Empowering Education

About Tactics

The University of Florida (UF) is partnering with Arizona State University (ASU) and the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) to focus on two school districts in Arizona, a state with more than 1 million students, 45% Hispanic, and 11% students receiving special education. The elementary years are a critical time for a child’s formation of positive attitudes toward the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas. Several studies indicate that high school students interested in STEM careers, as well as graduate students in the sciences, report that their interest in STEM was initiated by experiences prior to or during middle school (Aschbacher et al., 2010; Maltese & Tai, 2010). When interest is not established early, there can be a marked decline in positive attitudes as students move to high school (George, 2000). Hence, we focus on the 4th and 5th grade years as this is the time when students begin to consider whether to opt in or out of future STEM experiences (Penner & Paret, 2008).

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Meet Our Team

Our team brings together a diverse group of experts who are driven by a shared passion for expanding opportunities in K-12 Computer Science (CS) education, ensuring that every student has the chance to explore and succeed in this dynamic field.

Maya Israel

Principal Investigator

misrael@coe.ufl.edu

(PI) is an associate professor of CS education with expertise in CS education research, UDL- and HLP-based CS education, and instructional strategies to support students with disabilities. Previously, she was a special education teacher who worked with students with disabilities in STEM areas. Dr. Israel will manage grant activities at UF including mentoring the postdoctoral researcher and graduate research assistant.

Janice Mak

Co-Principal Investigator

janice.mak@asu.edu

Dr. Mak is a clinical assistant professor with joint appointments with ASU’s Learning Engineering Institute who will manage Arizona-based classroom implementation, PD, CoP, and research. She has experience as a postdoctoral researcher on an NSF-funded grant on accessible computational thinking.

Jeremy Babendure

Co-Principal Investigator

jbabendrue@scitechinstitute.org

Dr. Babendure is an Associate Research Professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society, College of Global Futures and SciTech Institute Executive Director. He will assist with CoP development, communications, and dissemination. Babendure has experience designing and leading large-scale collaborations including the AZ STEM Ecosystem Chief Science Officers.

Joanne Barrett

Senior Personnel

jrbarrett@coe.ufl.edu

Dr. Barrett is the Director of Teacher Education for the Kenneth C. Griffin CS for All Education Initiative. Prior to taking this position, she worked as a CS classroom teacher for over 25 years and also served as the Director of Educational Technology, where she was responsible for PD. Dr. Barrett will help develop the PD/CoP.

Jessica Hall

Evaluation Team Lead

jhall@cast.org

Dr. Mak is a clinical assistant professor with joint appointments with ASU’s Learning Engineering Institute who will manage Arizona-based classroom implementation, PD, CoP, and research. She has experience as a postdoctoral researcher on an NSF-funded grant on accessible computational thinking.

Jessica Williams

Graduate Research Assistant

jbabendrue@scitechinstitute.org

Jessica is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida. Collaborate with project directors and research team on management of IRB protocols and documents, data organization, development of research instruments and PD.

Lauren Weisberg

Postdoctoral Research Scholar

jrbarrett@coe.ufl.edu

Lauren is a post-doctoral associate and former STEM teacher whose research focuses on preparing and empowering K-12 teachers to design equitable and inclusive digital learning experiences for all students. She is currently leading the development of a series of microcredentials focused on expanding participation in K-12 CS education for all students.

Francheska Figueroa

Postdoctoral Research Scholar

francheska.figueroa@asu.edu

Conducting research activities for 4th-5th grade computer science (students with special needs); collaborating on design and implementation of teacher PD and teacher support; supporting classroom implementations in the Phoenix area; mentoring graduate student research assistants; and promoting excellence, equity, and diversity.

Marissa Castellana

Graduate Research Assistant

macaste8@asu.edu

Collaborate on the design and implementation of grant activities including teacher recruitment, development of PD workshops, and ongoing teacher support activities; support grant research initiatives (e.g. develop research instruments, collect and analyze data); and promote excellence, equity, and diversity

Methodology

This is a mixed methods study. Our primary qualitative research approach during this phase of the study will be instrumental case studies (Stake, 1995) of teacher dyads. To answer the above RQs, we will examine teachers’ completion of PD/CoP activities (e.g., evidence of participation, journal prompts, lesson study process lessons). Finally, we will collect practitioner documentation of enactment practices. We will also conduct a discourse analysis of the online CoP and administer the Inclusion in Elementary CS Teacher Survey (I-ECS) to the 10 dyads of participating 4th and 5th grade teachers and special education teachers. For the I-ECS, we will develop a process for dealing with missing values (e.g., imputed at the item- and scale-level on a case-by-case basis). Groups of items intended for analysis as scales will be evaluated for internal consistency and validity (e.g., Cronbach’s Alpha; Confirmatory Factor Analysis). We will generate descriptive statistics (i.e., means, standard deviations, and correlations) for all continuous variables and frequency counts for all categorical variables.

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