We would like to generously thank our sponsors at the Arizona Department of Education, UArizona's Indigenous Resilience Center, UArizona's College of Education, the Agnese Nelms Haury Program, the Pascua Yaqui Workforce Development Office, TUSD's Native American Student Services, AISES, Indigitize, the Kapor Center and Google. Thank you!
Natives Who Code endeavors to partner with Arizona Tribal Communities in Indigenized computer science education. Prioritizing building relational accountability with our Indigenous neighboring communities, we aim to uncover a vision of success for today's youth. Using this foundation, we aim to support educators who teach computer science to Native youth in Arizona with attendance to the regional conference, the 4 Corners Computer Science Convening, and a week long professional development training in culturally sustaining computer science pedagogy. During this grant cycle, we will work with 15 educators and with a projected impact of 525 native youth.
Below are the components of the project:
Integrate Indigenous Culture and Language into CS and vice versa
Co-creating professional development for existing CS teachers to integrate Indigenous culture and language into K-12 CS curriculum for students, and by connecting with existing Native American student services resources at their schools and communities.
Faciliate Native Student Learning Experiences in CS
Deliver a tech-focused education to Native American students to prepare them for the reality of the modern, global economy.
Classroom Technology Support
Provide the funding for our NWC educators to purchase educational technology to implement their school specific ideas in integrating Indigenous culture and language into their computer science courses.
Develop assessments and success metrics
- Teacher's connections beyond school (e.g., other local and national teachers and educators, education leaders, organizations, programs)
- Teacher acknowledgements (from administration or others)
- Teachers' products
Build a community of learning
Instruct teachers and Teacher Support Teams (TSTs) to integrate Indigenous culture and language into a tech-focused curriculum.
Building a community of learning through:
- The training and integration of Teacher Support Teams, such as site leads for school districts/regions, school administration teams and school/district Native American student services departments
- Attending the Four Corners Computer Science Convening
- Membership to AISES and connections to their computer science community
- Introduction to the Computer Science Teacher Association - Arizona
Develop and implement student internship opportunities
Instruct students in CS and work with partners to develop internship and programs to contribute to student's communities.
In our first year of Natives Who Code, we have learned,
- The importance of establishing Relational Accountability with the tribal communities that are represented through our cohort.
- The growing urgency for tribal communities to be informed of and partake in the Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance Movement.
- We are currently building a resource page for Indigenous Data Sovereignty for K-12 Education. Check out our work in progress and reach out if you would like to connect in this ongoing discussion of our role, as educators, in the movement.
- The natural leadership by Indigenous culture and language educators to lead a team for CS integration
- Of the Native and Native-serving CS education network and how we might collaborate and learn from one another
Impact
15 Arizona Computer Science Educators who:
- understand how computer science education supports the needs and cultural priorities of Native youth, families, and communities of Arizona
- Work with their local tribal community to reflect community values and perspectives in computer science curriculum
- become teacher leaders in Native Nation building computer science education
~525 Native youth who have:
- completed a course in computer science
- are aware of how computer science can meet the needs and cultural priorities of their communities
- have internship opportunities using their computer science skills, that answer community-initiated needs
4 Tribal Communities of Arizona who:
- co-create a culturally-sustaining computer science curriculum for the youth in their communities
- support native students in their desire to serve their communities through tailed internship opportunities embedded within the communities existing infrastructure
- are committed to uphold computer science pathways for the youth in their communities.
Namely, collaboration with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Tohono O'odham Nation, Gila River Indian Community and the Navajo Nation.
Contact us for more information for how you can get involved! Email dataacademy@arizona.edu.
