Computational Thinking
in Teacher Education

• 1.2. Digital Citizen Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.

• 1.3. Knowledge Constructor Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

• 1.7 Global Collaborator Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

Impact of Computing

• 9-12.IC.1 Evaluate the impact of computing technologies on equity, access, and influence in a global society.
• 7-8.IC.1 Compare and contrast tradeoffs associated with computing technologies that affect individuals and society.
• 7-8.IC.3 Identify and discuss issues of ethics surrounding computing technologies and current events.
• 9-12.IC.3 (Ethics) Debate issues of ethics related to real world computing technologies.
• 7-8.IC.5 (Ethics) Analyze potential sources of bias that could be introduced to complex computer systems and the potential impact of these biases on individuals.

Computational Thinking

• 9-12.CT.3 Refine and visualize complex data sets to tell different stories with the same data set.
• 9-12.CT.7 Design or remix a program that utilizes a data structure to maintain changes to related pieces of data.

Digital Literacy

• 9-12.DL.2 Communicate and work collaboratively with others using digital tools to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

Standard 1: Candidate/Completer Performance

• 1a. Content, pedagogical, and/or professional knowledge relevant to the credential or degree sought.
• 1c. Culturally responsive practice, including intersectionality of race, ethnicity, class, gender identity and expression, sexual identity, and the impact of language acquisition and literacy development on learning.
• 1d. Assessment of and for student learning, assessment and data literacy, and use of data to inform practice.

Standard 2: Completer Professional Competence and Growth

• 2a. Understand and engage local school and cultural communities, and communicate and foster relationships with families/guardians/caregivers in a variety of communities.

Standard 3: Quality Program Practices

• 3b. Develops and implements quality clinical experiences, where appropriate, in the context of documented and effective partnerships with P-12 schools and districts.
• 3e. Engages in continuous improvement of programs and program components, and investigates opportunities for innovation, through an effective quality assurance system.

To get started: Scroll down to the interactive map of the United States in the Miseducation (ProPublica) database and then answer the following questions:

1. Click the tabs “Opportunity,” “Discipline,” “Segregation” and “Achievement Gap” and answer these two questions: What do you notice? What do you wonder about?

2. Next, click the tabs “Black” and “Hispanic.” What do you notice? What do you wonder?

3. Search for your school or district in the database. What do you notice in the results? What questions do you have?

Prepare a short report on what you have found about your school and about your school district. In your reflection, include detailed results, e.g., “School district ….’s composition is 24 % Black, 41%, Hispanic, 16% White, 17% Asian, 1% Native American, 1% Two or more races.” Or “White students are 1.7 times more likely to be enrolled in at least one AP class as Black students.” Be ready to share your findings in class. In-Class Gallery Walk Teacher candidates share their findings.

• What did you find about your school/school district?
• Do all students in NYC receive the same quality of education?
• Do all students in America receive the same quality of education?
• Do you think that there is a correlation between students’ race and the quality of education they receive?
• What is the purpose of public education?
• Is receiving a quality public education a right (for everyone) or a privilege (for some)?

Choose one of the following ideas (or generate another) to investigate the interrelationship among school segregation, funding and inequality.

1. Research your local school district budget, using public records or local media, such as newspapers or television reporting. What is the budget per student? How does that budget compare with the state average? The national average?

2. Compare your findings about your local school budget to your research about segregation and student outcomes, using the Miseducation database. Do the results of your research suggest any correlations?

3. Represent digitally? HOW? IDEAS? SHARE HOW? IDEAS?

1. How much less total funding do school districts that serve predominantly students of color receive compared to school districts that serve predominantly white students?

2. Why are school district borders problematic?

3. How many of the nation’s schoolchildren are in “racially concentrated districts, where over 75 percent of students are either white or nonwhite”?

4. How much less money, on average, do nonwhite districts receive than white districts?

5. How are school districts funded?

6. How does lack of school funding affect classrooms?

7. What is fair school funding and why does it matter?

1. Only a tiny number of black students are admitted to the highly selective public high schools in New York City (e.g., 2019, 2020, 2021) raising the pressure on officials to confront the decades-old challenge of integrating New York’s elite public schools. To learn more about this story, listen to this episode of The Daily. For more information, read this essay offering different perspectives on the problem and possible solutions. Make a case for what should be done — or not done — to make New York’s elite public schools more diverse.

2. Pose a question in relation to NYC school segregation and inequities that you would like to answer. Use NYC Open database https://opendata.cityofnewyork.us/ to find an answer to your question. Be ready to share in class your question, results of your research and visual representations.

Gallery Walk: Share your findings.

• How and why are schools still segregated in 2022 (in NYC, America and the world)?
• What repercussions do segregated schools have for students and society?
• What are potential remedies to address school segregation?