BootUp PD
Impact
Coding should be elementary – everywhere. But today, many schools across the nation are not teaching their students an essential, creative, and collaborative literacy – the ability to code. Worse, even as the popularity of coding grows, the equity gap is growing even faster. BootUp empowers all elementary students by immersing them in practical and imaginative curricula that extends beyond coding. Our professional development initiatives give students access to important 21st-century skills – particularly girls and underrepresented minority students. With BootUp Professional Development, now, coding is elementary.
Accomplished
- Need Accomplished
- Evaluation Accomplished
- Sustainability Developing
- Replication & Scalability Developing
- Partnerships Accomplished
- Capacity Accomplished
- Challenging & Relevant Content Accomplished
- STEM Practices Accomplished
- Inspiration Accomplished
- Under-Represented Groups Developing
The BootUp team has made an immeasurable impact on computer science learning. In every elementary school, students are learning to code beginning in kindergarten! BootUp’s passion and expertise in delivering high-quality professional development has significantly increased our teachers’ skills and will have far-reaching effects on our students’ lives.
Assistant Superintendent, Yelm Community Schools
Design Principles
The programs in this database clear a high bar. STEMworks reviewed each program against the Design Principles for Effective STEM Philanthropy. Programs must be Accomplished (
) across all Design Principles, or be Developing (
) in a maximum of three areas.
Overarching Principles
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Need Accomplished
Identify and target a compelling and well-defined need.
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Evaluation Accomplished
Use rigorous evaluation to continuously measure and inform progress towards the compelling need identified.
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Sustainability Developing
Ensure work is sustainable.
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Replication & Scalability Developing
Demonstrate replicability and scalability.
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Partnerships Accomplished
Create high impact partnerships.
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Capacity Accomplished
Ensure organizational capacity to achieve goals.
STEM Principles
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Challenging & Relevant Content Accomplished
Offer challenging and relevant STEM content for the target audience.
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STEM Practices Accomplished
Incorporate and encourage STEM practices.
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Inspiration Accomplished
Inspire interest and engagement in STEM.
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Under-Represented Groups Developing
Identify and address the needs of under-represented groups.
Program Overview
BootUp offers district-wide elementary computer science (CS) implementation. Professional development occurs through a combination of in-person workshops and on-site support spread out over time. Support includes multiple full-day PD sessions, model teaching and coaching, train-the-trainer support, PLC support, and district implementation support. PD is scaffolded in a way for teachers to begin teaching and practicing in the classroom after their first workshop. Teachers learn how to engage students through easy-to-use, block-based programming languages to create and share interactive stories, animations, games, art, music, and more through problem-solving and other fundamental computer science concepts and practices. PD requires no prior coding experience and includes a free, interest-driven and project-based curricula with more than 100 class projects (and more to come in the future) for grades K-6. BootUp provides interest-driven, project-based learning lesson plans for beginner to advanced teachers. The curriculum consists of open-ended coding projects that encourage a student’s interests to guide and enrich their learning within projects that are personally meaningful. All lesson plans include process and product objectives, standards, practices, concepts, vocabulary, a project sequence with facilitation tips, and assessment suggestions. BootUp lessons also provide additional optional resources including project extensions, debugging practices, differentiation, suggested unplugged lessons, video resources, presentation guides, reflection, and sharing. Each lesson plan includes links to suggested third-party unplugged lessons to reinforce concepts and practices within that lesson or to help integrate the lesson into other content areas.