Curated Pathways to Innovation: Personalized CS Education to Promote Diversity

The lack of diversity in computing is a well-known issue. This poster is a work-in-progress report on Curated Pathways to Innovation (CPI), a web-based tool which gathers existing online resources for computer science (CS) engagement and learning to allow students to learn more about CS careers and content, with a particular focus on improving participation of K-12 girls and under-represented minorities in CS. This project is a collaboration of people from academia in CS and social science, K-12 education, non-profit, and industry. We are about halfway through a 3-year pilot deployment of CPI with all students in a low-income, primarily Latino/a middle school with nearly 500 students, and smaller deployments have been undertaken and are planned for 2018-19. In addition to online content, we have created in-person experiences, including reverse science fairs, summer camps, and a hackathon, which are tracked in the CPI tool. To measure impact, we conduct regular surveys with the students measuring their interest in CS, self-efficacy, and other metrics. Our evaluation of the system based on survey data has helped inform the development of the system and curriculum, but remains preliminary. This poster also discusses the tool itself. It uses gamification in the form of badges to measure student progress. From the beginning, the vision was to use machine learning to customize recommendations based on students' demographics, background, and past performance. This integration is coming to fruition at the same time we are including more interesting visuals in the UI, such as an avatar and animations.