Evidence Guide (look for tool) for the observations. The coaches will use this with the teacher to provide feedback directed at the goals the teacher had for the lesson. The researchers will sample some of the videos from the remote coaching and if possible attend a few of the in person teaching ones as well to review the use of the tool and see if coach ratings are consistent with what researchers observe as well. We intend to go over this as part of the coach professional development so we can develop some consistency in using it.
Jan Cuny
Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
Sounds like a good approach. Looking forward to seeing the results.
Jan Cuny
Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
Long term, have you thought about your coaching activities might play out? Would they be implemented by school districts? What about rural districts -- would their teachers be paired with remote coaches? How will coaches be recruited given the crushing amount of work that teachers already do? How will they be vetted?
Jennifer Rosato
Director
Long-term, we are hoping that the coaching professional development can be scaled and offered to schools who would like to develop their own coaching programs. I think there will always be schools where providing CS-specific coaching will be a difficult ask so having a remote coaching option, e.g. for teachers in smaller, rural schools, is something that NCCSE could provide as a service to the community.
Coaches are being recruited from alumni of our existing professional development programs (both Code Savvy and NCCSE) and are being screened against skills identified in the literature about what makes an effective coach (relationship building, asking questions, etc.) I think we will learn quite a bit in this first year about the recruiting and screening process and be able to improve it for the second cohort of coaches.