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  1. Ari Krakowski
  2. Learning Labs and Digital Learning Director
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley
  1. Eric Greenwald
  2. Director of Assessment and Analytics
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS

Coding Science Internships: Authentic learning experiences to support student...

NSF Awards: 1657002

2020 (see original presentation & discussion)

Grades 6-8

The Coding Science Internships project aims to create and research simulated internship curriculum units that confront barriers to broader participation in computer science and position coding as a tool for doing science. The curricular resources engage middle school students in code-to-learn experiences in which they deepen their science understanding while they develop computational thinking and core programming practices. By integrating coding within core science courses and providing teachers with structured, educative curriculum materials, the Internships are designed to expand participation in coding beyond self-selected populations and build teacher capacity for integrating computer science concepts and practices in science courses.


The two Coding Science Internships that we are developing and researching are designed to provide a motivating, student-centered learning experience in which students work collaboratively to address meaningful real-world problems. The first unit, framed around coral ecosystem restoration, emphasizes coding concepts related to sequencing, loops, conditionals, and modeling. As an example, student intern teams use evidence and real-world data to program a scientific simulation to represent a coral reef ecosystem under threat. The purpose of the simulation is to communicate to stakeholders how various threats affect the health of a coral reef and how those threats may be mitigated. Students also gain first-hand experience with sequences, loops, and conditionals as they write code to program underwater robots to remove threats in variable conditions. The second unit, framed around air quality, focuses on coding concepts related to data analysis and visualization, abstraction, and modularity to engage students in coding data visualizations using real EPA air quality data. A core goal is to enable students to experience some of the increasingly prevalent ways that computer science is integrated into the work of scientists.

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Discussion from the 2020 STEM For All Video Showcase (19 posts)
  • Icon for: Ari Krakowski

    Ari Krakowski

    Lead Presenter
    Learning Labs and Digital Learning Director
    May 5, 2020 | 01:33 a.m.

    Thank you for visiting the Coding Science Internships project video. Our video describes the goals of our project and the design principles informing our work, and shows some of the features of the two Coding Science Internship units. We have completed research trials for the first unit, and you can read more about our findings at http://bit.ly/CodingScienceInternships

    Please chat with us in the forum—we’d love to hear from you! We are especially interested in discussion regarding integration of computational thinking and coding concepts with other disciplines, such as science. Or, please feel free to comment or ask questions on any aspect of our project.

    Thanks!

  • Icon for: David Andrews

    David Andrews

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 7, 2020 | 11:40 a.m.

    Ari,

    Excellent concept. The idea of students becoming familiar with and understanding the power of computer coding at a young age will give them such a leg up in future years and open doors to exciting careers in many areas. Nice job!

  • Icon for: Sarah Young

    Sarah Young

    Facilitator
    Director of Strategic Initiatives
    May 5, 2020 | 12:06 p.m.

    What a great video, I appreciate you sharing a link to learn more.

    I am curious about your framing of the students as "interns". I thought the approach was so clever, and was curious to know more about the choice and how that supports your efforts in broadening participation? 

  • Icon for: Ari Krakowski

    Ari Krakowski

    Lead Presenter
    Learning Labs and Digital Learning Director
    May 5, 2020 | 02:21 p.m.

    Hi Sarah, 

    Thanks! The framing of the students as interns builds on previous work creating and researching digital engineering internships, where middle school science students work as interns in a virtual engineering firm (Futura--the same firm in the video here). 

    We've found that the internship approach is helpful in a number of ways: 1) By contextualizing the coding that students (as interns) do in a workplace environment, we hope to shift perceptions of what real CS workplaces are like, and the applications of coding work. 2) The internship puts students at the center of the action--as interns, they receive work direction from a project director, and collaborate with their intern colleagues (peers) to complete their work; 3) the teacher acts as Internship Coordinator, which enables the teacher to play a role of "guide on the side." This enables science teachers--many of whom have had little or no previous coding experience--to feel more comfortable learning alongside their students. This approach supports a central project goal--to build capacity of teachers to support integration of CS education in science courses.

    Here is the Digital Engineering Internship STEM showcase video from 2017 if you're curious to learn more: https://multiplex.videohall.com/presentations/941

    Best,

    Ari

     

     
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    Sarah Young
  • Icon for: Dave Miller

    Dave Miller

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 5, 2020 | 12:58 p.m.

    Terrific project, Ari & Eric. Thanks for sharing it! I'm wondering if Eric's opening comments in the video are suggestive of a pilot curriculum and/or forthcoming set of lesson plans? I'll check out your bit.ly link to learn a bit more.  These are the sorts of projects and insights that we like to share with our NSF Noyce program MTF fellows at the University of Rochester.

  • Icon for: Eric Greenwald

    Eric Greenwald

    Co-Presenter
    Director of Assessment and Analytics
    May 5, 2020 | 02:58 p.m.

    Hi Dave, Thanks for your interest! We've done extensive piloting of the Coral Restoration unit and are developing both it and the Air Quality lesson sequence as publishable curricular units--complete with teacher guides and educative materials--for middle school science classrooms. We expect to see the Coral-focused unit released with Amplify Science sometime during the next academic year (timing TBD). We are hoping to see the Air Quality unit released in the following year (2021/2022)--we have done a round of piloting with it, and we were all set to run a larger research trial of it this spring when COVID-19 hit. We will be running that research effort in the fall instead. Perhaps there is a way your group can get involved with the fall pilots--let's stay in touch!

  • Icon for: Jennifer Vermillion

    Jennifer Vermillion

    Facilitator
    Director of Innovative Teaching and Learning
    May 5, 2020 | 01:24 p.m.

    What a great opportunity for students to discover the relevance of computer science and to connect with mentors! What strategies did you find most effective for facilitating student collaboration? 

  • Icon for: Ari Krakowski

    Ari Krakowski

    Lead Presenter
    Learning Labs and Digital Learning Director
    May 5, 2020 | 02:51 p.m.

    Thanks Jennifer! Students use pair programming throughout the unit, which many in the field have employed to support collaborative work. Through iterative piloting of the curriculum units, we also learned how critical it is to go beyond pair programming. We designed the lessons to feature explicit instruction, norms, and routines to support collaboration. Both of the units also feature intentional collaboration structures that support peer discourse and collaboration--in particular, students use a Critiquing Code discourse routine as they code, where they work together to analyze and improve their code throughout the units. 

  • Icon for: Janice Cuny

    Janice Cuny

    Facilitator
    Global DIrestor of Align
    May 6, 2020 | 04:09 p.m.

    These lessons look terrific! Can you tell me more about the PD and support that teachers get in implementing them?

     

  • Icon for: Ari Krakowski

    Ari Krakowski

    Lead Presenter
    Learning Labs and Digital Learning Director
    May 11, 2020 | 12:23 p.m.

    Hi, and thanks! To develop the professional learning resources, we worked closely with our partner district in Washington state, who have been early implementers and leaders in bringing CS education into K-12 schools and integrating CS in core curricula. We developed a professional learning workshop that was conducted in person with participating teachers, as well as a PL website with resources for teachers to access to support them while they were teaching. Teachers were also able to reach us directly while implementing the lessons for additional support.

  • Icon for: Sarah Krejci

    Sarah Krejci

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 7, 2020 | 10:40 a.m.

    I really like the user friendly workspace that you created for this! It's graphic and the drag and drop components make it accessible then traditional coding.

    Did you develop the program yourselves, or did you modify an existing software?

  • Icon for: Ari Krakowski

    Ari Krakowski

    Lead Presenter
    Learning Labs and Digital Learning Director
    May 11, 2020 | 12:37 p.m.

    Thanks Sarah! The team developed the visual interface by building off of available block libraries and then creating custom components (like highlighting lines of code as they are executed, creating an intentional rollout of code blocks to reduce cognitive load as students build their understanding, and developing differentiated resources within the coding tools). 

  • Icon for: Rebecca Lugo

    Rebecca Lugo

    K-12 Teacher
    May 8, 2020 | 03:04 p.m.

    This is a great project and hits close to home for me! I teach 2nd grade science in NYC (using Amplify), and I also teach coding through a variety of platforms. I am a huge proponent of integrating subject-area content, particularly science, into computer science. That said, time always seems to be an issue.

    How does the internship fit into the science curriculum? Do the students receive the science content and the CS content simultaneously? Or is the internship presented as a culminating activity for a unit? I'm also wondering if you've considered creating these types of experiences at the elementary level. I have some pretty savvy coders in fourth and fifth grade, and I can see pair programming being an extremely powerful experience in this kind of internship setting. 

  • Icon for: Ari Krakowski

    Ari Krakowski

    Lead Presenter
    Learning Labs and Digital Learning Director
    May 11, 2020 | 12:48 p.m.

    Couldn't agree more, Rebecca--time is a scarce resource with the ambitious demands placed on science classrooms to meet the NGSS. The Coding Science Internship units enable students to deepen their understanding of the integrated science concepts and provide a deep dive on science and engineering practices (like Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking,Developing and Using Models, and Analyzing and Interpreting Data). Both units also engage students in learning about Engineering concepts. The science and engineering content is integrated with the CS content--coding is framed as a tool for doing science. 

    From our experiences in a variety of classrooms, we know that students have a wide range of coding experience. You're right that the Coding Science Internship units could certainly be a good fit for some upper elementary classrooms. Please feel free to email me at akrakowski@berkeley.edu if you want to discuss further!

  • Icon for: Rebecca Lugo

    Rebecca Lugo

    K-12 Teacher
    May 11, 2020 | 03:52 p.m.

    Thank you! I appreciate your response. I will be in touch! In the meantime, please take a moment to check out our video regarding our work as Master Teaching Fellows at CUNY-CSI. We focused on uncovering students' naive theories this year and the variety of ways we can construct correct meaning.

  • Icon for: Janice Cuny

    Janice Cuny

    Facilitator
    Global DIrestor of Align
    May 10, 2020 | 10:09 p.m.

    Thanks to the whole team for putting this video together and for the great work that you're doing. I really like the idea of framing the experience as an internship!

  • Icon for: Ari Krakowski

    Ari Krakowski

    Lead Presenter
    Learning Labs and Digital Learning Director
    May 11, 2020 | 12:48 p.m.

    Thanks Janice!

  • Icon for: Michael I. Swart

    Michael I. Swart

    Researcher
    May 11, 2020 | 01:27 p.m.

    Integrating coding instruction into science courses... Supports for teachers, contextualized learning, breaking down barriers to STEM access - this is great. 

    Are there pedagogical constructs within the Critiquing Code discourse that you track with outcomes? Features of the pedagogy/curricula that you think are impacting student participation and learning? Teacher learning & implementation? 

  • Icon for: Eric Greenwald

    Eric Greenwald

    Co-Presenter
    Director of Assessment and Analytics
    May 11, 2020 | 01:47 p.m.

    Hi Michael, Thanks for the questions! We are exploring curricular implementation and the impact of specific instructional moves through observations, daily teacher logs and a daily student engagement survey (using an instrument from ActivationLab.org, which is predictive of student learning gains). We should have early findings about implementation from our Coral Reef unit ready to share sometime this summer; research on the Air Quality Data unit (originally scheduled for this spring) is being delayed to the fall. Please stay tuned!

     

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