Innovation Pathways to Data Careers (IPDC)

An Innovation Pathway is an early career program for students that gives them experience in a specific high-demand industry through college coursework and internships with local employers. ODI was awarded NSF funding in 2021 to design, develop, test, and institutionalize an innovation pathway focused on data. Working with a team of high school and community college educators and industry and community partners, ODI will develop a guidebook to help teachers work with students developing data-rich Civics projects to meet state Civics requirements and develop/pilot a Visualization+Data Course and a Python+Data course to complete the IPDC. Working with teacher leaders/facilitators from two development sites, IPDC will develop and test 1) a Civics+Data module introducing data literacy through student developed Civics projects that are a new legislatively-mandated requirement for high school students inMassachusetts; 2) data modules that will be integrated into Algebra II/Math III; 3) Visualization+Data and Python+Data courses that are backward-designed from college coursework and connects the Civics+Data, Algebra II/Math 3 + Data, Visualization+Data, and Python+Data coursework to form the core of the IPDC that links to local community college programs preparing middle skilled data practitioners and to university programs preparing data scientists.  Up to 5 additional districts will field test the pathway.

This innovation pathway will create a bridge to Massachusetts’ post-secondary data analytics programs—in both community colleges preparing students for middle skilled jobs on data teams across industry sectors and universities preparing students to become data scientists in STEM-centric workplaces of the future, particularly in careers at the human-technology frontier.

Project Team: Joyce Malyn-Smith and Josephine Louie, EDC; Deborah Boisvert, CS for Mass; Anne DeMallie, Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; Michael Harris and Jefferson Fernandes, Bunker Hill Community College; Shereen Tyrrell, Holly Peters, and Jerry Fatal, Burlington High School; Adam Goodstone, Tyler Volpe-Knock, and Stephen Cunningham, Chelsea High School.

This project is funded by the National Science Foundation, grant # 2031479. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these materials are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.