About Us
Leveraging a consortium of multiple partners across education, we are committed to understanding how computing education is impacting students across multiple years, including how computing education further can enhance outcomes that are impactful for all students. The evidence will be used to support the capacity for educators to make decisions about computing education initiatives in their schools.
The PROACT-CS consortium is being led by a team at the Institute for Advancing Computing Education, with support from multiple partners.
Mission
Our mission is to collaboratively investigate the impacts of CS education on the cognitive and noncognitive outcomes of 6th-12th grade students’ experiences to inform decision-making for building equitable capacity for, access to, participation in, and experiences with CS education.
Vision
We envision a future where reliable, credible, and relevant sources of data are used to inform rigorous research to improve decisions and implementation of CS education within local communities’ computer science offerings tailored for their students’ success. These findings and subsequent implementation guidance will support equitable outcomes of students’ computer science experiences by ensuring that they are equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in and contribute to a more equitable tech-driven future.
Goals
- To create a trusted, unified voice of representatives from various sectors that can speak consistently about equity and quality in CS education and share a commitment to findings and guidance to decision-makers to improve outcomes for all students through policy, funding, curriculum, pedagogy, teacher training and school environments
- To identify the long-term impacts of CS education implementation on 6th-12th grade students through a centralized site of shared data, findings and guidance using the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion
- To provide an regularly-updated national landscape report of students’ CS learning experiences within their unique educational ecosystems
- To provide a healthy, data-driven ecosystem for CS education that uses constant reflection and community to 1) identify gaps in participation and experiences, 2) align research to seek out root causes for those opportunities, 3) measure interventions and approaches, 4) propose new research, and 5) produce an informed recommendation of promising practices to build a strong education system that includes CS.