CSforALL’s Eight Most Memorable Moments of 2021
With 2021 now closed out, we join the CSforALL Community in the new year by reflecting on our most memorable and successful moments from 2021! Take a look below.
CSforALL’s 2021 Notable Moments:
CSforALL Membership
As a main hub of the national K-12 computer science community, our goal is to expand, connect and amplify the collective voice of the CSforALL movement. We work to lift up the work of our national members while creating meaningful connectivity to ensure alignment, collaboration, as well as resource and knowledge sharing. We proudly end 2021 with 730 CSforALL member organizations and 127 researchers for a grand total of 857 CSforALL Members! Not a member yet? Join the growing CSforALL movement today!
SCRIPT 2.0
We concluded 2021 by training our most recent cohort of facilitators from Oklahoma, in partnership with the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance. CSforALL trained 75 new, certified SCRIPT Facilitators across the nation this year as a part of the national SCRIPT network, providing ongoing support to these facilitators as they lead workshops to implement computer science initiatives with district teams in their local communities. We are very excited to share many updates to SCRIPT in the upcoming year, including and not limited to: updates to existing workshop and training tools, processes, and materials, as well as adaptation of existing tools and resources such that they can be used with school or place-based groups interested in building computer science implementation plans.
JROTC-CS Marines Cohort
As we closed out 2021, the CSforALL JROTC-CS program kicked off recruitment for the Marines JROTC-CS cohort. With the support from the U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, we are able to provide funding for up to 8–10 Marines JROTC eligible schools to participate in this program, with particular focus on schools that are traditionally underrepresented in computer science education that are of Title I status and have not already offered AP Computer Science Principles before in the past. The selection and welcome of the new cohort participants is expected to be announced in early February 2022.
2021 CSforALL Commitments
Following an unprecedented year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, October’s virtual 2021 CSforAll Summit announced and lifted up 191 CSforALL Commitments from 115 organizations made by our member community. During the two-day event, the CSforALL community celebrated the incredible progress organizations continue to make in advancing K-12 computer science education in the United States. Read more about the 2021 new commitments here.
2021 CSforALL Virtual Summit
On Tuesday, October 19, and Wednesday, October 20, the K-12 CSEd community gathered for the 5th Annual CSforALL Summit. During the dynamic event, we announced the 2021 #CSforALL Commitments made by our member community and discussed a full agenda of national CS education matters around ‘Change Happens with Partnerships in Places’, including sustainable CSEd in communities, racial injustice, building local capacity, and raising national awareness of the computer science education movement. This event featured notable presenters, CS education influencers, human-interest stories, a hip-hop performance, and much more! Check out recordings from the event here.
SCRIPT Crew
CodeCrew (Memphis, TN) and CSforALL (National) have been awarded $999,160 to build capacity in computer science K-12 pathways throughout the state of Tennessee, working in collaboration with the evaluation team at CSEdResearch.org. The project will leverage the Strategic CSforALL Resource and Implementation Planning Tool (SCRIPT) to create opportunities for local facilitator training; provide ongoing support; and add capacity to almost half of the school districts for the state. Read more about this collaboration here.
CSforED Launch
Based on the recommendations to build systems capacity to create more CS teachers at all levels from the ACT Report, we announced CSforED with a first round of $20M of investments in schools of education to prepare ALL teachers with the CS knowledge they are expected to teach. Read more about CSforED and the initial $20M investment here.
AI Data and Science Education Report
In the Summer of 2021 CSforALL, with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), convened a meeting of leaders, educators, researchers, and policymakers to discuss AI and DS education from primary through graduate school. At this meeting, we presented a challenge to the community: What would it take to double the number of undergraduates pursuing computational-related degrees and to increase the percentages of those degree programs providing fundamentals in AI and DS to all learners? In our AI and Data Science Education Report, CSforALL shares details from seven working groups including a definition of each area of focus, area-specific recommendations from the experts, and high-level synthesis of all recommendations. Stay tuned for more information about this work this spring!
As a CSforALL team and community, we look forward to what 2022 will bring us! Get the first peek with the CSforALL team as we welcome the CSforALL Community into 2022 on Twitter Spaces. The CSforALL team will share a preview into our organization’s year, and department’s upcoming projects, announcements, and events! Hear from CSforALL’s Executive Director, Senior Director of Programs and Partnerships, Director of Research, and many more! Join us during our first Twitter Space Tuesday, January, 25 @ 4:00 PM EDT! Set your reminder, here!
For more information surrounding CSforALL’s projects, please email media@csforall.org.
