Use empathy interviews with students to identify and address systemic inequities in computing participation¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The report's equity commitment goes beyond equal access to designing inclusive opportunities for students historically marginalized from computing. Teachers use the Empathy Interview Protocol, which moves them through a recognition of the need for empathy and user voice, noticing about themselves, conducting interviews, observing in classrooms, and reflecting on what they learned. At Iowa City, an Inclusive CT Pathways Committee used modified empathy interviews and surveys to learn about students' experiences and decisions about participating in computing coursework before designing supports and on-ramps.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Allocated meeting time for teachers to debrief interview findings, and willingness to examine enrollment data for demographic inequities

Constraints¶

• Stereotypes about who should excel in computing lead to inequitable tracking of young women and students of color out of computing opportunities

Target Learners¶

• Students historically marginalized from computing, including Black students, Latinx students, and English learners

Target Learning Goals¶

• More inclusive computing pathways and equitable participation in computing coursework

Related Strategies¶

• Engage teachers, families, and designers in participatory, iterative co-design of CT learning activities rather than adopting packaged solutions
• Political Education
• Integrate computational thinking into PreK-8 core subject matter rather than relying on stand-alone clubs and classes

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Digital Promise. (2021, March). Powerful learning with computational thinking: Our why, what, and how of computational thinking. Digital Promise. https://doi.org/10.51388/20.500.12265/115