CS for ALL: Teaching All Computational Thinking
through Inclusion and Collaboration (TACTIC)

The project TACTIC is the NSF STEM+C project that focuses on developing inclusive computer science experiences for students with disabilities and those at risk for academic failure in elementary and middle school settings. The aims of this project are to:

  1. Understand barriers to inclusion of students with disabilities in CS education,
  2. iteratively develop instructional strategies that empower students with disabilities to meaningfully participate in CS education, and
  3. advocate for the inclusion of students with disabilities’ full participation in CS education. 
Peer collaboration during K-12 computer science instruction

Research on collaborative learning has shown that it can promote cooperation and improve academic achievement for various learners in K-12 classrooms. In engaging students in collaborative learning within CS education, we promote the maximize interactions to achieve desired learning goals; promote opportunities explicit supports and strategies to encourage individual accountabilities; set up the classroom environment to be conducive to student interactions; model and encourage interpersonal and social skills for students with various communication and collaboration skills; and facilitate group processing.

TACTICal Brief – Peer Collaboration (.pdf)

Challenges: paraeducators works with multiple students in isolated/separate environment which limited students’ access to the collaborative opportunities; stuck in the disempowering role of constant help seeker; lack of understanding of how to engage in productive discourse; lack of knowledge of how to do effectively collaborate with peers

Strategies: Create a classroom environment conducive to collaboration; explicitly teach and model collaboration; explore different models of collaboration to meet the needs of students; remind students to use collaboration strategies and provide feedback; Utilize anchor charts and other aids to help scaffold collaboration; empower and encourage situations where students independently and maintain effective collaboration; consider engaging students in cross-age collaboration or peer tutoring.

Paraeducators during K-12 computer science instruction

Paraeducators often work with multiple students with disabilities. They are required to support instruction with minimal professional development or time to learn how to support students with disabilities in this new content area.

TACTICal Brief – Paraeducators (.pdf)

Challenges: students with disabilities left class during CS instruction to get another content area instruction; students with disabilities quickly become frustrated and shut down if they have insufficient prior knowledge, not taught problem-solving strategies, and have limited or no opportunities to think creatively in situations where there may be multiple solutions; students with disabilities have difficulties interacting with their peers during CS.

Strategies: Collaborate with general educator/CS teacher before the lesson; encourage students to talk to the peers (provide explicit guidance in how to collaborate); Let students struggle (we can’t do the learning for them-Least to Most prompting).

Utilizing the Universal Design for Learning framework in computer science education

UDL framework provides guidelines to help teachers productively plan for academic diversity present in classrooms. It is proactive to planning or curricular opportunities. There are three principles of UDL ; engagement, representation, and expression and action.

TACTICal Brief – Universal Design (.pdf)

Challenges: Planning is time consuming (teachers do not know where and how to find time to plan in this manner); Unclear how individual student needs fit within this framework; hard to see how it would apply in CS activities.

Strategies: Start with small UDL principles in one lesson at a time; focus on barriers to learning to plan; Start with one/two UDL checkpoints and build up to a realistic number; Reflect on how UDL works in other content areas; Consider goals, environment, materials, and assessment; use the table and Illustrative examples of a UDL instructional planning process for a 4th grade integrated CS and math project.

Meeting the needs of all learners in K-12 computer science through co-planning and co-teaching

Co-teaching is a type of collaboration, wherein two or more teachers work together to plan and/or deliver instruction. It can occur between a CS teacher, special education teacher, instructional coach, specialists (e.g., speech/language pathologist, other adults) in the classroom. It can provide a flexible and deliberate approach in meeting the needs of all learners.

TACTICal Brief – Meeting Needs of All Learners (.pdf)

Challenges: Meeting the needs of diverse students when they do not have a background in CS or familiarity with special education strategies and practice; finding time to plan; struggling with making CS educational opportunities accessible to all students; trying to provide an individualized approach to meet the needs of each learners can be challenging.

Strategies: Discuss strengths and areas of growth of each team member; clearly define instructional co-teaching roles; establish an environment where both teachers have equal responsibilities in teaching and creating learning environment; communicate with each member; commit to regular co-planning with co-teacher; Recognize the importance of shared risk-taking and resilience; familiarize with standard co-teaching models

Scaffolded project planning during K-12 computer science instruction

Purposeful project planning is a critical component of effective CS education. Teachers can facilitate project planning by providing clear expectations, rubrics, and planning documents to support students’ work. With the appropriate supports (e.g., project planning), open-ended activities like project based learning (PBL) can lead to positive outcomes for students with disabilities such as social acceptance, increased academic performance, peer interactions, active engagement in the learning process, and high self-efficacy.

TACTICal Brief – Scaffolded Project Planning (.pdf)

Challenges: students struggle with strategically planning out a project; students may have difficulty generalizing from a teacher demonstration to their own work; students often lose interest in computing; students who have difficulty reading struggle with written direction.

Strategies: Create project-planning guides with limited use of text-based directions (break down the projects); Create adapted version of the project planning guides for students who struggle; Model the project based learning process; plan for periodic opportunities for reflection and goal settings; remind students to use project planning guides to problem solving and communicate.

Return to Projects

Time Period:
2016 – 2020

Project Team: 

  • University of Florida
  • Cornell Tech University
  • Broward County Public Schools

Resources:

 

llustrative Example of a UDL Instructional Planning Process for a 4th Grade Integrated CS and Math Project

A couple notes about this example lesson:

Step 1: Establish Clear Outcomes

What are your goals for the overall content as well as reading outcomes for your students?

Goals and Computer Science Teachers Association 2017 Standards (Grades 3-5)

Students will be able to:

  • Create programs that include sequences,events, loops and conditionals.
  • Decompose (break down) problems into smaller, manageable subproblems to facilitate the program development process.
  • Test and debug a program or algorithm to ensure it runs as intended.

Student-specific examples: 

  • The class will discuss how conditional statements can be used to add complexity to computer programs. 
  • Rachel and Mr. Gibson will discuss the Scratch blocks prior to this lesson to avoid frustration. Mr. Gibson also created laminated printouts of the conditional statement blocks that will be used in the lesson to help her learn the purposes of these blocks.  
  • Rachel has a basic understanding of adding fractions and has had some success in using fraction tiles.  As she develops her own story problems for the project, she will continue to utilize the fraction tiles to help make this abstract idea concrete.
Common Core Math Standards For Grade 4

Students will be able to:

  • Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions referring to the same whole and having like denominators, e.g., by using visual fraction models and equations to represent the problem.

Student-specific examples: 

  • The class will discuss how conditional statements can be used to add complexity to computer programs. 
  • Rachel and Mr. Gibson will discuss the Scratch blocks prior to this lesson to avoid frustration. Mr. Gibson also created laminated printouts of the conditional statement blocks that will be used in the lesson to help her learn the purposes of these blocks.  
  • Rachel has a basic understanding of adding fractions and has had some success in using fraction tiles.  As she develops her own story problems for the project, she will continue to utilize the fraction tiles to help make this abstract idea concrete.
What are the “big ideas” aligned with the standards, IEP goals, and other outcomes you want your students to achieve?

Students will be able to:

  • Write a fractional parts math story problem and animate their story problem so that another student could interact with the program to answer the math problem
  • Use conditionals to code the program’s response to the inputted answers

Student-specific examples: 

  • Rachel typically uses physical manipulatives to answer math problems related to fractions (e.g., number lines, fraction tiles). Mr. Gibson will show Rachel  the relationship between fraction problems  using physical manipulatives and how to represent fractional parts in Scratch so that she can use similar strategies within the Scratch environment. She will also be encouraged to continue to use the physical manipulatives to check her work. 
What barriers, misconceptions, or other challenges do you anticipate your students will face?

General barriers: 

  • Students generally have misconceptions about how conditional logic can be used to check if a condition is met or true so that an event is triggered or not triggered.
  • Students often can grasp how simple if-statements work, but can easily become confused by the flow of program execution and how more complex conditional statements are composed and evaluated.

Student-specific barriers: 

  • Students generally have misconceptions about how conditional logic can be used to check if a condition is met or true so that an event is triggered or not triggered.
  • Students often can grasp how simple if-statements work, but can easily become confused by the flow of program execution and how more complex conditional statements are composed and evaluated.

Step 2: Anticipate Learner Variability

As a teacher, you understand your students’ strengths, weaknesses, and you can probably anticipate what curriculum barriers will limit your students’ access to instruction and materials. In this step, you reflect on how your students’ strengths, weaknesses, preferences, cultural backgrounds as well as on the curriculum itself can become a barrier to learning and engagement.

General curriculum barriers (*non-CS related)

General Example:

  • Many of the students struggle with understanding fractional parts, not only the students with disabilities.  Combining the abstract concept of fractional parts with the idea of basic conditional logic can create additional barriers to learning. If students lack basic understanding of fractions, adding content about conditional logic may make the instruction too difficult.  

Student-specific example: 

  • Rachel has a very foundational understanding of fractions. She can do simple addition of fractions with like denominators. She also has significant math anxiety. Mr. Gibson hopes that the Scratch activities will allow her to engage with the math in a manner that is less intimidating, but he is concerned that her limited math skills with be a barrier to the Scratch activities.
Students’ preferences for representation, expression, and engagement

General Example:

  • Most of the students, including Rachel, indicate they would prefer to learn CS by engaging in unplugged or concrete activities initially. They also state a preference for group work and having choice in the types of projects they engage in during computer science learning. 

Student-specific example: 

  • Rachel has strong social skills and is liked by her peers. She loves expressing herself through art, music, and dance. If there is any way to leverage her highly collaborative nature in the CS activities and reinforce her preference for art in this context, that would be ideal. For example, she can create her own illustrations within her story problems in Scratch rather than picking from a menu of sprites.

Step 3: Measurable Outcomes and Assessment Plan

Prior to planning the instructional experience, establish how learning is going to be measured.

Embedding formative assessment checks into instruction to ensure all learners are successfully meeting their desired outcomes.

General Examples:

  • Mr. Gibson created a project planning guide to help Rachel and all the students understand the steps needed to complete the illustrated story problem.

  • The first part of this guide requires students to write out their story problem to check for math understanding. The second part of the project planning guide has steps and essential Scratch conditional statement blocks that the students should use in their projects to help then plan. He hopes that this planning guide will help Rachel and her peers as well as provide him with formative assessment to guide further instruction.

Providing learners multiple ways and options to authentically engage in the process, take action, and demonstrate understanding. Use the UDL checkpoints to ensure learner success and supporting higher-order skills and encouraging a deeper connection with the content.

General examples: 

  • Mr. Gibson has agreed to play Red Light, Green Light with her at recess to help her gain a foundational understanding of conditional logic.
  • Mr. Gibson realizes that one of the advantages of letting the students illustrate their math understanding in Scratch is that the students have multiple ways of individualizing their projects (e.g., what story to illustrate? What backgrounds and sprites to use?). He can also differentiate the level of complexity of the math without calling out those differences as each student is illustrating their own problem rather than solving a set of predetermined problems. Lastly, because students will be using each other’s problems, there are multiple opportunities for collaboration.

Student-specific examples: 

  • Additionally, Rachel, who is still struggling with the math, will likely not use all the conditional statement blocks. If Rachel prefers, she can also write her problem in pseudocode and then work with a peer to do the programming.
  • We will provide options for how Rachel demonstrates her knowledge (e.g., verbal response, drawing, creating a multimedia presentation). Because Rachel will likely not want to write down the main ideas and details, she can also have the option to dictate her responses into an audio recorder.

Step 4: Instructional Experience

Establish the instructional sequence of events. At minimum plans should include intentional and proactive ways to address the established goals, learner variability, and the assessment plan. Establish a plan for how instructional materials and strategies will be used to overcome barriers and support learner understanding.

1. Engagement

A variety of methods are used to engage students (e.g., provide choice, address student interest) and promote their ability to monitor their own learning (e.g., goal setting, self-assessment, and reflection).

The following strategies can be used to provide choice and increase interest and engagement for all students:

  • Choice in backgrounds, sprites, and math story problem narratives.
  • Help cards for managing frustration (e.g., Green=I’m fine; Red=I need help; Purple=I’m done and want to help my peers).
  • Include options for varied complexity of Scratch codes (e.g., using nested loops along with conditional statements vs. simple programs using conditional statements).
  • Varied instructional delivery (e.g., Whole class modeling vs. one-on-one modeling; pair programming; peer tutoring, individual work).
  • Explicitly teaching and encouraging student collaboration.
2. Representation

Teacher purposefully uses a variety of strategies, instructional tools, and methods to present information and content to anticipate student needs and preferences.
Content can be represented for all students in the class in multiple ways:

  • Direct instruction and modeling of a sample program, video tutorials, providing code snippets/partially completed code to students, controlled choice/options with certain design elements provided.
  • Utilizing a use, modify, create series of lessons, introduction of the concepts using a concrete or unplugged approach.
  • Use the I do, we do, you do method of representing content first in large group, then have guided practice with the students, and then move towards independent work.
  • Pre-teach content such as the purpose of each of the Scratch blocks that students are expected to use prior to students’ independent work.
  • Use word walls and graphic organizers. For instance, classroom routine signs can be constructed using conditional logic so that students interact with the ideas as part of their everyday experiences.
3. Action & Expression

Student uses a variety of strategies, instructional tools, and methods to demonstrate new understandings.

All students can have the option to demonstrate their new understanding through:

  • Presentation of Scratch projects, code walks, producing a flow chart, creating a reflection video about the student’s iterative development process…

Step 5: Reflection and New Understandings

Establish checkpoints for teacher reflection and new understandings.

  • Did the learners obtain the big ideas and desired outcomes for both the math and CT components of the lesson?
    (What data support your inference?)
  • What instructional strategies worked well? How can instructional strategies be improved?
  • What tools worked well? How could the use of tools be improved?
  • What strategies and tools provided for multiple means of representation, action/expression, and engagement?
  • What additional tools would have been beneficial to have access to and why?
  • Overall, how might you improve this lesson?