Taking the Tech Pathway means following a “traditional” sequence of lesson plans to learn how to design and program apps. To spark students’ interest, they make apps that connect them to their communities. That’s communities with a small “c” instead of a big “C” (as in Community Service) because everybody has a different idea of their true community or group of people they identify with and make them feel part of something bigger than themselves. Students learn design and programming concepts as they make increasingly more “complex” apps that can connect them to others.

This means that students learn and use app design and programming knowledge in specific orders that fit their projects and get the job done. Most recently, students in Lowell and Methuen have developed apps to support Generation Citizen action civics projects.

In both pathways, students learn the basics of event-based programming. However, in the Tech Pathway, the CS knowledge students learn next is based on a computer science learning sequence, while in the Civics & CS Pathway the CS knowledge they learn next depends on the app’s purpose in the civics project, which may be to collect information, organize, or educate. The Tech Pathway is concept-based. The Civics & CS Pathway is function-based.

To support learning along both pathways, in addition to unit lessons the web site provides examples of apps, code, media explaining CS concepts, and instructions for making different kinds of apps.

Lowell Public Schools held its annual Civics Day project fair at the UMass Lowell Inn and Conference Center on Monday, April 4, 2022.

There were 54 projects presented—10 from Lowell High School and 44 from the district’s nine middle schools.

In total, 240 students participated, including all of the district’s 8th graders and half of the 11th graders.

Each participating class chose an issue, conducted research and interviews, crafted possible solutions and figured out how to begin advocating for change. In the process they learned how to access and communicate effectively with decision makers at the school, local, and state level and hone important skills they will use throughout their lives.

CS Pathways project teacher Gabriella Walsh, an 8th grade teacher at the Pyne Arts Magnet School, included app design as part of her project’s requirements. Her students chose to address the problem of teen vaping, and developed the VAPR app as part of their work—Vaping Awareness Prevention and Rehabilitation.

The VAPR project won the “Grassroots Change” award. Ms. Walsh and her students will be heading to the Massachusetts Civics Day event in Boston on June 6.

To carry out the district-wide civics work, Lowell Public Schools is partnered with Generation Citizen, a non-profit that works to “transform civics education so that young people are equipped and inspired to exercise their civic power.”

The CS Pathway project is proud of Gabriella Walsh and her students example of integrating computing into their civics action work!

Fred Martin (UMass Lowell) and Lijun Ni (SUNY Albany) are delighted to announce that NSF has funded a researcher-practitioner partnership grant to continue to work of the CS Pathways project!

Fred will be working with Lowell Public Schools and Methuen Public Schools (both in Massachusetts) and Lijun will be working with Schenectady City Schools (in New York).

Our project is called “A District Ownership-based Approach to Middle School Computer Science.”

See our NSF award notices (UMass Lowell; SUNY Albany), and stay tuned!

The Middle School Pathways in Computer Science curriculum is included in the new K–12 Computer Science Curriculum Guide.

The Curriculum Guide is a detailed index to more than 30 nationally recognized K-12 computer science curricula. It was developed by Jim Stanton and Farzeen Harunani of Educational Development Center, Inc. (EDC),  as part of the Massachusetts Computing Attainment Network (MassCAN) project.

The Curriculum Guide It was developed by resource for MA superintendents, and was released on October 28, 2017.

UMass Lowell published a feature article on the CS Pathways project, entitled Computer Science Prof Helps Middle Schoolers Develop Apps for Social Good.

The article discusses apps created by students in our two 2017 summer camps. including apps for “MARV,” the Medford Arts Resource Vehicle, and apps to promote learning of the history of Everett.

Below is an image from the story, captioned “Computer science Ph.D. student Chike Abuah reviews an app with Domenic Bruno.”

Project principal investigator Fred Martin was an invited presenter at Autodesk Design Computing Symposium, a full-day event held on November 16, 2016 in Las Vegas, NV as part of Autodesk’s annual conference. The Design Computing Symposium focused on ways that computing is changing how we conceive, design, and create in our world.

Martin presented CS Pathways’ vision of democratizing computing by empowering middle school students to create mobile apps. His presentation situated the CS Pathways project in a 50-year history of educational computing research.

Martin highlighted how students’ apps, while simple, build community in the classroom. He demonstrated two apps from students’ school-year work: The Motivational App, which speaks positive affirmations to the user, and Languages4u, in which students recorded themselves saying “hello” in their home languages.

Both apps were developed by students of Denise Salemi, who was the technology teacher at the Keverian School in Everett during the project’s first year.

Martin’s 20-minute presentation was professionally video-recorded and may be viewed at this link: http://au.autodesk.com/au-online/classes-on-demand/class-catalog/classes/year-2016/class-detail/dp23097#chapter=3.

The CS Pathways team presented at two sessions at the annual Massachusetts STEM Summit, held at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA on November 1, 2016.

Fred Martin joined researchers from two other ITEST projects in a session entitled Building Middle School Engagement in Math and Computer Science: Findings from the NSF ITEST Program. The session was organized by Bernadette Sibuma, a research associate at the STEM Learning and Research Center (STELAR) at Education Development Center, Inc. Fred’s presentation slides are available at bit.ly/cspathways-stelar-mastem16. This session was attended by approximately 50 people.

Later in the day, Fred Martin, Molly Laden, Akira Kamiya, and Diane Schilder jointly gave a whole session presentation, CS Pathways: A Model of Inclusive Middle School Computing for Social Good. The session was well-received by a smaller group of 15 people. Slides are available at bit.ly/cspathways-mastem16.

Project principals Akira Kamiya and Molly Laden delivered a presentation Integrating Project-Based Computing at the MassCUE conference at Gillette Stadium (Foxboro, MA) on October 19, 2016.

The session traced the project’s trajectory from professional development to implementation as CS Pathways enters its third year.

About a dozen teachers attended, all of whom were planning computer science instruction using MIT App Inventor.

The team presented the curriculum developed by CS Pathways teachers and gave an introduction to App Inventor programming. Teachers interacted with apps developed by project students, including the Cheese Around the World app, the Motivational App, and the Everett Landmarks app.

Materials from the presentation, including the slide show and sample curricula for 6th and 8th grades, may be downloaded from bit.ly/cspathways-masscue2016.

 

Thirteen middle school students completed the CS Pathways app design camp held at Everett High School from July 11 through July 15. The camp was based on the use of MIT App Inventor, a blocks-based programming system for creating apps for Android tablets and phones.

The students were joined by two community partners:

• Gina Matarazzo from Energize Everett, which works to “increase opportunities for Everett residents to eat healthy and be active in the places they live, learn, work, and play”
• Emilie Schuler from the Grassroots Wildlife Conservation Association, which supports “informed and passionate people who work to protect the rare species that live in their neighborhoods.”

The community partners met with the students at the beginning of the week to share with the students their own personal stories and the missions of their organizations.

Ms. Matarazzo spoke about how she works with kids and adults to set goals and help them keep track of their progress in becoming more health conscious.

Ms. Schuler described her work helping a local wild species called the Blanding Turtle, once widely seen in Eastern Massachusetts, make a recovery. This turtle recently has seen its numbers decline as local wetlands are taken away by development.

The students then worked in pairs to brainstorm ideas and develop apps to assist with these missions. This year, campers used AppVis, a new technology developed by UMass Lowell which allows App Inventor users to publish data to the web-based iSENSE database.

By the end of the week, the students had developed eight apps, which are now published in the Google Play app store. The students developed six healthy-eating apps and two turtle conservation apps, including:

• GrassRoots: The Wild Side, by Kiara Cordero and Aroshi Rahnuma. This app teaches you how to recognize turtles, take photographs of them, and publish turtle sightings.
• Health, by Lulya Tesfamicael. This app provides information about healthy eating and exercise, lets you set goals for personal weight loss, and shows you a graph of your progress over time.

At the end of the week, the community partners returned to see the students’ work. Ms. Matarazzo remarked, “I was so fascinated by how innovative the kids were in creating the apps that met our specific needs. Their excitement and enthusiasm for not only building their app but also their interest in thinking about health and fitness was so inspiring.”

All students who participated in the camp week published an app in the Google Play store. Their apps can be downloaded from the Middle School Pathways in Computer Science Google Play developer storefront.

The camp lead teachers were Damian DeMarco and Lori Blank. UMass Lowell graduate students Farzeen Harunani and Mark Sherman and undergraduates Ashley Hale and Michael Kusmirek assisted throughout the week. Project staff member Akira Kamiya led camp logistics and also worked with students throughout the week.

The camp was conducted as part of the Middle School Pathways in Computer Science project, a collaboration among the school districts of Everett and Medford and the University of Massachusetts Lowell. The goal of the project is to institutionalize computer science instruction in the middle school curricula of the two districts.

The project is supported by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation.

Fifteen students completed the CS Pathways app design camp held at the McGlynn Middle School from June 27 through July 1.

The students developed ten Android apps that were published in the Google Play store.

This year, campers used AppVis, a new technology developed by UMass Lowell which allows App Inventor users to publish data to the web-based iSENSE database.

The apps addressed a range of themes connecting with our community partners, including:

• Parks in Medford, developed by Sam C. and Justin T., which allows users to publish Yelp-style ratings of 24 different parks in the city.

• Healthy Eating, developed by Butaina D. and Joelle B., which includes advice on healthy foods, an original game involving an image of a stomach and a set of food icons to be moved into it, and the Team Medford web site.

• Wind Turbine and Solar Panel, developed by George B., which is an educational app that teaches you about Medford’s wind turbine and solar energy, and includes a quiz where you can test what you learned.

All students who participated in the camp week published an app in the Google Play store. Their apps can be viewed at the Middle School Pathways in Computer Science Google Play developer storefront.

The camp lead teachers were Damian DeMarco, Jessica Hamerly, Amy Lieberman, and Fred Martin. UMass Lowell graduate students Farzeen Harunani and Mark Sherman and undergraduates Ashley Hale and Michael Kusmirek assisted throughout the week. Project staff member Akira Kamiya led camp logistics and also worked with students throughout the week.