Catalyst for Actively Designing and Researching Equity (CADRE) is a professional development program that teaches educators computational thinking and computer science principles to use to enact educational equity. Developed and tested with over 50 middle and high school educators, ranging from school counselors, therapists, STEM teachers, English teachers, special education and English language coordinators, reading specialists to school librarians, CADRE couples an equity mindset, computational thinking, and improvement science to dig out barriers and plant supports.
Here’s what some of our educators have said about CADRE:
“I want to thank you for the opportunity to participate in the CADRE program last year. I am keenly interested in improving equity and have for several years attended equity training in an effort to make headway to more fair and inclusive practices in schools. The CADRE program is the first training I’ve received that gave me a way to actively work to make changes. I would love to continue that work.”
This workbook is for mentor teachers and instructional coaches who have gone through at least one semester of CADRE and are ready to bring along other educators.
Unit 1: Introduction
Let’s get started where you, the educator, are empowered to enact equity. Rather than waiting for administrators to act, school boards to change policies, or HR to hire more diverse teachers, let’s think about our circle of influence and enact equity by infusing computational thinking and computer science principles to dig out barriers and plant supports.
Unit 2: Equity audit and centering student voice
What is it like to be a diverse student at your school? Learn how to conduct an equity audit within your circle of influence. Most likely, you’ll see a lot of inequities baked into the education system– the barriers to access, opportunities, and learning. So let’s “debug” it. Learn how to use CS/CT principles to design equity.
Unit 3: Curricular barriers to supports
Learn how to identify curricular barriers to test out supports with the equity cycle. Curricular aspects of schooling are the content and activities that support the content and include everything from your lesson plans, and the texts you use, to even the forms you and your students use. Dig out your curricular barriers in your circle of influence and plant support for your students.
Unit 4: Structural barriers to supports
Learn how to identify structural barriers to test out supports. Structural aspects of schooling are the policies and procedures of how we “do” school, and include everything from how to see the school counselor or get extra help, classroom rules to ask questions (including going to the bathroom), and how schools and educators communicate with parents and students. Dig out your structural barriers in your circle of influence and plant supports for your students.
Unit 5: Instructional barriers to supports
Learn how to identify instructional barriers to and test out supports. Instructional aspects to schooling are educators developing trusting relationships so that they can support each student to reach their full academic and social potential, and includes everything from ways to connect deeply with each student, following through to show that you care, and supporting students through the process of learning because learning is hard work! This unit asks you to look within yourself and reflect on how you show up with your students. Dig out your instructional barriers in your circle of influence and plant support for your students.
Unit 6: Pulling it all together
Through CADRE, you learned and used computational thinking and computer science principles to identify the bugs in our code– our structural, instructional, and curricular aspects of schooling. You used equity cycles to debug your code and test supports to enact equity within your circle of influence. Now, keep going! Inequities are so pernicious and persistent, you cannot do it alone. Bring along your colleagues. Build your equity network. And keep iterating and cycling through equity.
