Thread by @JMalazita

Thread: Yep, we've been saying this for a while: weed-out classes don't "select" for capacity, they "select" for confidence, comfort--which, surprise!, are deeply gendered and raced. (also, "State of Mind" suggests it's the student's fault and is gross.)

nytimes.com/2020/11/16/sci…

Actually just did a talk about this (for the wonderful CS faculty at @WPI! There's so much great research in STS and in CS Education that shows how perceptions of belonging are crucial for retention. But "belonging" isn't just about feeling socially comfortable in class.

Belonging is also about epistemic alignment--feeling like the broad goals, problem-solving patterns, and problem framing and identification norms of a discipline are in line with your life experiences and understandings of the world.

Folks in CS Ed found this over a decade ago: when analyzing why students chose to leave computer science, not only did women perceive their belonging to be less than men, but "leavers" and "stayers" conceptualized CS differently.

dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/13…

For "stayers" CS was about "solving real world problems creatively using computing!" For "leavers," CS was about "coding and building software."

It's easy to hand-wave this as being about expertise or technical capacity. "Oh, once you know how to code, you think more abstractly about how to use it, but if you don't know how to code, you can only think about the technical dimensions." But I think that's wrong.

If you've never been on the receiving end of algorithmic injustice, or never been harassed or abused because of your identity in "creative" coding spaces, of course it's easy for you to claim that "coding solves problems." You've never been the problem coding is trying to solve.

If you question the problem solving approach of a field in a weed-out (or any foundational) class, or question the impacts your work might have, that doesn't get treated as deep, critical thought. You get understood as just "not getting it." And so you leave.

Epistemic diversity and demographic diversity are deeply entangled. Increasing epistemic--and therefore demographic--diversity requires that you expand the way your class/discipline defines problems, defines belonging, defines impacts.

Anyway, for interested CS folks, here are three Critical Computer Science assignments we've developed to help increase breadth of thought in early level CS classes. Use them, take them, modify them, think about them.

The first one teaches conditionals, string manipulation, and autoethnographic writing through developing a "choose your own adventure" story.

tactical.wp.rpi.edu/projects/862-2…

Stories that we've gotten back include of a student deciding whether or not she should ask a TA for help, and all her internal conflicts about feeling stupid, feeling like she didn't belong, having her laptop grabbed from her, that she had to overcome to ask for help.

The second one teaches dictionaries, searches, basic text output, and the historical legacies of algorithmic oppression and database bias we inherit from pre-computational eras.

tactical.wp.rpi.edu/projects/862-2…

Focusing on the Irish Immigration in New York, students learn about how little it took for an Irish emigrant to be classified as "diseased" and sent to an asylum or ghetto. Disease categories included "being pregnant" or "being Irish."

The third teaches classes, class communication, large dataset manipulation, and the roles that computer science plays in ICE and CPB migrant detention and separation practices in the US.

tactical.wp.rpi.edu/projects/862-2…

Using resources from #tornapart #separados, students learn that web and software companies are some of the biggest financial winners of the detention center sweepstakes, and that both Democratic and Republican elected reps receive large amounts of $$$ through ICE programs.

If you want to attract and maintain a more diverse array of students, start by changing the kinds of assumptions your classes make about what type of thinker your students need to be.