Summary

Digital Promise, two innovative school communities in KY Appalachia, and the district partner of a nationally renown K-12 computing pathway, will join forces to apply and study a “kinship-based” approach to computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) education.  Instead of promoting CS/CT, implicitly or explicitly, as a non-native skill for furthering one’s personal prosperity (often at the expense of local community relationships and needs), the proposal will situate introductory computing initiatives in the maker-oriented, problem-solving East Appalachian heritage that has sustained these two communities for 250 years. Our project aims to produce knowledge and processes about CS/CT education that are applicable to rural communities across the US, as well as non-rural communities with an abundance of “familial capital” and “aspirational capital” (Yosso, 2005) from which to draw upon.  

Key Research Questions

RQ1. Rurally sustaining CT pathway design: How can educators and researchers collaborate to create a rurally sustaining K-8 CT/CS pathway in Eastern KY, leveraging the tradition of Appalachian Ingenuity? How can the ingenuity of local community makers, elders and creators, be formally documented and perpetuated through school-based implementation, so that our youth better make the local connection between the region's engineering/maker heritage and CT? 

RQ2. Potential influence of rurally sustaining CS/CT pathways on student learning and parent perceptions of CS/CT: What elements of a rurally sustaining CS/CT pathway appear to influence adoption  in CS/CT learning?  How does such a pathway appear to influence students’ perceived importance and usefulness of CS/CT, and motivation to continue to learn and use these skills?  How might it influence teachers’ and parent/guardians’ perceptions of the value of CS/CT for their children?