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DEPICT draws on a sociocultural theory of learning called Cognitive Apprenticeship (Cole, 1998) to create new frameworks that enhance teaching capacity in CT within Performance and Creative Writing (PCW) courses. Cognitive apprenticeship involves making expert thinking visible to learners and providing learners opportunities to engage in common practices of the expert’s domain—in our case, CT. Cognitive apprenticeship is relevant to DEPICT at two levels: (1) within the teaching teams and (2) in the high school classrooms. Teaching teams leverage the Computer Science (CS) and CT learning experience of graduate and undergraduate students who have taken several CS courses, and the pedagogical expertise of high school teachers, selected for their reputation for quality instruction and their interest in integrating CT within their classrooms.
The second theory of importance to DEPICT is systemic organizational change. DEPICT seeks to increase awareness and implementation of CT modules across different grades within participating schools through teacher-led development of modules, professional development that attends to depth and breadth of participation in CT, and ambassadorship by teacher leaders in the school about the relevance of CT as a 21st-century basic skill. The project objective centers on Coburn’s theory of change (Coburn, 2003) for developing lasting and deep change that “goes beyond surface structures or procedures to alter teachers’ beliefs, norms of social interaction, and pedagogical principles as enacted in the curriculum.” DEPICT utilizes Coburn’s model for promoting organizational change, through a shift in ownership, spread of innovation, depth of implementation, and sustainability. DEPICT addresses these concepts by exploring innovative pedagogical modules to infuse CT in PCW (and connecting such modules to relevant standards) and establishing an expectation of teachers to assume a role in the professional development of other teachers and ambassadorship for CT and computing as a core skill within all disciplines.
To determine the effectiveness of the intervention, DEPICT adopted a range of instruments, starting with a pre/post-test quasi-experimental study with a control group matched by four salient variables: ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, and grade level in school. The study compared the achievement and engagement of high school students in two groups: a) an experimental group of students in one section of the course, randomly selected, who were exposed to course materials through the proposed CT modules; and b) a control group, composed of students from another section of the course, exposed to course content through traditional non-CT modules. The two groups alternated in the use of CT-enriched modules. Pre-tests and post-tests were administered at salient points of the program (e.g., before and after each class module, beginning and end of each semester). Quantitative data was captured through systematic artifact analysis and qualitative data was captured through artifact-based interviews. Qualitative analysis will be guided by Spradley’s developmental research sequence (Spradley, 1979). Student artifacts from each course module were archived and analyzed using specifically developed rubrics. Coding was performed by using Cohen’s Kappa to assess inter-rater reliability. We will use inferential statistics to investigate correlations between participants’ development of appropriate representations and appropriate usage of the concepts in CT with student learning (as assessed by pre- post-tests) and desire to continue in CS. We identified baseline data through surveys to be implemented before the start of the project. In addition to the survey, project documents (participant demographics, curriculum activities) and focus groups were used to address the formative assessment. Quantitative data amassed at baseline and for formative purposes is undergoing basic descriptive analyses through graphic representation, and examination of central tendencies and frequencies as appropriate to the type of data.
As part of the academic year implementation, DEPICT operated in a southwestern district, in two diverse high schools (which serve 1,666 [827M-839F] and 1,808 [942M-866F] students respectively with a minority enrollment of 84% and 80% of the student body [majority Hispanic] in both cases). The CT exposure process included modifying lectures and class activities to emphasize the use of CT concepts to explain creative writing content. For instance, as part of the course's content, students learn about the Rashomon effect, a storytelling and writing method, in which an event or scene is given contradictory interpretations or descriptions by the individuals involved. DEPICT exposes one of the AP College CT Practices (College Board, 2020), the computational solution design while learning the Rashomon effect with the use of a hands-on digital learning platform called Merge Cube, where students use the platform to create 3D objects and simulations on each side of the cube to describe different interpretations of their story.
We predict that the combination of creative composition and screenplay development will allow DEPICT to engage students in areas of strong self-efficacy and enable them to pursue projects that have a clear link to the students' cultural backgrounds.
DEPICT expected outcomes are (1) Provide CT exposure to high school teachers and diverse groups of students that would, most likely, not consider computing as an option; (2) Provide teachers with preparation, pedagogy, and curricula to instrument students with CT problem-solving tools and skills that can further advance the students’ competency and performance in the host discipline (e.g., creative writing) and future learning experiences; (3) Generate new research knowledge about the benefits of infusing CT in high school arts and humanities courses to promote broader participation in computing.
By targeting language and arts-dominant courses for infusion of CT, DEPICT aims to broaden the appeal of computing to students who may not consider themselves as belonging to a technical field. Bringing creative and artistic design into the curriculum may also redefine who is “right for” the field, through the development of complementary STEM pathways that are appealing to a group of students adept at arts, language, and theater. The idea of infusing CT in non-STEM curricula is an effective way to introduce students to computing. It simplifies the illustration of CT, contextualizing it through domain-inspired problems and linking computing to topics that are relevant to the student. The process of infusing CT into a targeted discipline has also benefits for such discipline. The infusion helps students in constructing mental representations of issues being studied (e.g., the structure of a narrative), facilitating inquiry-based learning and exploratory analysis (Gunstone and Mitchell, 1998; Ryokai, et al., 2003). Effective pedagogy requires structured educational materials, mechanisms to develop an adequate level of automaticity, and well-supported instructional environments. CT and its modeling strategies (Dalton, et al., 2002; Plass, et al., 1998) are excellent instruments to achieve this (Jonassen, 2003; Gilbert, 1998). CT enables reasoning at different levels of abstraction and emphasizes the transition from using information to creating knowledge.
Regarding pedagogy, besides creating a human infrastructure of teachers in the Arts and Humanities competent in CT, the DEPICT project aims to build an infrastructure to infuse CT in a variety of courses; the program will solidify a strong network of educational collaborations between the research team and high schools. Additionally, DEPICT will sustain U.S. competitiveness in CS and IT, currently threatened by the inadequate number of diverse students pursuing degrees in computing and the gender and ethnic imbalance (which detracts talent from the field).
Coburn, C. E. (2003). Rethinking scale: Moving beyond numbers to deep and lasting change. Educational researcher, 32(6), 3-12.
Cole, M. (1998). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Harvard university press.
College Board (2020). AP Program Participation and Performance Data 2020. Technical report, College Board.
Dalton, B., Pisha, B., Eagleton, M., Coyne, P., & Deysher, S. (2002). Engaging the text: Reciprocal teaching and questioning strategies in a scaffolded digital learning environment. Final report to US Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, Washington, DC.
Gilbert, J. K. (1998). Learning science through models and modeling. International handbook of science education, 56.
Gunstone, R., & Mitchell, I. J. (1998). Metacognition and Conceptual Change. Teaching for Science Education: A Human Constructivist View. Academic Press
Jonassen, D. (2003). Using cognitive tools to represent problems. Journal of research on Technology in Education, 35(3), 362-381.
Plass, J. L., Chun, D. M., Mayer, R. E., & Leutner, D. (1998). Supporting visual and verbal learning preferences in a second-language multimedia learning environment. Journal of educational psychology, 90(1), 25.
Ryokai, K., Vaucelle, C., & Cassell, J. (2003). Virtual peers as partners in storytelling and literacy learning. Journal of computer assisted learning, 19(2), 195-208.
Sax, L. J., Newhouse, K. N., Goode, J., Skorodinsky, M., Nakajima, T. M., & Sendowski, M. (2020, February). Does ap cs principles broaden participation in computing? an analysis of apcsa and apcsp participants. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education(pp. 542-548).
Spradley, J. (1979). The ethnographic interview. Wadsworth. Cengage Learning.
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