CodeVA receives NSF CSforAll Grant
20 October, 2020
“Students and teachers both benefit from teacher-produced CS classroom content that addresses ethnically, racially, and culturally diverse students,”
Two elementary school teachers from Petersburg and Chesterfield have spotlight roles in a recent grant awarded to CodeVA by the National Science Foundation. The recently awarded CSforAll researcher-practitioner partnership grant provides three-year support for CodeVA’s proposal, Computer Science For and By Teachers: An Integrative Toolkit for 3rd-5th Grade Classrooms.
The project aims to address the importance of 3rd-5th grade teachers introducing Computer Science (CS) into their classrooms. The “toolkit” in the project’s name aims to arm teachers with the means to create culturally relevant and responsive curricula to address their students’ specific needs.
“Culturally relevant instruction in the elementary classroom leads to increased interest in and learning of CS content later in the educational process by racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse students, which in turn leads to better representation of diverse backgrounds in professional CS careers.”
– Dr. Anita Crowder, CodeVA’s Research and Evaluation Manager
The goals of this researcher-practitioner partnership grant include:
- Increasing teachers’ understanding of the importance of knowing their students’ racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds while developing culturally relevant classroom content.
- Fostering teachers’ ability to examine and challenge their own conceptions of CS/CT integration.
- Developing an appreciation for the value CS/CT integration brings to 3rd-5th grade curriculum.
- Building teacher’s knowledge and skills to critically examine and modify CS/CT content to meet the needs of all of their students.
- Creation of lessons and classroom content that increases engagement and learning of CS/CT by racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse students.