2022 CS4All RPP Reviews
Review 1
Intellectual merit
Strength: It is very well grounded with extant research relevant within the CSE community. The creative vision of interweaving teacher residency with the development of CS pathway is noteworthy. The integration of students to collaborate with the design committee is something to look forward to.
Weakness: It would have been ideal to see the proposed community based residency model. It would have been helpful to see how this project helps advance the process of teacher certification in New York having this project as a possible model .
Broader impacts
Strengths: The community based design combined with residency model can create a replicable process of concurrent design of both CS pathway and CS preservice programs.
Weakness: Although it has a strong logical sequence the implementation plan may appear to not be clear cut. It is very process oriented, and the alignment of objectives, tasks, outcomes, and timeline is something to be inferred. This may raise concerns it terms of feasibility of the project.
Proposal-specific criteria
The proposal states low SES. Notheless,a more detailed account of the student demographic profile would make a more clear cut distinction of the targeted community.
Summary Statement
This proposal has a great deal of potential. As such I beleive is worthy of support. The creative approach to address two problems of practice within the scope of a research project is something to be desired. The community based approach is one of the strongest element of the proposal. Some more detail regarding the implementation process would be useful to reduce ambiguity.
Review 2
Intellectual merit
Strengths: This proposal clearly aligns two major obstacles to achieving CS for All: 1. A lack of CS courses, and 2. a lack of teachers prepared to teach CS courses. By blending a residency-based model, centering community building and other equity focused activities, this proposal outlines a model of teacher development that appears to address multiple obstacles in K12 CS education pathways, including designing curricular pathways. The proposal takes into account community context, student need, and teacher development, creating a wholistic program that appears to advance CS teacher preparation and increasing student engagement in CS.
Weaknesses: N/A
PI/PI Team Information/qualifications: As written this proposal outlines multiple points of collaboration and shared leadership between the PI, leadership at the school district, the evaluation team, and a project advisory board. I would encourage the PI to consider additional collaborators, and stipends for district partners to support the project activities.
Data Management Plan: The data management plan is clear and comprehensive, taking into consideration the accessibility of data for future use.
Broader impacts
Strengths: The activities proposed in this small RPP proposal, combined with research questions that will inform the project as well as K12 CS teacher development conversations taking place across the U.S.A, have the potential to professionalize CS education at the K12 level and influence the field of K12 teaching overall.
The attention paid to obstacles facing K12 CS education, and teaching, is balanced with a clearly outlined series of actions that support the residency-based model. The attention to partnerships and the inclusion of community partners prior to the submission of the grant strengthen the team’s case for why this project is relevant to the identified community and the CS teaching profession. The use of design based research recognizes that this project is tackling a non-linear problem and will need to adjust and adapt throughout.
This proposal has taken potential obstacles, such as a lack of community involvement, into consideration and appears to have multiple plans and activities in place that bolster the success of this project overall.
Project-specific criteria
“The term equity implies partial ownership”. This quote from the proposal points to an understanding of the need to fully engage multiple levels of stakeholders in the project if the project is to be successful. There is a recognition of the potential for power hierarchies within communities and stakeholders, which the proposal addresses. There is evidence of community engagement prior to the writing of this proposal. The community context and identification of specific priority populations of students, all point to an understanding of community need and active participation in this project.
Summary Statement
My rating of excellent reflects that this proposal is built on a solid foundation of collaboration, has provided a community context for the work, and outlines the resources needed to achieve the actions and timeline outlined.
Review 3
Intellectual merit
Strengths: The proposed project aims to address the need for teaching training in computer science and the need to expand course offerings; two interrelated problems. Further, through design-based implementation, the proposal seeks to understand how solutions to those problems depend on a shared vision within the school and larger community. The combination of the three approaches can provide insights to the field on how the values of communities and schools intersects to promote or hinder the introduction of CS and/or its expansion. Further, the implementation research is well poised to uncover these dynamics in Lockport.
Weaknesses: None.
Broader impacts
Strengths: If successful, this proposal will provide the foundation for a successful partnership which can then be the basis for a regional community of practice. If the implementation research allows for a shared vision among school and community stakeholders to take hold, the barriers to implementing teacher training and new courses will be substantially lower. Having stakeholders take bootcamp courses is an innovative way to help build a shared vision and consensus. The communication section nicely details how the results will be disseminated to the region through symposiums and presentations to a variety of regional stakeholders. Further, the results from the implementation can provide a blueprint for how this consensus was built so that it can be replicated in other communities.
Weaknesses: Though there is a solid communication plan for the region, the communication plan nationally is less robust. A key opportunity for this work to be impactful is if other scholars and practitioner communities take up the approach, if successful. More detail on how this can be more broadly disseminated could make the broader impacts more powerful. Further, understanding the number of stakeholders involved in the work including the number of people participating in the youth and community bootstrapping courses, the CS design committee, and the teachers recruited to be cooperating teachers would help to understand the scale of this initial effort.
Project-specific criteria
Does the proposal identify the characteristics and needs of the identified underrepresented or underserved groups to be addressed?
The proposal clearly establishes the need for computer science teachers, the need for new computer science courses, and the potential challenges that schools and communities can face when attempting to engage in this work. The proposal also clearly describes how Lockport is facing economic challenges. However, the author could have further defined the cultural and economic diversity of Lockport by providing demographic statistics on the teachers and students this project targets. This would provide a crystal-clear picture of the underrepresented communities.
Does the proposal include specific plans or strategies for addressing or accommodating the particular needs of participants of the identified underrepresented groups?
The proposal sets up a robust mechanism to incorporate the stakeholders of the school and community to understand their needs and perspectives. The concept of equity by participatory design will help to identify and address needs of participants. The inclusion of the community in the design committee is crucial because university and school faculty do not always culturally or economically represent the members of the community. More clarity on the demographics of the participants will help clarify whether people that represent the community will be involved in the committee.
Summary
Overall, this is a solid proposal to build a local and regional community of practice to solve an important problem. The proposal is taking an innovative approach to ensure that a shared vision can be set among community stakeholders to avoid barriers to adoption seen in other contexts.
Panel Summary
Description
The project address two problems of practice: a) a lack of CS pathways in High School and b) lack of teacher preparation in CSE. Integrating a community based residency model in the teacher preparation program with the implementation of a designed curriculum and other equity driven activities will create strategies to both establish a CS pathway and CSE teacher preparation experiences. The community driven focus as a strategy to identify needs, teacher development as a whole can advance both CS pathway and teacher preparation in a coherent strategy.
Intellectual Merit
Strengths: Working concurrently a CS pathway while addressing teacher preparation in CSE is a creative way to tackle two sides of the same aspects.
It is very well grounded with extant research relevant within the CSE community. The creative vision of interweaving teacher residency with the development of CS pathway is noteworthy. The integration of students to collaborate with the design committee is something to look forward to.
The process for creating a shared vision between researcher, community, students, preservice teachers and undergraduate computer science students will help validate the process of curriculum design.
Weaknesses: There is only one PI. This raises the question, does this proposal have the human capital to ensure all the elements of this are done in a timely fashion.
The process of creating curriculum, testing curriculum and validating curriculum from within the community needs more details in relation to objectives, tasks, metrics and timeline. A logical sequence of step-by-step objectives, tasks and metrics would be useful.
It is not clear who are all the stakeholders and what criteria will be used in their selection process.
How to resolve the potential tension between designing the curriculum and incorporating feedback from community. A more detailed process would be helpful.
Broader impacts
Strengths: The community-based design combined with residency model can create a replicable process of concurrent design of both CS pathway and CS preservice programs.
Weaknesses: The dissemination strategies in this proposal are traditional to conferences and papers. Exploring other creative ways and outlets to disseminate the work may provoke a broader impact. A more detailed account of the number of stakeholders involved in the work, number of youth participating in the committee, number of pre service teachers impacted, the composition of the CS design and validation curriculum and amount of CS undergrads and teachers recruited would give more clear elements to understand scale of the broader impact.
Project-specific criteria
The proposal describes the community impacted as low SES one of the categories of underrepresented groups. The specific site of this project has a Title I classification with over 50% of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. A more detailed account of the student demographic profile would make a more clear cut distinction of the targeted community.
Data management plan: The Data Management Plan is adequate.
Constructive suggestions for improvement: A step to step summary of the process of design, implementation and community validation of the curriculum allows for an easy to follow sequence to understand the process more clearly. Consequently a summary table or graph of the alignment of objectives, tasks, research questions and timeline would increase the clarity of the implementation plan of this project.
The PI is encouraged to expand the project’s leadership to strengthen its sustainability.
Summary
The panel rated this proposal as Highly Competitive. This proposal is grounded on solid CSE research and Implementation Science literature. The vision and scope of work is collaborative, innovative and driven by community voices and perspectives.
This summary was read by the panel, and the panel members concurred that the summary accurately reflects the panel discussion.