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Higher Education Computing Curriculum for the Black Community: A Review

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

Centering Black Experiences in STEM: Equity, Culture & Social Justice in Education Division Technical Session 4

Page Count

10

DOI

10.18260/1-2--41767

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/41767

Download Count

337

Paper Authors

biography

Simone Smarr University of Florida

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Simone Smarr is a doctoral student in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering at the University of Florida. Through her involvement in the Human Experience Research lab, she has conducted research in voting technology, educational technology, and user centered design. Her research interests include, CS education, learning technology and culturally relevant computing. Simone hopes to bridge computing, culture and education through learning technologies. She is a proud Alumna of Spelman College in Atlanta, GA where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science.

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Juan Gilbert University of Florida

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Abstract

The call to diversify Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields has continued to echo and grow. While it is common for research to explore these approaches at the K-12 level, the higher education space also contributes significantly in helping to diversify STEM fields through educational approaches. The Black/African-American community is a historically marginalized group that has continued to be underrepresented in STEM fields like computing. Within higher education, the computing education field has used various approaches to target the Black/African-American community through inclusive instruction in classrooms, programming to increase exposure, and even amplifying the voices of those within the field to understand their experiences better. A literature review was conducted to explore what has been done, the approaches used, and how these efforts can strategically contribute to diversifying other STEM fields. The review focused on collegiate level departmental and classroom approaches that target the Black/African-American computing community. The collected existing research in this space was synthesized to understand the landscape thus far and was theoretically explored through a cultural lens. The intersection of frameworks such as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and Culturally Relevant Computing provides the foundation for the cultural analysis. These frameworks can aid researchers in evaluating approaches for the Black/African-American community and help strengthen the research in this area to culturally connect with Black students in STEM. We explore the use and lack thereof of frameworks related to culture to inform the approaches. This synthesis brings together key literature in this area to provide insight on how to build on approaches to potentially further diversity efforts for the Black community across STEM, particularly by using pedagogical bridges and partnerships.

Smarr, S., & Gilbert, J. (2022, August), Higher Education Computing Curriculum for the Black Community: A Review Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41767

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