Spring 2021 Newsletter

It’s been an unusual year, to say the least. We’re grateful to all of the incredible educators in our community, who have gone above and beyond to bring Bootstrap to their students during the pandemic. In this newsletter, you’ll find:

• Professional Development workshops scheduled for this summer
• Exciting news about our latest endorsement
• An overview of new materials and tools for 2021
• Our latest research and publications
• Follow us on Instagram!
• Training and Professional Development

Professional Development

After the success of last summer’s events, we’re once again offering virtual, open-enrollment workshops in Algebra (July 19-23rd) and Data Science (July 26-30th). These are open to the public! Anyone is welcome to attend, and sessions will be held each day from 10:30am-4:30pm ET (1hr break for lunch at 1pm ET). We’re also coming back to New Mexico CSPdWeek, running a virtual Data Science training June 1st-5th from 10:30-4:30pm ET (1hr break for lunch at 1pm ET). While this event is subsidized for New Mexico teachers, it’s also open to the public. We’re also delighted to continue our statewide partnerships with teachers across Alabama and Oklahoma, as well as launch our second cohort of Data Science teachers in New York City! As always, we’ll post details of additional workshops on our workshops page, as they develop.

Bootstrap is now a STEMWorks “Accomplished” Program

Bootstrap has officially been accepted by STEMworks as an Accomplished program. As you likely know, STEMworks is a major indicator of program quality: indeed, many state boards of education, instead of making their own evaluation, rely on STEMworks to filter programs. The certification process is very rigorous; it took us over a year to provide all the documentation they needed, over multiple rounds.

What’s New for 2021?

We’ve been busy making sure our teachers have the support they need during this difficult year. Here’s a snapshot of what’s changed in the last twelve months…

• Bootstrap for Remote-Learning Contexts - Every single lesson plan, worksheet, workbook page, assessment, rubric, handout, and slide deck has been rebuilt and rewritten to take advantage of a new technology that makes remote instruction as easy and interactive as possible. Every slide deck is now an interactive PearDeck. Every handout or printout can be saved as a Google Doc and shared via your favorite LMS. You can read more about these changes in our blog post...
• Bootstrap:Algebra in Pyret is now Fully Supported - Last Spring, we officially launched a Pyret version of Algebra that will be maintained alongside the WeScheme version. This is especially important for teachers interested in teaching Bootstrap:Algebra and another module, such as Data Science, Physics, or Reactive. Now students can use the same language and tool across all of our materials! You can read more about Bootstrap:Algebra in Pyret in our blog post…
• Lots of New Material! - We’ve added dedicated lessons to Algebra (Domain and Range, Combination and Permutation, Problem Decomposition, and more) and Data Science (Ethics and Privacy, Image Scatter Plots, and more). We’ve added dozens of practice activities, Desmos integration, and loads of new datasets for Bootstrap:Data Science. There’s more to come, so stay tuned!
• Research and Publications - Thanks to the data collected and shared by Bootstrap teachers nationwide, we’ve continued to publish high-quality, peer-reviewed research. Our most recent papers can be found below:
  • Evolving a K-12 Curriculum for Integrating Computer Science into Mathematics
  • Data-Centricity: A Challenge and Opportunity for Computing Education
  • Data Science as a Route to AI for Middle- and High-School Students
  • Adapting Student IDEs for Blind Programmers
  • Will Students Write Tests Early Without Coercion?

We’re grateful to work with wonderful teachers around the country to make this research possible.

Bootstrap on Instagram!

Yes, the cool kids finally convinced us. We eat our avocado toast too quickly to take any pictures, but we’ll be posting plenty of drool-worthy content to our Instagram feed at https://www.instagram.com/bootstrapworld/.

We’re Here for You

With many of you returning to the classroom this fall and many more still facing uncertainty, we want to remind all of you that we’re here to support you and your students! Those of you who’ve reached out to us on Discourse know that we often respond within a few hours of a question, and that we take the time to make sure you get a thoughtful response that includes both the answer itself and some of the bigger picture when it comes to pedagogy. With so much up in the air, you can rest assured that we’ve got your back. -The Bootstrap Team