Twenty-eight teachers are being recruited for the first year of CSForAll: Adapt, Implement, and Research at Nebraska (AIR@NE), an NSF-funded grant which will examine the adaptation and implementation of a validated K-8 Computer Science curriculum in diverse school districts. The grant will expand the Research-Practitioner Partnership between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Lincoln Public Schools (LPS) to other districts across Nebraska. The primary goal is to study how districts facing different contextual challenges, including rural schools, majority-minority schools, and Native American reservation schools, adapt the curriculum to fit local needs and strengths to broaden participation in computer science.
The application is now open. The first review will be conducted after Dec. 1 with selection decisions made following that. Subsequent completed applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until January 2019. Please forward this notice to your K-8 computer science colleagues.
COHORTS AND BENEFITS
A cohort of teachers will be recruited each year to take summer courses (2019-2021). The first cohort of 28 teachers will take courses in Lincoln in the summer of 2019 and have academic-year follow-up work in 2019-2020. The second cohort will be held in Grand Island, starting in summer 2020 with academic-year follow-up in 2020-2021, while cohort 3 will meet in Omaha starting in summer 2021, with academic-year follow-up in 2021-2022. There is no travel funding available for commuting to courses, so if you are not a Lincoln area teacher, you should wait for the recruitment period to open for the 2020 and 2021 cohorts.
What you will receive if selected:
*Tuition and fees for two graduate courses (except for the $50 graduate application fee) in Summer 2019: Introduction to Computer Science I for Teachers (CSCE 805T, June 3-7) and CS Pedagogy (TEAC 851L, June 10-14); optional: tuition and fees for one graduate course the following summer: Introduction to Computer Science II for Teachers (CSCE 806T, June 2019)
*For elementary teachers: $1,500 worth of computer science hardware and software (i.e. iPads, robotics)
*For middle school teachers: $600 worth of computer science hardware and software (i.e. iPads, robotics)
*Funding to travel to one conference (e.g., NETA or CSTA)
*During academic year, attend five Saturday meetings and earn $100 per meeting
*Participation in a statewide community of K-8 computer science teachers, providing mutual support for teaching and learning computer science.
ELIGIBILITY AND APPLICATION
You must:
• be a K-8 Nebraska teacher
• teach at least one computer science class to students at least once per week
• agree to be part of the research project (agree to observations, completion of questionnaires and surveys, and interviews and collect student data)
• have your principal/district support your teaching of computer science and participation in this grant
See the website for information on the application: http://go.unl.edu/airne
For more about personnel on this grant, see this UNL Research story (https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/husker-team-aims-to-strengthen-nebraska-s-k-8-computer-science-curriculum/).