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Developing Culturally Sustaining Elementary Computer Science Education with Indigenous Communities: Lessons Learned through a Research-Practice Partnership

Published: 07 March 2024 Publication History

Abstract

The Wind River Elementary Computer Science (WRECS) Collaborative is a research-practice partnership (RPP) among three school districts serving Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho communities on the Wind River Reservation, the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE), BootUp Professional Development (BootUp PD), and the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The purpose of the WRECS Collaborative is to develop culturally sustaining elementary computer science (CS) education through integration of CS and Indigenous studies. The Collaborative engaged three cohorts of elementary educators in cycles of professional development, classroom implementation, and group reflection over the 2020-21, 2021-22, and 2022-23 school years. In this experience report, we share a set of reflections and lessons learned as the RPP developed relationships and worked through intersecting priorities, instructional goals, and ways of knowing and learning present within the RPP.

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Cited By

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  • (2025)What Could Impact Indigenous-serving Teachers' Computing Integration After A Culturally Responsive Professional Development?Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 210.1145/3641555.3705279(1667-1668)Online publication date: 18-Feb-2025
  • (2024)Toward Data Sovereignty: Justice-oriented and Community-based AI EducationProceedings of the 2024 on RESPECT Annual Conference10.1145/3653666.3656107(94-99)Online publication date: 16-May-2024
  • (2024)Breaking Barriers: Overcoming Resistance to Curriculum IndigenisationProceedings of the 2024 on ACM Virtual Global Computing Education Conference V. 110.1145/3649165.3690104(53-59)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2024

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cover image ACM Conferences
SIGCSE 2024: Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1
March 2024
1583 pages
ISBN:9798400704239
DOI:10.1145/3626252
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 07 March 2024

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Author Tags

  1. culturally sustaining computer science
  2. elementary computer science
  3. indigenous communities
  4. integration
  5. professional development
  6. research practice partnership

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View all
  • (2025)What Could Impact Indigenous-serving Teachers' Computing Integration After A Culturally Responsive Professional Development?Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 210.1145/3641555.3705279(1667-1668)Online publication date: 18-Feb-2025
  • (2024)Toward Data Sovereignty: Justice-oriented and Community-based AI EducationProceedings of the 2024 on RESPECT Annual Conference10.1145/3653666.3656107(94-99)Online publication date: 16-May-2024
  • (2024)Breaking Barriers: Overcoming Resistance to Curriculum IndigenisationProceedings of the 2024 on ACM Virtual Global Computing Education Conference V. 110.1145/3649165.3690104(53-59)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2024

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