We will measure progress by pre/post content knowledge in computational thinking, pre/post surveys of confidence, interest, and sense of belonging, awareness of connections between computing and community life; analysis of enrollment numbers during project funding for youth participants at the two informal learning settings, and eventually enrollment numbers in the CS pathway courses in the state.  Industry provides career awareness opportunities to the youth as well as a source for volunteers in the community and possibly materials. 

We will be basing our volunteer training on culturally-response frameworks, where culturally-responsive frameworks integrate knowledge relevant to students’ identities and communities with computational learning activities, maximizing the potential for increasing the engagement, competence and belonging of underrepresented youth in computing education.  One of team members is an expert in culturally-responsive frameworks.  Some of the team has been designing and conducting professional development for teachers in CS.  We will build on that Partner4CS experience as well as work with our cultural expert to design training for working with students of diverse cultural backgrounds.  The volunteers will be teams of Univ of Delaware students with CS background and community volunteers and staff very familiar with the culture of the community.  They may include parents and industry volunteers as well as teachers.  An example of computational artifacts culturally responsive to their community contexts is : Make a game where you earn points for picking healthy foods and lose points for picking unhealthy ones.

To build on what Lori posted, the idea of the culturally responsive computational artifacts is to have them come out of students knowledge or examination of both assets and challenges in their communities.  So a game on healthy foods would be responding to an examination of what food resources are available (or not available) in their community.  Other examples would be the development of a website that featured an aspect of their community (for example, local business owners in their community; resources for teens in the community) or a website particular historical topic of their community.  There are many possibilities for community based artifacts. The idea is to integrate community inquiry and knowledge into all of the computing science activities that the youth engage in.     

Lori and Rosalie, Thank you for your detailed answers to my questions! Your examples of culturally responsive computational artifacts are inspiring. These types of relevant projects will engage students more deeply in learning, because students will be empowered to build on their community's assets and address their community's challenges.

Rosann

Chris, would love to hear more about your work with girls. Given that the informal settings we will be working with are not gender specific, we must provide some flexibility in the nature of topics. We think that by focusing on issues that children find important for their own communities we can create the right motivational context for them to engage with the work.