About 58% of public high schools in the U.S. offer at least one foundational computer science course, according to data collected by Code.org. But that doesn’t mean more than half of the nation’s public high school students have access to this type of class.
The data shows that Black, Hispanic/Latinx and Native American/Alaskan students are less likely to attend a school that offers foundational computer science. And even if these students do attend a school with such an offering, they are less likely to enroll—1.4 times less likely than their white and Asian peers, according to the 2022-2023 school year report. Multilingual learners, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students are also underrepresented in foundational computer science classes compared with their overall population. Meanwhile young men are twice as likely to take a foundational computer science course than young woman—69% compared with 31%.
In an attempt to make coding more accessible to underrepresented students, researchers at the University of Washington launched a pilot program that teaches diverse high schoolers to code by combining cultural research into various embroidery traditions with “computational embroidery.” The program was wildly successful.
“We’ve come a long way as a country in offering some computer science courses in schools,” said co-lead author F. Megumi Kivuva, a UW doctoral student. “But we’re learning that access doesn’t necessarily mean equity. It doesn’t mean underrepresented minority groups are always getting the opportunity to learn.”
The students enrolled in the program were aged 15 to 17 years old with diverse ethnicities, including Asian Vietnamese, Hispanic/Latino, American Mexican, Black, African/Somali, Chinese immigrant and Asian Chinese. Some students were first-generation high schoolers, but not all.
Ccomputational embroidery is a method that lets users encode embroidery patterns on a computer through an open-source coding language called Turtlestitch, in which they fit visual blocks together. An electronic embroidery machine then stitches the patterns into fabric. But before delving into Turtlestitch, students spent two weeks exploring hand embroidery and cultural traditions—either their own or one they were interested in.
All of the students ended up incorporating their interests, identities and curiosities into their work. In fact, the UW researchers cited examples of at least two students who integrated their identities into their work even before culture was introduced as an element of the class.
In the third week, the students were introduced to the basics of writing Turtlestitch code. From there, they honed their Turtlestich skills with more complex code on smaller assignments, while also preparing a final project that would be shared with friends and family.
The UW team noted that the first two weeks of the program, which did not include actual coding, were just as important as the following weeks since both craft and coding rely on structures of repetition.
“There’s a long history of overlooking crafts that have traditionally been perceived as feminized,” said co-lead author Jayne Everson, a UW doctoral student. “Combining this overlooked art that is deeply technical with computing was really fun, because I don’t see computing as more or less technical than embroidery.”
Since embroidery is tactile, students were able to see their code move from the screen into the physical world. They were also able to augment what they coded with hand stitching, letting them distinguish what the human and the machine were good at.
The class ran for six weeks over the summer and was very successful, with most students excited to showcase their partially completed works on the final day of the course.
“[One of the students'] desire to showcase his work to family and friends during the family showcase emphasizes the value of community recognition in the learning process. We learned that students engage more with their work when they’re connected to it,” said the research team.
Additionally, many students shared plans with the professors to continue their work, complete their assignments, and try new, unrelated things. On the final day, one student shared that she already started researching ways to acquire her own sewing machine to continue exploring embroidery and computer science.
Due to the program’s success, Kivuva and Everson said they will run a workshop on their method at the Computer Science Teachers Association conference this summer. Additionally, since the technology is affordable—the embroidery machine is $400 and the software is free—Kivuva plans to tailor the course to be approachable for kindergarteners to 5th grade refugee students.
“I come from a math and science teaching background. So to have students stick around after class to finish is kind of like, ‘Alright, we’ve done it. That’s all I want’,” said Everson.