0 Culturally-Situated design tools: Facilitating math & computing education with design agency

Prof. Audrey Bennett, Rensselaer
TEACHING MATH AND COMPUTING THROUGH CULTURE

problem

• under-represented minority students can perceive antagonism between their cultural identity and the curriculum leading to IT careers

solution

• sophisticated mathematical and computational concepts and practices are embedded in the arts and artifacts of minority students' cultural background

implementation

• culturally-situated design tools convert ethno-mathematics into software simulations for student use.

csdt.rpi.edu
- making a case for indiginous knowledge
- directly contradict racist stereotypes
- makes it impossible to accuse a student of "acting white" when they know that African Americans, Native Americans, Latino/as understood these concepts before they were "discovered" by whites.

Pedagogy of CSDTs:

• Had to give the students the historical background of conrow braiding (they thought it came from Brooklyn!)
• Tutorial - teach the students different concepts and opportunity to interact with the software (eg. iteration, rotation, dilation).
• Software - students can simulate the hairstyles, using mathematical formulas

The program has shown statistically significant results (improvement) in student attitudes towards computing and mathematics performance. The most significant is the designs they were able to create using the software.

Ann Gates, University of Texas - El Paso
Focus: recruitment, retention and advancement of Hispanics in computing

Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions
http://cahsi.cs.utep.edu/

Culturally responsive education: using cultural knowledge, prior experience and performing styles of diverse students to enable students to be better learners and human beings.

Statistics

1. limited parental involvement (parents have trust in schools)
2. 21% high school drop out rate (x2 non-hispanic drop out rate)

Trained faculty in cooperative learning techniques (very successful for them)

Evaluation is online - http://cahsi.cs.utep.edu/ABOUT/Evaluation/tabid/79/Default.aspx

Compugirls
Dr. Kimberly A. Scott - Executive Director
www.compugirls.asu.edu

• Culturally relevant pedagogy puts the students at the center of the classroom.
• COMPUGIRLS is a culturally relevant technology program for adolescent (grades 8-12) girls from under-resourced school districts in the Greater Phoenix area.
  
• Take what the girls already know about technology and VALUE it.
• Build on that knowledge as a means to advance their own communities.
• Mentor teachers work with 5 or 6 girls.
• Students becoming problem solvers, in the context of technology.
• Started in summer 2007
• provides under-resourced school districts and the young women they serve an opportunity to gain and expand their research, tech, and social justice skills.

objectives
- computational thinking
- fun enviornment
- analytical skills

course 1 - introduction
course 2 - the sims
course 3 - scratch
course 4 - intro to teen second life
course 5 - teen second life
course 6 - capstone of teen second life

Significant change in perceived technical ability