C-STEM for Sustainability

An RPP to develop and refine a model for integrating contextualized CS/CT and sustainability into K-8 science curricula and teacher professional learning.

ABOUT
ABOUT
Computer science (CS) literacy is crucial for a comprehensive 21st-century education. Unfortunately, many elementary schools lack age-appropriate CS education, especially for English Learners (ELs). This issue stems from various factors, such as limited time for CS instruction, teachers' lack of CS training, and the complexity of CS materials, making them challenging for ELs. Moreover, grant-funded CS initiatives often cease when funding ends. Beyond CS, modern classrooms must address environmental sustainability, requiring a transdisciplinary approach that combines various disciplines, including CS.

This project focuses on using environmental sustainability (ES) as a context for authentic transdisciplinary CS learning, aligning with science and social studies standards and supporting linguistically inclusive pedagogies. It involves a multidisciplinary team developing CS-integrated curricular modules and training materials for elementary teachers working with ELs. The project modifies existing lessons to include more ES and CS content, addressing teachers' time constraints.

Project Objectives

Our multidisciplinary RPP team of educators, researchers, and content specialists will investigate and address problems of practice related to the integration of CS and CT into elementary STEM and social studies curricula in authentic and productive transdisciplinary ways. We will focus on the specific needs of EL students as we modify curricula and design teacher professional learning experiences. Our work will be rooted in issues related to sustainability, as the complexity and scale of such issues provide a rich context for leveraging CS/CT in transdisciplinary ways. Our specific objectives, related to the goals listed in the Introduction’s first paragraph, are to:

  1. Productively engage an existing researcher-practitioner partnership (RPP) to investigate and address problems of practice related to integrating CS and CT into transdisciplinary elementary education. 
  2. Develop and test design principles for modifying existing elementary school curricula to include Maryland State Computer Science Standards that specifically meet the needs of English language learners. 
  3. Develop a teacher professional learning (PL) model for CS/CT integration that supports language minority students as part of a course for in-service teachers in a transdisciplinary STEM M.Ed. program. 
  4. Create and digitally publish a series of multimedia modules for the integration of CS/CT into elementary school (anchored in issues of sustainability) consisting of sample lesson materials, video clips, instructional support materials, and teacher PL activities. 
  5. Conduct research on the RPP’s efforts to integrate CS/CT into linguistically diverse elementary classrooms engaged in interdisciplinary STEM lessons and units.

Research Questions

RQ1

What are best practices for maintaining an effective RPP that leverages the expertise of members toward mutualistic goals for enhancing K-8 CS and CT education?

RQ2

What are best practices for integrating state CS standards and sustainability education into Next Generation Science curriculum?

RQ3

What are best practices and challenges for designing and facilitating high-quality, sustainable PL experiences that support K-8 teachers to modify their STEM curricula for CS/CT integration ?

Phase One:
Developing a Model for Integrating CS/CT into K-8 curriculum
We will investigate and address the problems of practice by developing a research-based model for modifying the K-8 curriculum to address state CS standards. The project will situate learning within issues related to sustainability, which have been elevated as one of the most pressing challenges facing global societies (United Nations, 2015). The complexity and scale of such issues provide a particularly rich context for leveraging CS/CT in transdisciplinary contexts, creating ample opportunities for integrating CT into existing curricula. Teacher-leaders on the team will pilot lessons from the newly integrated units with their students and refine the lessons in response to these experiences.
The integrated units will be disseminated as exemplars from MSDE and the model for integration that is developed in this phase will ground the teacher PL that the RPP will design in Phase Two. Data collection relevant to our research questions will focus on qualitative and quantitative measures of the partners’ experiences learning and working toward shared goals in the RPP (RQ1), in-classroom video and audio data, and artifacts representing student learning in the newly developed curriculum pilots (RQ2).
Phase Two:
Developing and piloting a teacher professional learning model to support teachers’ lesson modification for CS/CT integration 
The RPP will draw from existing research and scholarship on PL as well as their experiences in Phase One to develop a series of teacher PL modules grounded in the integration model developed in Phase One. The modules will be piloted and refined as part of a new course in the UMD M.Ed. STEM Teacher Leadership program, which will be taught by members of the project team. In this course, we will introduce in-service teachers to CT/CS tools and practices via inquiries anchored in sustainability. We will also provide support for teachers to modify state- and county-generated lessons to meaningfully incorporate CT/CS tools and practices. As teachers taking the course are working toward a leadership degree, the modules will adopt a “train-the-trainer” approach with structured opportunities in Phase Three to facilitate abridged versions of the modules for others in their school communities. This course will be required for future cohorts of teacher leaders as part of the M.Ed. STEM Teacher Leadership program, providing an opportunity for the products generated by the RPP to live well
Phase Three:
Data analysis, course refinement, and workshop development

The RPP will continue to iterate the model for integration and teacher PL modules based on the data collected in Phases One and Two. They will disseminate the work of the RPP through both research and practitioner-focused conferences. Teachers who participated in the course as part of the degree program in Phase Two will continue to be supported by the RPP as they enter their final semester of the program where they will have structured opportunities to design and implement their own PL workshops for their colleagues. The RPP will also be facilitating MSDE-sponsored workshops grounded in our models for K-8 teachers across the state. The RPP will continue to refine the materials and instructional strategies for a new cohort of STEM Leaders in the degree program. New data collection relevant to our research questions will focus on qualitative and quantitative measures of the teachers’ experiences participating in the PL workshops developed and facilitated by members of the RPP.
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Intellectual Merit & Broader Impacts

Intellectual Merit: 

This project will advance research and theory on teacher-driven models for integrating CS standards into curriculum through sustainability education. The innovative approach to design-based teacher professional learning modules that are grounded in an RPP will contribute to the fields of teacher education, curriculum development, and computer science education in productive ways. Research on best practices for training teachers to modify NGSS lessons for CS/CT integration will contribute to a growing body of knowledge on teacher education and how to support teachers’ professional learning at scale.


Broader Impact: 

Products from the RPP’s research and development will include a set of tools, heuristics, and curricular units, which will be made publicly available through the University of Maryland’s Center for Science and Technology in Education website and will be disseminated state-wide through MSDE’s networks. The smaller-scale PD workshops will be released for public distribution and will be implemented in local schools by teacher leaders on the project team. This will provide a mechanism for local capacity-building in C-STEM and sustainability integration. Focusing on in-service teachers and teacher-leaders, who already have deep knowledge and experience integrating standards-based frameworks into their curricula allows us to more effectively empower and support the dissemination of knowledge and tools to other educators. Finally, by anchoring the unit in the discipline of sustainability, this project will contribute to global efforts to prepare students to make sense of and respond to complex environmental challenges.

Contact Us

  • University of Maryland, College Park
  • College of Education

For more information, please contact Principal Investigator, Dr. Jen Radoff.

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