Ryoko Yamaguchi, Ph.D. - US grants

BRIGHT-CS creates a comprehensive computer science and empowerment model for girls of color in computing. Through deep engagement with select high schools, universities, non-profit and community organizations, BRIGHT-CS builds and assesses the strength of an ecosystem that supports girls of color. It acknowledges the larger national effort to achieve gender equity in computing and is intentional in building effective ecosystems to support that. In the spirit of culturally responsive pedagogies, BRIGHT-CS builds on the premise that girls need their identities to be affirmed coincident with their computing skills being honed. 

The work is centered in two locations, in Arlington, VA and in New York City. The targeted groups of students and schools are selected to engage in educational experiences at the intersection of formal and informal learning. They experience a comprehensive set of experiences that begin with affirming their place in computing as young women and girls. The critical partnerships developed in each location are central to testing the proposed hypothesis that effective ecosystems are required for promoting and fostering the sustained success of girls of color in computing.

There is a severe underrepresentation of black women in computing, explained by educational barriers that black girls face in the K-12 education system even before reaching postsecondary education. Middle grades are a critical transition point for students, where achievement gaps and interest in STEM-CS widen over time. This project, a Researcher-Practitioner Partnership (RPP), is a two-year project that will engage teachers, school leaders, guidance counselors, and researchers to identify barriers and future work in the areas of structural, instructional, and curricular improvements in middle schools to promote more black girls to gain interest and experience in computer science. Some of the core members of the team are developing a computer science learning ecosystem for middle school black girls, called BRIGHT-CS, that includes summer and school based programming. This project is an extension of the BRIGHT-CS project to engage teachers in an RPP to create an inclusive environment to promote CS interest and learning among black girls in their schools. While the core team has had implicit support from schools in the community, there is an exigent need to explicitly engage teachers, guidance counselors, and school leaders to further support an inclusive environment where black girls can thrive at school. The project rests on the foundation that issues of diversity and inclusivity, and broadening participation in computer science specifically, must be systematic, persistent, and ongoing work within the teaching community. Further, the RPP addresses issues around identifying and rectifying barriers in the school that will promote an inclusive school environment that will benefit all students including other marginalized students.

Through the RPP, the project will establish professional learning communities (PLCs) in three middle schools that includes researchers, guidance counselors, teachers and school leaders. The RPP will support the initial steps in addressing why there are so few black girls interested and pursuing computer science in the middle grades. Rather than speaking in general terms, or looking at national trends, the RPP will look specifically at the three schools and classroom data to conduct an equity audit on the structural, instructional, and curricular barriers that black girls face in their school. The result will be a PLC logic model and a research agenda for future RPP proposals.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

BRIGHT-CS PD (Building Student Retention through Individuated Guided coHort Training in Computer Science Professional Development) a CS for All High School strand Researcher-Practitioner Partnership (RPP) submitted by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). BRIGHT-CS PD will provide math and science teachers access to and support for rigorous CS learning. The RPP will collaboratively create robust professional development (PD) materials for high school teachers to improve school and classroom practices to better support and broaden participation of black girls in computer science.

This project builds on the BRIGHT-CS middle school student and school projects. Lessons learned from these projects indicate that robust PD materials for teachers are critical to systemically broadening the participation of black girls in CS. The proposed RPP will work with math and science teachers to provide access and support as the teachers participate in high-quality, extant CS instruction via Harvard University?s CS50 courseware. The RPP team will then work with these teachers to adapt and build out their new, up-to-date CS/CT knowledge via robust PD materials designed to help teachers inculcate CS/CT skills into their math and science instruction.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.