Classroom Resources
The following are resources CS educators can use in their classroom or to further develop their equitable practices. Many of these resources were created by CS4All's network of educators - we are so thankful to them for sharing their insights, work and experiences!
When adapting these resources to your own practice, please site the original creator of the work. Content is organized firstly by lesson plans and then alphabetically in the following categories: CR-SE, Racial Literacy, Translanguaging and Universal Design for Learners Resources. Check back regularly as we are always updating!
When adapting these resources to your own practice, please site the original creator of the work. Content is organized firstly by lesson plans and then alphabetically in the following categories: CR-SE, Racial Literacy, Translanguaging and Universal Design for Learners Resources. Check back regularly as we are always updating!
NEW RESOURCE
2023-2024 CS Pioneers Calendar!
The purpose of this calendar is to celebrate the accomplishments of past and present computer science pioneers, and specifically to highlight the work done by people from historically excluded groups.
We hope that these pioneers inspire your students and serve to remind them that anyone can be a computer scientist, regardless of race, gender, or (dis)ability.
Social Justice & Coping Lesson Plans
CS4All's 2023 Ready for Revolution event brought together critical speakers and educators putting philosophy to action. The event celebrates the amazing work completed as part of the Exploring Equity in CS course and is a showcase of CS lessons and activist resources from EECS participating teachers, rock star researchers and the CS4All community. These lessons are an opportunity to support CS student and teacher activism.
Grade band: All | CR-SE, Racial Lit. Translanguaging, UDL
CS4All's 2022 Ready for Revolution event brought together critical speakers and educators putting philosophy to action. The event celebrates the amazing work completed as part of the Exploring Equity in CS course and is a showcase of CS lessons and activist resources from EECS participating teachers, rock star researchers and the CS4All community. These lessons are an opportunity to support CS student and teacher activism.
Grade band: All | CR-SE, Racial Lit. Translanguaging, UDL
CS4All's 2021 Ready for Revolution event brought together critical speakers and educators putting philosophy to action. The event celebrates the amazing work completed as part of the Exploring Equity in CS course and is a showcase of CS lessons and activist resources from EECS participating teachers, rock star researchers and the CS4All community. These lessons are an opportunity to support CS student and teacher activism.
Grade band: All | CR-SE, Racial Lit. Translanguaging, UDL
CS4All's 2020 Ready for Revolution event brought together critical speakers and educators putting philosophy to action. The event celebrates the amazing work completed as part of the Exploring Equity in CS course and is a showcase of CS lessons and activist resources from EECS participating teachers, rock star researchers and the CS4All community. These lessons are an opportunity to support CS student and teacher activism.
Grade band: All | CR-SE, Racial Lit. Translanguaging, UDL
For this activity, students begin by brainstorming their feelings. After their brainstorm, students create a prototype of their animation using scratch.
Grade Band: 3rd and up | Plugged: Scratch
This AP CSP lesson has been revised from Code.org's Unit 9 Lesson 1 (Learning from Data) content to include ideas around bias in data, making it a two day lesson. The lesson is structured to first provide students with an opportunity to engage in reading and analyzing data. On day two of the lesson, students participate in a discussion about potential limitations of data, through the lens of the U.S. Census. Finally students write persuasive letters to the U.S. Census Bureau about racial and ethnicity questions they feel should be used and why.
Grade Band: High School | Plugged: Google Trends | Racial Lit.
Lead students through an activity where they choose control flow structures for a protest using Scratch.
Grade Band: 3rd and up | Plugged: Scratch
Activities help students explore how abstraction play a key role in transforming symbols into emojis. Grade Band: Flexible | Unplugged
Look what Sheila Lee just gifted NYC educators! (Read more about Sheila at www.shielalee.com.)
Grade Band: Flexible
Special thanks to Leslie Johnson for the Spanish translation!
Grade Band: Flexible
This unit is meant for ELA teachers just after they have established the reading workshop. Students compare and contrast two educational software, examining them as genres using the UTAP frame. Then, they will consider the user’s experience of the tools, mapping out the algorithms for supporting readers, and understanding the issues with and assumptions of these algorithms. Finally, they will create their own book recommendation algorithm on Scratch and discuss its limitations and biases.
Grade Band: Middle & High School | Plugged: Goodreads, iReady & Scratch | UDL
This lesson will introduce students to gender equality, respectful relationships, choice, empathy through literacy and Computer Science. Students will create a scene through Scratch Jr. to demonstrate how gender stereotypes can be invalid and we can like anything without feeling judged or put into a box.
Grade Band: K, 1st & 2nd | Plugged: Scratch | Translanguaging, UDL
Students will work through a set of activities to frame and explore hiring algorithms. They will focus on merit based hiring and come up with several algorithms as a hiring committee.
Grade Band: High School | Plugged: repl.it & JavaScript | CR-SE
In this learning activity, students will use p5 and ml5 to put images into an array and apply that array to a machine learning model. Training models from scratch is well above the scope of this course, so most of that is given in a code along - students will then have a chance to form a hypothesis about their model and test it with images of their own.
Grade Band: High School | Plugged: repl.it & JavaScript
Why is it important for all students to understand the significance of Juneteenth? Juneteenth is a celebration of Black history and freedom that was unknown to most white Americans. A number of Juneteenth activities were tied to themes raised by Black Lives Matter, a protest movement that was founded in response to police killings of African Americans.
Grade Band: K - 5th | Plugged: Scratch | Racial Lit.
Modeling the impacts of Hurricane Maria by Karen Silfa, Sara Vogel, Christopher Hoadley, Sarane James
Bilingual middle school science teacher Karen Silfa introduced both programming and computational modeling in a middle school bilingual science class by using Scratch to aid their discussions about a topic that hit close to home for her students: Hurricane Maria.
Grade Band: 6th, 7th & 8th | Plugged: Scratch | Translanguaging
Protesting is part of American history, these historic demonstrations led to changes in U.S. policy. We will analyze two different protest movements and compare/contrast the different elements. This lesson includes racial literacy that incorporates diverse cultural representations, inequities and institutionalized oppressive systems and ways for racial healing.
Grade Band: 4th and up | Plugged: Scratch | Racial Lit. Translanguaging, UDL
In this Small but Might lesson for K-5 students, we will read The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist, written by Cynthia Levinson and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton. Students will learn about how young people protested segregation during the 1963 Birmingham Children's March.
Grade band: K-5 | Plugged: Scratch | Racial Lit. Translanguaging, UDL
Using Progressive Pedagogy to Amplify Underrepresented Voices “La Bestia” by Antoinette Bradley, Albania Ruiz, & Yokasta Evans-Lora
Use Bronx Community’s 8th Grade ELA unit on El Salvador as a case study to examine progressive, multicultural, and culturally responsive practices as a pedagogical mindset and approach to student learning. Students create a prototype to implement culturally responsive practices in the Computer Science classroom.
Grade Band: 8th | Plugged: Scratch, Web Design (HTML, CSS, JS), ETC | CR-SE
CR-SE
We at CS4All respect your efforts and want to assist and engage with compassion, even more so during these uncertain times. We hope that this Equitable Practices Remote Teaching Guide and the linked excerpts will aid you in the sacrifices you’re making for children and families during the COVID-19 crisis.
The CR-S Framework creates student-centered learning environments that affirm racial, linguistic, and cultural identities; prepare students for rigor and independent learning; develop students’ abilities to connect across lines of difference; elevate historically marginalized voices; and empower students as agents of positive social change. Additional resources available at http://www.nysed.gov/crs
Translanguaging
Offers up an approach for supporting bi/multilingual learners in computer science education, as well as resources for educators to plan computer science-integrated units that leverage students’ translanguaging as a resource.
Learn more about Participating in Literacies and Computer Science.
A short article about how a teacher integrated code into her language arts class, leveraging a translanguaging approach.
Universal Design for Learning
Teaching All Computational Thinking through Inclusion and Collaboration
This website contains practical applications of UDL in CS education including the UDL in CS table, an example of a lesson plan, and an instructional brief about UDL in CS education.
Universal Design for Learning Implementation and Research Network (UDL-IRN) resources include lesson planning guides, critical elements of UDL, and UDL beliefs.
Helpful strategies for meeting the needs of all learners in K-12 CS instruction through co-planning and co-teaching.
This instructional case study/brief provides an overview of how co-planning and co-teaching can support all students in CS education.
This table provides CS-specific examples embedded within the three Universal Design for Learning Framework.
NEW FEATURED EDUCATOR LESSON PLAN
PowerOn in NYC Classrooms
Shout out to Kristi Jones, a CS4All NYC Ingenuity Team Member, for sharing her new PowerOn lessons. Check out this new video that walks through her grade 9-12 lesson and provides student work.
This recording is an excerpt from CS4All NYC’s 2022 Ready for Revolution Conference.