The non-profit Mississippi Coding Academy "Enhanced Mississippi Model" is providing pathways to computing education and jobs through technical training, real-world experience through Mississippi Code Works, and engagement of high school students through TechShare synchronous on-line learning opportunities. MCA has launched a for-profit software development company, MS CodeWorks, whose profits will fund our graduates in an apprenticeship-type role and will provide revenue for MCA sustainability. We have also launched a TechShare program, that has placed MCA synchronous virtual learning nodes in two high schools so far, Columbus High School in Columbus MS and the Choctaw Tribal high school.
Computer Science, Broadening Participation, Workforce Development
Miss Coding Academies, Mississippi State
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (INCLUDES), EPSCoR Research Infrastructure (EPSCoR)
Related Content for Mississippi Coding Academies: The Enhanced MS Model
Discussion from the 2021 STEM For All Video Showcase (16 posts)
Sarah Lee
Lead Presenter Director
May 10, 2021 | 03:42 p.m.
Welcome to our video about the Mississippi Coding Academies! We are growing rapidly, and we are very interested in growth beyond Mississippi. We look forward to your questions and feedback.
PATRICK HONNER
Facilitator Teacher
May 11, 2021 | 09:04 a.m.
Hi-
It seems like this program first found success as a vocational training program. As you have expanded into high schools, is the mission the same? Is the focus in these HS programs also vocational training?
And it’s fascinating that you’ve started your own for-profit software development company. How many MCA graduates do you employ?
1
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Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee
Lead Presenter Director
May 11, 2021 | 09:25 a.m.
Hi Patrick, Thank you for stopping by our video!
Our TechShare program in the high schools provides an onramp to the coding academies and to higher ed. Working with school administrators, we are trying to generate interest in computing in high school seniors before they graduate, with a goal of them transitioning into a coding academy or higher ed for further skills development. By introducing this content while they are still in high school, we seek to develop self-efficacy, interest, and excitement with computing in the learners who might otherwise not see this as a pathway.
We are non-profit training entity than owns a software development company; more often we see a for-profit that develops a training arm. Right now, as we are in start-up bootstrap mode, we are employing six of our learners in part-time positions.
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patrick honner
Marion Usselman
Facilitator Associate Director, and Principal Research Scientist
May 11, 2021 | 02:54 p.m.
Thanks for this inspiring work. What types of projects has MS Codeworks taken on? Have you cultivated a set of businesses that are willing to partner with you to help develop talent? This seems like a great onramp into the field.
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Sarah Lee
Richard Sun
May 11, 2021 | 04:15 p.m.
MS CodeWorks is starting with front-end web design, including the research site for the Eudora Welty Foundation. We expect to grow into more complex projects over time. With Amazon AWS Educate, we will be a single, direct path from their first lines of code to Senior Dev Ops Engineer. Over 40 companies and 60 IT professionals have partnered with us for guest lectures, evaluations of coders; over 40 companies have hired our coders.
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Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee
Lead Presenter Director
May 11, 2021 | 08:36 p.m.
Thanks Rich, for sharing this information. And thank you Marion for visiting our video! Rich is a critical member of our leadership team for MS CodeWorks.
Khyati Sanjana
Facilitator Senior Manager
May 12, 2021 | 11:06 p.m.
Love the TechShare program with the High Schools. I am curious if you have collected any data on the impact of this program. Who provides the synchronous instruction to the high school students? Are they graduates of the Academies?
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Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee
Lead Presenter Director
May 13, 2021 | 08:52 a.m.
Thank you for stopping by our video!
We launched TechShare in January of this year, so we do not yet have any data yet to share on the impact. The instruction is provided synchronously online by an instructor at one of our full-time coding academy locations. We currently have two of those locations: Starkville MS and Jackson MS.
However, I like the idea of having coding academy graduates providing or assisting with that instruction. The Columbus Municipal School District hired one of our coding academy graduates as a coding facilitator for K-12. The facilitator works with teachers throughout the district to incorporate computational thinking in their content areas, and she worked with the high school TechShare learners. As we expand the TechShare model, we are considering a coding academy graduate to assist a senior instructor with providing that content to high school nodes.
Laura Santhanam
Health Reporter & Coordinating Producer for Polling
As someone born and raised in Mississippi, it is wonderful to see such a project underway. Can you reflect on how this project complements current efforts to expand access to broadband internet and what challenges remain?
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Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee
Lead Presenter Director
May 13, 2021 | 09:40 a.m.
Hi Laura, Thank you for stopping by our video. Access to broadband internet is something I am very passionate about!
We are demonstrating that tech is not just for Silicon Valley & Alley. We add to the public recognition that broad band investment is spending that facilitates a proven local capability. That proof has come through:
Enabling underserved recent high school grads in Mississippi to become full-stack coders in 11-months (almost 100 so far)
Being one of 10 finalists out of 190 submissions in MIT Solve Reimagining Pathways to Employment in the US, and
Being among 10 teams out of 118 Qualifying Submissions from 360 teams in XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling.
Our Jackson MS site transitioned from face-to-face to virtual almost seamlessly in March 2020 because the local cable company have provided $8 a month internet to low-income families. (They, COMCAST, also funded our evening program.) Our Golden Triangle site had a greater rural student base, demonstrating the need for rural broadband when forced to convert to virtual due to COVID restrictions.
This is really interesting to me and aligns with a couple projects on which I'm currently working. I'm curious about your relationships with employers in MS and if you use their input to help develop your curriculum.
Sarah Lee
Lead Presenter Director
May 17, 2021 | 04:59 p.m.
Abigail, thank you so much for stopping by our video. Rich Sun, another member of the MS Coding Academy leadership team, offered some great information in the comment below in response to your question. I would love to hear more about your projects that align with this work.
One project is explained in our video. The other is looking at Ohio's network of technical centers. They have really high completion and placement rates vs. Ohio's community colleges. We're trying to learn what strategies they're using to help learners overcome barriers and support them from enrollment through program completion and job placement.
1
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Sarah Lee
Richard Sun
May 17, 2021 | 03:58 p.m.
Over the course of our cohort in Jackson we have:
30-40 guest lectures by employers and independent coders,
40-60 IT professionals as evaluators in project presentations by coders,
company visits,
internships,
part-time tech employment,
HT pros give interviewing, LinkedIn, and resume coaching one-one and to the group, and
about half our instructors are full-time developers teaching part-time with us.
We have three sets of evaluations each are three days, with 15-20 IT professionals participating. Each coder presents a project of theirs and discusses it with and defends it to the evaluators. We have people hired out of those presentations. After presentations, our instructors and the industry evaluators discuss our curriculum, methods, adjustments, industry trends.
Curious if you are the only software school in Mississippi? Are there ways to mobilize?
Sarah Lee
Lead Presenter Director
May 18, 2021 | 04:17 p.m.
Hi Megan,
Thank you for stopping by our video! The Mississippi Coding Academies model was based on Basecamp Coding Academy (https://basecampcodingacademy.org/), also located in Mississippi, with attention to scaling.
By mobilize, do you mean scaling? We have been evaluating options for replicating the program outside of Mississippi. Let me know if I missed the point of that second question!
Sarah Lee
Director
Welcome to our video about the Mississippi Coding Academies! We are growing rapidly, and we are very interested in growth beyond Mississippi. We look forward to your questions and feedback.
PATRICK HONNER
Teacher
Hi-
It seems like this program first found success as a vocational training program. As you have expanded into high schools, is the mission the same? Is the focus in these HS programs also vocational training?
And it’s fascinating that you’ve started your own for-profit software development company. How many MCA graduates do you employ?
Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee
Director
Hi Patrick, Thank you for stopping by our video!
Our TechShare program in the high schools provides an onramp to the coding academies and to higher ed. Working with school administrators, we are trying to generate interest in computing in high school seniors before they graduate, with a goal of them transitioning into a coding academy or higher ed for further skills development. By introducing this content while they are still in high school, we seek to develop self-efficacy, interest, and excitement with computing in the learners who might otherwise not see this as a pathway.
We are non-profit training entity than owns a software development company; more often we see a for-profit that develops a training arm. Right now, as we are in start-up bootstrap mode, we are employing six of our learners in part-time positions.
patrick honner
Marion Usselman
Associate Director, and Principal Research Scientist
Thanks for this inspiring work. What types of projects has MS Codeworks taken on? Have you cultivated a set of businesses that are willing to partner with you to help develop talent? This seems like a great onramp into the field.
Sarah Lee
Richard Sun
MS CodeWorks is starting with front-end web design, including the research site for the Eudora Welty Foundation. We expect to grow into more complex projects over time. With Amazon AWS Educate, we will be a single, direct path from their first lines of code to Senior Dev Ops Engineer. Over 40 companies and 60 IT professionals have partnered with us for guest lectures, evaluations of coders; over 40 companies have hired our coders.
Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee
Director
Thanks Rich, for sharing this information. And thank you Marion for visiting our video! Rich is a critical member of our leadership team for MS CodeWorks.
Khyati Sanjana
Senior Manager
Love the TechShare program with the High Schools. I am curious if you have collected any data on the impact of this program. Who provides the synchronous instruction to the high school students? Are they graduates of the Academies?
Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee
Director
Thank you for stopping by our video!
We launched TechShare in January of this year, so we do not yet have any data yet to share on the impact. The instruction is provided synchronously online by an instructor at one of our full-time coding academy locations. We currently have two of those locations: Starkville MS and Jackson MS.
However, I like the idea of having coding academy graduates providing or assisting with that instruction. The Columbus Municipal School District hired one of our coding academy graduates as a coding facilitator for K-12. The facilitator works with teachers throughout the district to incorporate computational thinking in their content areas, and she worked with the high school TechShare learners. As we expand the TechShare model, we are considering a coding academy graduate to assist a senior instructor with providing that content to high school nodes.
Laura Santhanam
As someone born and raised in Mississippi, it is wonderful to see such a project underway. Can you reflect on how this project complements current efforts to expand access to broadband internet and what challenges remain?
Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee
Director
Hi Laura, Thank you for stopping by our video. Access to broadband internet is something I am very passionate about!
We are demonstrating that tech is not just for Silicon Valley & Alley. We add to the public recognition that broad band investment is spending that facilitates a proven local capability. That proof has come through:
Our Jackson MS site transitioned from face-to-face to virtual almost seamlessly in March 2020 because the local cable company have provided $8 a month internet to low-income families. (They, COMCAST, also funded our evening program.) Our Golden Triangle site had a greater rural student base, demonstrating the need for rural broadband when forced to convert to virtual due to COVID restrictions.
Abigail Helsinger
This is really interesting to me and aligns with a couple projects on which I'm currently working. I'm curious about your relationships with employers in MS and if you use their input to help develop your curriculum.
Sarah Lee
Director
Abigail, thank you so much for stopping by our video. Rich Sun, another member of the MS Coding Academy leadership team, offered some great information in the comment below in response to your question. I would love to hear more about your projects that align with this work.
Abigail Helsinger
One project is explained in our video. The other is looking at Ohio's network of technical centers. They have really high completion and placement rates vs. Ohio's community colleges. We're trying to learn what strategies they're using to help learners overcome barriers and support them from enrollment through program completion and job placement.
Sarah Lee
Richard Sun
Over the course of our cohort in Jackson we have:
We have three sets of evaluations each are three days, with 15-20 IT professionals participating. Each coder presents a project of theirs and discusses it with and defends it to the evaluators. We have people hired out of those presentations. After presentations, our instructors and the industry evaluators discuss our curriculum, methods, adjustments, industry trends.
Megan Davis
Curious if you are the only software school in Mississippi? Are there ways to mobilize?
Sarah Lee
Director
Hi Megan,
Thank you for stopping by our video! The Mississippi Coding Academies model was based on Basecamp Coding Academy (https://basecampcodingacademy.org/), also located in Mississippi, with attention to scaling.
By mobilize, do you mean scaling? We have been evaluating options for replicating the program outside of Mississippi. Let me know if I missed the point of that second question!
Further posting is closed as the event has ended.