The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts STEM Pathways initiative set an enrollment record this year, serving more than 2,000 students across the state in its Computer Science Plus and Advanced Biology Plus cohorts.
There are 1,678 computer science students statewide enrolled in this year’s Coding Arkansas’ Future cohorts. Those numbers represent about 15 percent of the statewide computer science enrollment. This year’s cohorts includes 51 teachers in the Computer Science Plus Year 1 program and 27 teachers in Computer Science Plus Year 2. The Advanced Biology Plus program is serving 439 students and 43 teachers statewide.
“This is the largest year yet for STEM Pathways,” said Daniel Moix, director of the STEM Pathways program. “The Advanced Biology Plus program continues to show steady growth and impactful student outcomes. The Coding Arkansas’ Future program is also seeing tremendous growth at this time due to a number of factors.
“First, new computer science standards have gone live this year. This means that we have completely redesigned our CS courses to align with these standards. Several of our former teachers have returned for additional training and support for the new course content. Additionally, many of the schools are getting ahead of the upcoming computer science graduation requirement, working to establish course sequences and pathways to support the mandate.”
The STEM Pathways program began in 2015 with the creation of the Coding Arkansas’ Future initiative. That program offered high schools across the state the opportunity to expand their computer science curriculum while receiving guidance and professional development from ASMSA staff members. While ASMSA instructors taught some computer science courses for schools through digital learning, the main emphasis was preparing educators to become computer science teachers through the Computer Science Plus program.
That included offering summer boot camps to introduce teachers to computer science. Those teachers received guidance throughout the school year from ASMSA, including continuing professional development through weekly video meetings and a follow-up camp at the conclusion of the academic year. The goal was to prepare those educators to earn their license to teach computer science while also becoming the primary computer science teacher at their school.
Moix estimates that nearly half of the state’s computer science teachers have received some form of training or professional development from ASMSA.
The program expanded in recent years to offer a middle school coding block and the Advanced Biology Plus program. In the Advanced Biology Plus program, instructors around the state receive professional development from ASMSA’s life science specialists in the instruction of AP Biology. ASMSA’s biology teachers guide camps prior to the beginning of the school year. They then help educators prepare their curriculum for the year and provide unique lab learning activities that the individual schools may not be able to offer otherwise.
STEM Pathways will further expand in the 2022-23 academic year by adding an Advanced Statistics Plus cohort. Advanced Statistics Plus will provide mathematics educators across the state the same type of guidance in teaching Advanced Placement Statistics as biology instructors receive in the Advanced Biology Plus cohorts for AP Biology.
Moix said the success of the STEM Pathways program relies on the ability of the educators leading the program to adapt to the changing state standards and provide comprehensive materials. That inspires the teachers participating in the program to adapt and improve as well.
“Our teachers love how organized and complete our materials are,” Moix said. “We provide weekly learning modules that include assignments, teaching resources, assessments and supplemental materials. Our returning teachers say the fell like they are part of a community of CS educators.”
Moix said Drs. Patrycja Krakowiak and Whitney Holden are building a similar community of educators through the Advanced Biology Plus program. He said they are constantly trying to find ways to improve their methodology.
“I credit the success of the Advanced Biology program to the brilliance and passion of Drs. Holden and Krakowiak. Their enthusiasm and depth of knowledge are breathtaking. They can describe tremendously complex phenomena in ways that anyone can understand while also showing students incredibly nuanced facets of the discipline. They are always looking for novel ways to make lab experiences more accessible for schools with little to no resources,” Moix said.
The program’s success wouldn’t be possible without support from ASMSA’s administration as well as funding support from the Arkansas Department of Education. He said STEM Pathways grew organically from an idea from ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice.
“We have developed the structure of the program by testing small assumptions and learning one piece at a time. What we learned from CS Plus informed Advanced Biology. What we’ve learned since is informing Advanced Statistics. None of this would have been possible without the administrative support of the school,” Moix said.
The numbers of students and educators enrolled isn’t the only measure of the initiative’s success, Moix said.
“Success is different for each person,” he said. “Some of our former participating teachers have been named Arkansas Computer Science Educator of the Year. Some of our former participating teachers now work as Computer Science Specialists for the state training others. Some of our former participating teachers have ‘outgrown’ the program and are teaching CS completely independently.
“To me personally, I love seeing all the different ways our program can impact not only educators but their students. It’s so much more impact than I could have as a regular classroom teacher with at most 150 students a year.”