External Standards of Education

There are many schools, K12, community colleges, 4-year institutions, bootcamps and nonprofit organizations that teach computer science in some format. In collaboration with industry stakeholders, educators, supervisory education organizations, related professional societies and other stakeholders come together to agree on what qualifies as quality CS education at various levels. Each framework is different, but educators and educational organizations aim to align on this shared agreement so that learners can move between different organizations and experiences in an aligned way. Some organizations maintain ISO, International Standards Organization certifications that are checked for quality control across countries. Some of these organizations offer accreditation or some organizations like state governments, use these standards and frameworks to accredit an educational program. Currently, none of Hack the Hood's educational programs are accredited or validated by any of the listed organizations.

At Hack the Hood, our curriculum aligns with three sets of standards/frameworks for CS education:

There are also commonly understood terms in education: trauma-informed, equitable, inclusive and other terms. We have included some text that we have developed for different grants and responses that can be reused.

US K12 CS Practices and Concepts 12th grade

- Practice 1: Fostering an Inclusive Computing Culture
- Practice 2: Collaborating around computing
- Practice 3: Recognizing and defining computational problems
- Practice 4: Developing and using abstractions
- Practice 5: Creating computational artifacts
- Practice 6: Testing and refining computational artifacts
- Practice 7: Communicating about computing

ABET Criteria for Accrediting Computing Programs 2022-2023

ABET Computing Criterion 3: Student Outcomes

Graduates of the program will have an ability to:

Analyze a complex computing problem and to apply principles of computing and other relevant disciplines to identify solutions.
Design, implement, and evaluate a computing-based solution to meet a given set of computing requirements in the context of the program’s discipline.
Communicate effectively in a variety of professional contexts.
Recognize professional responsibilities and make informed judgments in computing practice based on legal and ethical principles.
Function effectively as a member or leader of a team engaged in activities appropriate to the program’s discipline.

Kapor Center Culturally Responsive-Sustaining CS Education Framework

We align curriculum with these standards:

Acknowledge racism in CS and enact anti-racist practices
Create inclusive and equitable classroom cultures
Pedagogy and curriculum are rigorous, relevant, and encourage sociopolitical critiques
Student voice, agency, and self-determination are prioritized in CS classrooms
Family and community cultural assets are incorporated into CS classrooms
Diverse professionals and role models provide exposure to a range of CS/Tech careers

Trauma-informed education

Describe your agency’s strategy to provide trauma-informed services in the community you are serving.

Hack the Hood’s philosophy of education is a justice-centered approach to data science education that emphasizes liberation through socio-political action within the tech sector by individuals, for themselves and the community. We view our learners “as transformative intellectuals who exhibit complexity, commitment and credibility” (Morales-Doyle, 2017) and design the learning experience to promote critical awareness and engagement toward action. We recognize that our learners, like most of the population, have likely had a few adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and many have also been educationally underserved--especially in technology and STEM. We also recognize that technology and STEM education have had negative impacts on people of color that we must address and contend with. Our strategy to provide a trauma-informed learning environment is built on these realizations we implement with a few strategies including developing a sense of belongingness and identity, leveraging a whole-program approach, and teaching relevant sociotechnical content that prepares learners to take action.

Developing a sense of belongingness in the Hack the Hood community, as well as the technology field is intentionally fostered through staff engagement with learners. Our program staff, technical instructors, and instructor aids have a combination of educational, technical and experiential expertise as folks of color in education and technology sectors. The staff are encouraged and positioned to develop relationships with learners and foster relationship building within the group through intentionally designed programming sessions, dialogue, and learning activities. Engaging our full staff to build connections with learners enables multiple touch points for us to understand and respond to learner needs that are related to the program or showing up in the program experience. Enhancing learners' sense of belonging in tech, especially as Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and AAPI youth is supported through mentor matching with tech professionals of similar backgrounds, panelists, and workshop speakers who are able to share how their experiential expertise has advanced their career in technology. We support learners social emotional learning to understand the ways that their cultural knowledge and social justice values are necessary and needed in technology.

We gather direct feedback from learners regularly, and empower them to express their thoughts, ideas, and needs through multiple methods. Affirming competence is an important part of the Hack the Hood learning experience. Learners are given frequent, social-justice aware feedback, opportunities to collaborate, and teach and learn from each other across the technical, teambuilding, identity and sociotechnical aspects of the program. Finally, the sociotechnical course content deals with the intersections of technology and society with specific attention to the ways that race, gender, socioeconomic status, politics and other identity and social factors have a unique impact on Black, Latinx, Indigenous and AAPI communities in our modern world. This unique learning experience promotes critical consciousness, activism, empowerment, and technical ideation to support liberation and positive futures for our communities with technology. We take on difficult topics of systemic harm with a social-emotional perspective first, ensuring well-being, promoting understanding for learners and establishing an ethic of community care as technologists.