Choose Your Own Adventure - Designing Equity-focused CS/CT modules for K-5 Elementary Schools

How do Oprah, the multimedia mogul, and Edison, the inventor of the telephone, both inspire teachers and students to learn computational thinking? A CS/CT focused module was developed by two grade 4 teachers that would introduce culturally relevant role models to students in an urban school district. The module engages students through a “Choose Your Own Adventure” activity focusing on perseverance and conditionals. Students create Scratch projects, using a Makey Makey, to model what would happen if one of their historical role models gave up on their dreams. This module is just one example of the nineteen modules created by members of CSforALL Springfield, a Research Practice Partnership working with the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts. The partnership allows for collaboration between educators from Springfield, MA Public Schools and Researchers from the University. We will spotlight this module to show how the module was designed and taught to make it an engaging, equitable learning experience for all students and share their learning outcomes along the way. Our goal is to share how we designed and integrated culturally responsive Computer Science curriculum at the elementary level that will ensure equitable learning for all students. Our goal is to show how we engaged dyads in a design based collaborative process to produce a module for their grade level.