Manuscript: The Pathway to Achieving Classroom Equity: Computational and Critical Thinking through Storytelling and 3D Models
An example of a culturally relevant teaching (CRT) approach to introducing Indigenous youth to computer science education is the “Storytelling project” that is currently a work in progress by researchers at Montana University. The project aims to support equity in the classroom via a teaching approach that combines Indigenous narrative “Storytelling” with computer science (CS) components and the goal is to help increase the American Indian’s participation in CS majors (do Amaral & Windchief, 2019). The target audience is middle school students in Montana tribes. The tool is Alice, an object-oriented drag-and-drop programming environment that has already proven to be successful in engaging and retaining diverse and under-served groups in computer science (do Amaral & Windchief, 2019).
The authors state that the oral tradition has historically been the means by which tribal communities teach one another about the world around them, and it continues to play a significant role today (do Amaral & Windchief, 2019). There is considerable work with indigenous science (traditional ecological knowledge, for example) being done at tribal colleges and with indigenous scientists, but they haven’t found anything specific to computer science. Animation aligns well with storytelling, so with the young learners. Thus, it may promote the youth’s interest in CS while using the coding platform to construct their stories (do Amaral & Windchief, 2019). The researchers reported that they consider the messages and symbols of the American Indian stories and enact the seven essential requirements of the Indian Education for All Act (IEFA) in their analysis of the culturally charged material to avoid any unintentional bias in their lessons and activities (do Amaral & Windchief, 2019). Currently, they are developing several lesson plans and online modules to share with educators. Once they are finalized, the materials will be available on the website: http://www.montana.edu/storytelling/. Below is the project presentation:
Teaching Computer Science through Storytelling (Videohall.com, 2018, April 24)
References:
- do Amaral, B., & Windchief, S. (2019). The pathway to achieving classroom equity: Computational and critical thinking through storytelling and 3D models. Educational Research: Theory and Practice, 30(1), 62.
- VideoHall.com (2018, April 24). Teaching Computer Science through Storytelling
. retrieved from https://vimeo.com/266368518