Welcome to the Wind River Elementary CS Collaborative
What is the Wind River Elementary CS Collaborative?
The Wind River Elementary CS Collaborative is a partnership between the Wyoming Department of Education, the American Institutes for Research, BootUp PD, Partner to Improve and three Wyoming school districts (Fremont County School District #38, Fremont County School District #21, and Fremont County School District #14).
The goals of the Wind River Elementary CS Collaborative:
Develop and refine two culturally relevant computer science units and teacher professional development with teachers of Grades 3–5 on the Wind River Reservation.
Build Grades 3–5 teachers’ interest in, knowledge of, and ability to bring computer science to their students through English language arts and social studies.
Teach computer science concepts to Grades 3–5 students in a culturally relevant way.
STEM Video Showcase
Timeline:
- October 2019 – The Wind River CS Collaborative received funding from National Science Foundation
- December 2019 - Traveled to Wind River Reservation to discuss the project with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho business councils.
- February 2020 - Project team traveled to Wind River Reservation to conduct focus groups to discuss strengths of the community and cultures of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho.
- May 2020 - AIR team sent findings of focus groups to Fort Washakie, Fremont #38, and Wyoming Indian Schools superintendents.
- July 2020 - BootUp created the first draft of the culturally relevant curricular units.
- August 2020 - BootUp team performed its first professional development session with Fort Washakie teachers.
- January – March 2021 - AIR recruited and gathered feedback from the Wind River Community on the first draft of the curriculum about cultural sacredness
- March – April 2021 - AIR and WDE conducted meetings with the superintendents and leaders of Fremont #21, Fremont #38, and Wyoming Indian Schools
- Summer 2021 - The Wind River CS Collaborative hosted an art competition for K-12 students at Fremont #21, Fremont #38, and Wyoming Indian Schools to contribute pieces for the curricular units.
- March - April 2022 - A new Cohort of teachers began with CS professional development. We held 2 sessions using an integrated curriculum developed by BootUp and vetted by leaders at Wind River.
- October 2022 - With a 3rd Cohort, we adjusted PD based on previous sessions and feedback giving time for teachers to build a non-integrated CS project, and leaving more time for them in the PD to develop their own Language and Culture integration projects.
- February - April 2023 - Held two more sessions of PD going deeper into CS concepts. Added a day of site visits to each session allowing the BootUp Facilitator to connect more on a one-on-on basis with many teachers who were developing a variety of integrated CS projects to implement with their students.
- June 2023 - Teachers building CS materials for Wyoming Department of Education micro-credentials centered around computer science, language and culture.
