How many of you have seen a dashbaord before? I bet almost everyone of you may have used a one while tracking the covid-19 statistics and if not then dashboard in the car for sure. Isn`t it amazing how a dashoboard puts up all required infomation together and handy. That car dashboard helps us determine whether to slow down/speed up, to fuel up and this all is done based on the data like speed, low running fuel or oil change reminders right. Now, think about a situation, when there is no dashboard in the car, would you tell an officer you were speeding because you didn’t have a dashboard to check it?
My name is Purnya Awasthi and I am student of M.S. in Information Technology. During my internship last fall I worked with New Hampshire`s Department of Education on gathering, organizing a data set which was about Computer science education in New Hampshire public schools for students of grades 9-12.
The level of diversity of data can be imagined based on following few criteria's
1. participation level of rural students against the suburban and urban peers,
2. whether and in what extent schools offer the Computer Science courses,
3. enrollment disparities based on gender, geography, socio-economic and ethnicity.
The aim of developing a dashboard was to represent this dataset so that we can assess equity as an integral component in CS education by unravelling disparity and underrepresentation in it. This is well assessed by the CAPE framework of computing education.
CAPE is "Capacity for ", "Access to ", "Participation in ","Experience of" equitable CS Education"
Each of these four components interact progressively and rely on the previous component. For example
1. if students are to have equitable CS learning experiences, they must first participate in CS courses , so experience depends on participation.
2. If students are to participate in CS, they must first have equitable access to CS courses, meaning participation requires access.
3. If schools are to provide students access to CS courses, they must first have the capacity to offer CS education , so access depends on capacity.
Keeping CAPE framework in mind, I am developing a dashboard for NH much like the dashboard of a car, which will help stakeholders address the disparity and underrepresentation in computer science education.
