Thank you Clark! It was amazing to have your support with the SCRIPT workshops at each site during Phase I. We really did have an incredible group of participants who were willing to dig into the details and strategize goals for their campuses/districts.

Excellent question David! We were able to connect with rural and tribal schools through our network of participants in the RAIN - Rural Activation and Innovation Network (NSF: DRL #1612555) https://www.4azrain.org/

This phase of the grant included schools from different regions of the state and it was more of an opt in ask! Once they agreed to participate, we visited the sites! It was great to be back in person. As a group, we did host meetings via Zoom, but also made it a point to visit the schools for in person trainings and professional development with the staff. The Research Team (R of RPP) was able to meet with each site and support data collection, review and analysis.

Our goal is to continue the work and have additional opportunities to bring all participants from each school together for a summit regarding the work they accomplished during phase one. We also hope for additional funding to grow the participating schools, research teams and STEM professionals to engage on campus!

Thanks, Kelly. Good to know that you were able to leverage the existing network. Could you say more about your vision for engaging on campus? Do you mean promoting professional growth on campus by fostering interaction with practitioners from the field?

Absolutely, David. We were actually in a planning phase, but wanted to pilot the interactions on campus to connect research professionals and educational practitioners to form the RPPs. Personally, it was exciting to be back out on campus to meet with teachers, administrators, parents and students to learn their goals for access to CS/CT. During our initial survey of the educators, staff members and administrators data reflected a wide range of understanding and experience with Computer Science and/or Computational Thinking. We engaged our advisory board members, grant partners and CSforALL to support trainings and professional development to dive deeper while also fostering a variety of engagement on campus. The data was relevant and useful for gaining trust in developing the educators first. So, we started with SCRIPT and it was a huge success for building team buy-in and setting CS/CT goals at each campus.

Teachers, students, families and the communities were invited to learn more about the goals of increasing access to CS/CT on a daily basis in the classrooms. An additional focus was building awareness and understanding for the state CS/CT standards along with the coaching for unplugged activities. A few campuses made incredible strides and hosted regular meetings for staff on ways to engage, learn more and connect with research partners to drive the progress with students and on the campus!

At this point, the focus of the project is more on building a community with educators and researchers. Educators have been exposed to various PD models and are being asked to think about future PD opportunities and what they would choose for future directions. They have gone through a SCRIPT training which we can tell has helped them consider future trajectories for CS in their communities. 

Great question. Because this is an exploratory project, the key outcome is the formation of the RPPs and the intent to roll out a PD opportunity to the district. Hopefully, if we are able to get a Phase II, investigation of the tangible impacts on the teachers and students will be a priority. 

That being said, we have seen changes in the districts, mostly related to their change in attitudes and intent to integrate CS in their teaching. 

Thank you for the kind works on the project Scott!