DATA COLLECTED

2019 - 2020 School Year

In our first award year, the data collected was purely observational on student engagement, CS language, and teachers' awareness of the standards. We spent a substantial amount of time holding professional development sessions where teachers were learning about the CSTA standards and making existing connections to their core curricular content. Teachers also worked on their Computer Science Scope and Sequence so concepts and content were taught progressively from grade level to grade level.

Teacher Attitudes: Teachers were apprehensive about this process. Questions that arose include: How are we going to master all of these standards? Where are we going to fit this into our existing curricular schedule?

2020 - 2021 School Year

In year two, we had every intention of "running" with our CS Scope & Sequences we had mapped out in year one. However, things didn't go as planned. When students returned to school in the Fall, we had many barriers and obstacles to School. Students were demonstrating a lot of academic loss as well as struggling with routines, schedules, behavior expectations etc. So as a team, we decided to just focus on the CSTA standard of Algorithms and Programming. This got students excited about CS because every grade in our building has a physical computing device they get to use. We reviewed many CS fundamentals, having our students and teachers use common CS vocabulary, and compiling both unplugged and plugged activities in our lessons. This worked well for us! Again, our data collected was purely observational coupled with either begining or ending exit tickets after our CS lesson time per week.

Teacher Attitudes: Teachers were overwhelmed! Questions that arose include: What do these standards mean? What do activities look like that are aligned to each standard? Are there example activities already created that match to the CSTA Standards?

But... knowing that the start of the next school year, CS is JUST NOT CODING. Therefore, we really examined our CS Scope & Sequences. We learned more about the CSTA standards and what they want students to know and be able to do. The summer months were used to create 30 Week Scope & Sequences that embedded grade level appropriate plugged and unplugged activies touching on all the areas of the CSTA standards.

2021 - 2022 School Year

In year three, we were off and running with our new CS Scope & Sequences that embedded all of the CSTA Standards. Teachers reflected in CS journals after each CS weekly lesson. Team meetings were held with the classroom teachers and Technology Integrationist (who faciliated the weekly lessons) to reflect on what went well and what needed adjusted for next year or retaught or reinforced/reviewed at the next CS classtime. Our data collected was a combination of observation, pre and post lesson exit tickets, and a variety of assessment activities after lesson content rollout. These assessments came in the form of performance tasks as well as some "traditional" written activity sheets.

Teacher Attitudes: Teachers are feeling way more comfortable with the CSTA Standards, physical computing devices, and the activities (plugged and unplugged) related to the Standards. Questions and comments that arose include: How can we apply our cs foundational skills in a core curricular unit? As students have learned more CS concepts this year, how can we revise the scope & sequence to accommodate?

2022 - 2023 School Year

We are excited to see what this year brings in terms of our students perceptions and learning of CS! In the Fall, our students will take a survey highlighting a variety of CS vocabulary, concepts, career connections, and general "feelings" of what they think about CS. We will have our students retake this same online survey in the Spring. Our CS team will evaluate the data, and we will make adjustments to our CS curricular content as needed based on the data results. We will also start to look at our student's state testing results and see if there are any comparisons and/or improvements on how our students perform on these tests.