University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, School of Information)

University of Maryland will help library staff evaluate and improve computational thinking (CT) programming for youth through a three-year research in service to practice project. They will develop a collection of assessment tools and a suite of case studies demonstrating computational thinking literacy development among youth aligned with desired learning outcomes that are tailored to the needs of and capabilities of public libraries. Library staff will be invited to co-design the tools to ensure their voices, ideas, and experiences are represented throughout the assessment creation process. The project will result in a typology of the current state of CT programming in libraries, a bank of assessment tools for capturing CT literacy development in libraries, and resources to support library staff in using these materials.