EDC

The goal of EDC’s CS work is to make sure that all students graduate from high school prepared to thrive in and contribute to our wired world and workplaces. To achieve this goal, and as part of EDC’s mission to improve education and economic opportunities for all, we are leading a comprehensive PreK-16 CS education initiative that includes strategic and synergistic efforts focused on curriculum design, research and evaluation, teacher development, workforce development, data literacy, family engagement, and system building. Working with PreK-12, government, foundation, industry, and higher education partners, we are providing evidence of effective CS education programs, policies, and practices; creating and supporting the use of innovative programs that put the results of rigorous research into real-world practice at scale; and helping states build comprehensive CS education systems, including developing standards. Our curriculum designers are working to develop a continuum of CS learning and support, from very young children on up through high school. With WGBH, we are creating programs that help families support preschool children’s development of computational thinking skills, setting the stage for success in and beyond K-12 math and computer science classes. With the Mass. Department of Elementary & Secondary Education and teacher collaborators, we are developing a curriculum that seamlessly integrates computational thinking into Grades 1-6 math and science lessons. Recently, we designed a full-year Advanced Placement CS Principles course that is sparking diverse populations of students’ interest in CS careers and that we are scaling—along with related professional development—in New York City schools. In 2017, we are leading two national convenings to build capacity to expand and sustain CS education to reach all students and to define the specific characteristics and learning assessments of computational thinking as it occurs within disciplinary learning in K-12. Finally, to advance knowledge of effective strategies, we are conducting evaluations of initiatives such as Girls Who Code, Google Next Code, New Mexico CS4All.