Start Date: 10/01/2011
End Date: 03/31/2013

 Computational thinking (CT) is important in its own right as a key enabler of effective participation in 21^st century life---and as an increasingly important underpinning to subject matter learning across the disciplines.  We take an Integrated Approach (IA), to build CT activities into current instructional practices across core middle school curriculum.  We locate nascent CT activities in the existing curriculum, reinforce and develop the overlap between the curricular area and the target CT area, and subsequently reinforce the CT content in a short, reinforcing instructional unit. 

The project is a collaboration between the Virginia Tech (VT) Computer Science (CS) department and the Henrico County Public School District (HCPS).  The CS department at VT has a long history of innovative engagement with K-12 as well as university pedagogy in computational thinking, mathematics, and science instruction.  HCPS is a mixed-SES, multi-racial district of 50,000 students, with a ten-year history of integrating laptop use into instruction in grades 6-12. The HCPS administration has identified CT as a needed area for growth and has the backing of the District School Board.   They have a vision of 3-4 CT activities in every class in every grade across core curricular areas. HCPS’s vision plus VT’s CT expertise and the PI’s prior experience with the development and scaling up of educational research means that the project is well positioned to produce transformative knowledge and practices.

The overarching research questions are (1) whether IA is viable across diverse educational environments, teachers and students, (2) whether IA has significant negative entailments (“show stoppers”) and (3) ultimately whether IA will prove extensible to the even wider range of conditions that obtain in the American educational system.

This planning grant will be used to prepare for scaling-up research by creating, piloting, testing and assembling instructional interventions and materials, approaches to learning progressions in CT, management arrangements and practices across and within VT and HCPS, and advisors across the areas that will need development and oversight in the next phases of the project.

Grant Institution: National Science Foundation

Amount: $199,998

People associated with this grant:

Deborah Tatar
Dennis Kafura
Manuel Pérez-Quiñones
Cliff Shaffer
Steve Harrison