IDH   23901
INSTITUTO DE HUMANIDADES
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
informe técnico
Título:
Evaluación Externa de un programa educativo
Autor/es:
MARTINEZ, M. CECILIA
Fecha inicio/fin:
2019-07-01/2021-08-16
Naturaleza de la

Producción Tecnológica:
Social
Campo de Aplicación:
Ciencia y cultura-Politica y planific.educa
Descripción:
Executive SummaryComputer Science (CS) for Oregon is an NSF funded project to reboot high school CS education in the State and to broaden student participation in CS courses. The project aimed to identify and analyze the problems that hinder implementation of an inquiry based CS curriculum for minority, rural and low-income students; and to develop strategies and tools that address these problems.The project yielded positive results in its second year. All participating teachers reported that the number of students taking a CS course in their schools has increased. Most participatingschools were not offering CS content knowledge before this project. Those schools that offered some type of CS course before this project had increased their course enrollment by 300%.Returning teachers from the 2018-2019 cohort reported implementing the proposed curriculum -Exploring Computer Sciences (ECS)- with fidelity while making adjustments to adapt it to theirstudents. Most participating schools? principals assigned teachers to teach CS courses exclusively, avoiding multi-course teaching that compromises the quality of course planning and teaching. In at least half of the participating schools, principals have hired new teachers with a background in CSto implement this curriculum. The Computer Science for Oregon team meets yearly with all participating school principals and counselors to support, provide feedback and follow up on ECSimplementation. These communications between principals and leading team could explain the overwhelming principal support of this project. However, there is low teacher participation inprofessional communities and scarce collaborative work. The team has developed some strategies to tackle this issue.Simultaneously, the team is working closely with State Legislators to inform structural educational changes that can contribute to the implementation of ECS. On a regular basis, the researchers meet with legislators and have provided testimony on the issue of broadening CSeducation. Moreover, the CS for Oregon Project was featured on a statewide public radio segment 1focusing on equity and education. As a result, one legislator reached out to the team for expert testimony. He subsequently introduced a bill for offering grants that would enable school districtsto provide courses in CS as part of career and technical education. Because at the time politics around climate change dominated the arena, the bill was not discussed. However the bill issponsored and written for the next legislative year.In addition, for the last two years, the College of Education of the University of Oregon has been offering a pre-service class on CS education to all prospective teachers. This assures most graduating teachers share a common understanding about CS education. In all, these findings show that the Computer Science for Oregon Project is on track with their proposed plan and successfullyachieved the project´s goals. This evaluation provides details on these findings.