What type of activities are taking place in the informal learning spaces? How many children that are getting exposure to the CS materials at the library or in the Girls and Boys Club opting to take formal CS classes at school? How do you track the students progress? Finally, does the library staff or volunteers have any active role in the work the students are doing in the computer lab? Very interested to hear more!

Hello Lori - this project sounds very interesting.  I believe that reaching out to students at younger ages about computer science is important and helping them experience computational practices in a variety of settings is beneficial to expand their perspective of what computer science is and who does it. 

How are you adapting a year long curriculum into activities that are meaningful to students so the activities preserve the equity, inquiry and connections to cs concepts with this model?

I'm also interested to hear how the program is set up with students who might be  coming some days and not others or how you manage the learning progression for students to feel successful with computer science concepts and applying them to a variety of situations. 

We have an educational researcher, computer science education expert, and community culture expert working together along with student testing of materials as we go, to take units and make them community-focused project themes and adapted to informal project-based learning after school.

We have to ensure that activities have several options to them so those students who have been there before can continue to another option while others will start with earlier options.  It is very project-based learning.

Thanks for the further insight.  I'm interested to hear how it goes and see what adaptions you make to the curriculum to adapt it for informal PBL after school situations.

I really like the idea of working with middle school students to provide exposure and guidance with computer science. This is largely based on the curriculum and resources that I know are available and also because this is a critical time in their education where they will begin solidifying their notions of disciplines and studies. Exploring Computer Science is certainly an excellent curriculum and I very much think the equity and engagement approach is really good. Does the project have feedback from students about the curriculum and how it helped to increase interest in STEM or CS? I think this would really be great to share with the community for others to learn from. Great project! 

Hi Lien, we will begin implementation this summer/Fall but based on prior NSF supported work, we know that exposure to CS in those middle school years does influence student attitudes towards CS and STEM broadly. To find out about our work in formal settings you can also check out our NSF Partner4CS project (http://sites.udel.edu/partner4cs/). Thanks for stopping by.