Grant Details

The New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) recently created a Computer Science (CS) education State plan. The State plan highlights the NJDOE's commitment to promoting equitable access to high-quality computer science education for all K-12 students. Ensuring that each student has access to high-quality computer science educators is a requirement for fulfilling this commitment. Among key initiatives outlined in the State plan are: providing educators at all stages of their careers, including pre-service and in-service teachers and school leaders access to differentiated and sustained professional learning; defining and developing computer science teacher preparation programs; and extending the NJDOE's capacity to support computer science education by building and leveraging key partnerships with stakeholders. 

The Expanding Computer Science Professional Learning grant opportunity will establish three geographically distributed computer science professional learning hubs (Computer Science Hubs) to provide computer science professional learning for preservice and in-service teachers, and school administrators and promote the expansion of computer science education at local education agencies (LEAs). The professional learning programs must be aligned with the disciplinary concepts, core ideas, performance expectations, and practices of the New Jersey Student Learning Standards in Computer Science (NJSLS-CS) 

Successful implementations of this program will work towards the following target metrics:

• Two hundred educators or more will participate in the professional learning and events of the Computer Science Hub.
• Fifteen percent of the educators attending professional learning will be from underrepresented groups in computer science: female, Black or African American, Hispanic, American Indian, or Alaska Native.
• One hundred or more elementary or middle school students will be engaged in one or more outreach events with the intent of exposing young women, Black or African American students, Hispanic students, and students from other underrepresented populations to computer science.

Each grantee will be expected to collaborate with the other Computer Science Hubs to leverage the program's collective resources, for example through sharing resources, model workshops, and staff, or assisting with the recruitment of teachers and building capacity. Grantees will participate in the statewide celebration during Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) from December 9 to December 15, 2024, by organizing a CSEdWeek event and supporting educators attending professional learning in organizing CSEdWeek events at their schools.

Small physical computing devices are effective tools for active learning and for making computer science concepts more accessible to students. As part of the Computer Science Hub's program each grantee will establish and manage a lending library consisting of small computing devices, such as microcontrollers, low-cost robots, and other instructional resources. The use of computing devices and instructional resources must be incorporated into the professional learning offered. The lending library resources may be checked out by participating educators for use in the classroom.