Volume 11, Number 1

A Close Reading and Analysis of the New York State Computer Science Learning Standards

  Authors

Gerald Ardito, Manhattanville College, USA

  Introduction

In this paper, we perform a close reading of the New York State Computer Science/Digital Fluency Learning Standards document to determine its coherence and areas of incoherence and disconnection. This investigation, which utilizes content/discourse and textual analysis tools and methods from the tidytext tools developed for the R programming language, sought to understand the structure of the document itself, as well as the types and patterns of the language used in this document by analyzing word frequencies and networks of terms (engrams). The findings indicate a coherence across document in terms of its articulate of key ideas and principles of computer science and digital fluency. The findings describe an incoherence/disconnection between that the language used to articulate high level goals and objectives articulated in the executive summary of the standards document, such as interdisciplinarity, addressing the learning needs of all students, and equity of access, is mostly absent from the articulation of the standards themselves. In addition, the language used in the standards heavily addressed Bloom’s lower level thinking skills (such as identify, discuss, and explain) and less so Bloom’s high level thinking skills (such as design, create, and analyze). Implications for teacher education and curriculum design are addressed. Implications for teacher education and professional development in the development of rich curricular experiences in computer science and digital fluency are discussed.

  Keywords

Computer science education, teacher education, learning standards, curriculum design.