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What might a decolonised computing and IT curriculum look like?
- 1. What might a decolonised Computing and IT curriculum look like? Kate Feliciello, Amaninder Singh and Zoe Tompkins School of Computing and Communications 8th November 2023
- 2. Session Outline 1) Introduction to large scale student survey findings (10 mins) 2) Small group work of addressing three questions: 1) What do you think it means to decolonise the computing curriculum 2) How can we start? 3) What challenges do you foresee? (30 mins) 3) Plenary to share group discussion and outcomes (20 mins)
- 3. 3 Decolonising Computing and IT Student Survey – student demographics • Opened – 6th June; closed – 1st July 2022 • Invitations sent to 3695 named students • Students on 17 modules represented • Responses – 399 (10% response rate); 394 consenting to survey Gender: Female 21.3%, Male 78.7% Age: 30-39 years old: 39%, 40-49 years: 26%, 21-29 years: 23%, over 50: 10%, 18-20 years old: 2% Ethnicity: Arab: 0.3%; Asian: 4.3%; Black: 3.6%; Mixed: 1.3%; Other: 0.8%; Prefer Not To Say (PNTS): 3.6%; White: 86.3% Disability declared: 13.2% Religion: Buddhist: 1.0%, Christian: 12.9%, Jewish: 0.5%, Muslim: 2.3%, None: 41.1%, Other: 6.1%, PNTS: 35.3%, Spiritual: 0.8%
- 4. Thinking about the way in which the Computing & IT curriculum does or does not provoke critical thought and challenge dominant ideologies: The curriculum raises critical questions about power and/or privilege that are usually taken for granted The curriculum encourages students to challenge existing power structures in society
- 5. The curriculum encourages students to critique unearned privilege The curriculum encourages students to connect learning to social, political or environmental concerns The curriculum encourages students to take actions that fight inequity or promote equity
- 6. 6 Challenge Power The curriculum’s ability to provoke critical thought and challenge dominant ideologies 41% disagree/strongly disagree The curriculum encourages students to challenge existing power structures in society (The dominate negative response) 17% agree/strongly agree The curriculum encourages students to critique unearned privilege (The least number of students agreeing) 50% agree/strongly agree The curriculum encourages students to connect learning to social, political or environmental concerns (high positive response)
- 7. 7 Qualitative questions 1. What does decolonising mean to you? 2. What do you think it means to decolonise the computing curriculum? 3. How do you think we can start to decolonise computing at the OU? 4. It is important to engage students as partners in decolonising activities – how best could this be done? 5. What challenges do you foresee? 6. Any other comments?
- 8. Activity 1 What does decolonising computing mean? Student views inform the basis of reflection and group discussion. The group will be asked to formulate a response. Outcome To decolonise computing means ….. To identify 3 key themes that capture the essence
- 9. Themes Sample Quote 1. Accurate history For me, would mean the removal of whitewashing of history. 2. Global perspective In terms of a curriculum, I think it means taking the focus away from a European or colonial viewpoint. 3. Removing privilege/bias Lessening the effects of the majority demographic and its power structures, catering to a wider and more diverse demographic. 4. Inclusive perspectives Being more representative of diversity and different styles of learning. 5. Independence Giving up colonial power and allowing countries to rule themselves. 6. New ways of thinking Addressing the impacts of colonialism and racism by making changes to an institution. 7. Undoing colonisation The removal of British influence from former colonies education materials. What does decolonising computing mean?
- 10. 10 Go to menti.com 1.To decolonise computing means ….. ( in your own words a ‘definition’) 2.Consider the 7 themes: decide which are the top 3 that capture the essence of what it means to decolonise Computing and IT
- 11. Activity 2 Educator resources appraisal As possible educator resources, OU and industry wide examples are provided The group will be asked to critique one resource in terms of its suitability to illustrate the framing or notice of colonial impact Outcome Resources are appraised in terms of framing/notice of colonial impact using the themes identified in Activity 1
- 13. Example 2: Representation – who is around the table?
- 14. Example 3: Artificial Intelligence coded bias
- 15. 15 Example 4: Racial Homogeneity Miltner, K. (2021)
- 16. Description: person pushing trolley of waste through landfill Description: pond like hole with brown/orange coloured water and surrounding earth Example 5: Postcolonial Computing Circuits From the core (demand and design) to the periphery (supply, sourcing and construction) to the core (consumption) to the periphery (disposal)
- 17. 17 Go to menti.com Match the resource to the theme(s) Resource Description 1 Terminology, master/slave 2 Eurocentric images 3 Coded bias in algorithms 4 Racial homogeneity 5 Postcolonial computing 7 themes 1. Accurate history 2. Global perspective 3. Removing 4. Inclusive perspective 5. Independence 6. New ways of thinking 7. Undoing colonisation
- 18. Activity 3 What are the challenges? Tutor and student responses inform a paired discussion on what are the challenges to decolonising Computing and IT and why Outcome The biggest challenge to decolonise computing and IT is and IT is ………………… because ……………….
- 19. Click to edit Master title style Irrelevant to computing “Instead of learning valuable things that may be useful in our careers and replacing them with useless things.” “This is one of the worst ideas ever, it's so stupid only an academic could think of it. We want to learn maths, programming and computer-related subjects not politics. If you want to destroy The Open University go ahead and do this it is the best way to lose your reputation.”
- 20. Not needed “don’t start at all.” “Everyone is sick of this and we won't be happy until you have been run out of society.” "this isn't an issue move on"
- 21. Woke Marxism “It means utterly retarded left-wing academics destroying everything in society.” “Sew your mouth shut and go back to where you came from and decolonise there.”
- 23. 23 decolonisingcomputing@jiscmail.ac.uk Subscribe - JISCMail - DECOLONISINGCOMPUTING List at WWW.JISCMAIL.AC.UK
- 24. 24 References Miltner, K. (2021) ‘One part politics one part technology, one part history’. Racial representation in the Unicode 7.0 emoji set New Media & Society, 2021, Vol. 23 (3), p.515-534. Thomas, D and Quinlan K. (2021) Reimagining Curricula: Supporting Minority Ethnic Students’ Interest through Culturally Sensitive Curricula American Educational Research Association conference, Orlando. Tompkins, Zoe and Ramage, Magnus (2023). What does it mean to decolonise Computing and IT - Another dumb buzzword or re- envisaging all cultures and knowledge systems for how the world is framed? In: Proceedings of the 11th International Technology, Education and Development Conference, IATED pp. 4250–4261.
- 25. Thank you
Editor's Notes
- Hello and welcome to our workshop on What might a decolonised Computing and IT curriculum look like? I’m Zoe Tompkins and this is my colleague Kate Feliciello and Amaninder Singh and we are from the School of Computing and Communications at the Open University.
- Today's session will include a short introduction to the online student survey, background, demographics, questions and a short insight into the findings But the main focus of this workshop is to get you thinking, discussing and generating outcomes within 3 activities Activity 1 – is to consider what it means to decolonise computing, after all there is no clear one definition, and we will be sharing student responses to this same question as a prompt for your discussions Activity 2 – will be an appraisal of proposed teaching resources, both internal to the OU and industry wide examples Activity 3 – will be considering the barriers to this work and like Activity 1, will be based around what are students identified as the main challenges. Because timing is relatively short and this is quite an ambitious (intense) session, we will dedicate 10 mins per activity, then will take feedback anonymously as we go through the session via menti.com and collectively at the end.
- So we ran a survey for one month in the summer of 2022 and following a full ethical approval, used JISC online survey tool to invite 3695 named undergraduate students across 17 C&C modules. All invited students were aged 18 years or above A description summary of the participants is presented here, which highlights that our average respondent identifies as male, white, British, able bodied and with no affiliated religion, aged 30-39 years old.
- The survey was mixed methods, so a mix of Likert 5-point scale questions and qualitative free text questions. So to illustrate one insight from the data, I am going to look at the Challenge Power construct from the quantitative student responses, the first theme focuses on the curriculum’s ability to provoke critical thought and challenge dominant ideologies. Here are two of the survey questions and the tallied participant responses with actual numbers and % . The second bar chart is important as this question produced the highest scoring negative response and one could argue that currently we are failing our students, as 41% disagreed or strongly disagreed when asked whether the C&C curriculum encourages students to challenge existing power structures in society,.
- And this slide shows 3 more of the quantitative questions. So continuing this perception of the inability of the curriculum to address power inequalities was again highlighted by the lowest number of students agreeing with the statement that “the curriculum encourages students to critique unearned privilege”, as only 17% agreed or strongly agreed (see the first question/bar chart). This suggests that the curriculum is perceived as less culturally sensitive than it could be. Yet the Challenge Power construct also included a question (the second question on this slide) on how the curriculum “encourages students to connect learning to social, political and environmental concerns”, and with 50% agreeing or strongly agreeing, this was a high positive response. This suggests that this aspect of the C&C curriculum does display some cultural sensitivity.
- So a summary of those findings is illustrated here.
- As a mixed method survey we also included free text open ended questions and these are listed here on this slide. And it is the student responses to question 2 on what does Decolonising computing mean that inform activity 1, and the responses from question 5, the challenges, to achieving this that inform activity 3 today.
- For the first activity we are sharing some student responses from the question ‘What does decolonizing computing mean’. In your groups please use these responses to stimulate your discussion and ultimately agree your own understanding. As a group you are aiming for an outcome of writing a response that begins ‘To decolonise computing means …’ You have 10 minutes to discuss and agree a response.
- You will find the resource sheet to support this activity, is categorised by 7 emerging themes, these were identified as part of the coding exercise within the thematic analysis. So what you see on the resource sheet in front of you, are these 7 themes, with a selection of student quotes in responses to the question what do you think it means to decolonise the computing curriculum You have 10 minutes to discuss and agree a response.
- Activity 2 is based on a sample of Open University module content from our curricula and external industry examples. The resources have previously been shared separately with OU tutors and again with students who completed the survey in a workshop setting. I ask you now in your groups to consider: 1) how well does the resource assist interrogating the existing European interpretive dominance of knowledge, assumptions and methods so challenging the dominance of a single authoritative voice, perspective or approach. With these resources we are aiming to provide educators with an opportunity to critically reflect, to challenge assumptions, and to instigate a shift about what is knowledge, how it is acquired, produced and disseminated. We are asking you to inform us of how well these resources illustrate colonial impact and to consider the 7 themes in activity 1. So as you consider the suitability of the resource, which of the 7 themes can you link to the resource.
- TM111 Block 3, p.148, Fig 3.28 Master/ slave terminology This has a technical meaning and is widely used in computing. This is a term that we tend to use as one component is in control and one isn’t. If we change the terminology, we are avoiding terms that are industry embedded and are not preparing students for the work environment. Possible changes to make: 1) Take the terms out. 2) Refer to the potential issue with these terms and make them aware that while they are common usage, using them can cause offense and/or harm. White-lists and black-lists are terms often used with respect to cyber security. Examples of how tech companies are reviewing and changing practices. For example, Twitter has dropped the terms "master", "slave" and "blacklist" in favour of more inclusive language in its programming.
- TM111 Western centric focus of the content .. presumes a particular profile and orientation as the content uses concepts, ideas and perspectives that centre or normalise constructions of ‘Westernness’ or ‘whiteness’’ as basic reference points for human society. There is no other view presented. UK/US dominance in the narrative with many examples with a focus on the UK in the 1950’s. This continues in 1.3, with the reference to the Industrial Revolution and the use of only US and UK data sources. For example, The Associated Press is American, Fig 4 uses Ofcom data
- Another challenge that we aware of as we produce resources for educators is the increasing bias demonstrated by artificial intelligence. AI such as face recognition software e.g. UK passport photo checker – women with darker skin are more than twice as likely to be told their photos fail UK passport rules. Those women with the darkest skin tone were more likely to have their photo rejected, than women with the lightest skin In New Zealand where the applicant here on the right was also trying to obtain a passport had their Photo turned down because his eyes were assessed as closed.
- Thinking about the use of images to convey a message then Did you know that 50 ton of waste per year is transported to Ghana dumped into landfill We can trace the global life cycle of a typical laptop computer or mobile phone from the material origins in rare earth element mines in Africa and South America to its manufacture and assembly in the factory cities of China, through its transportation and distribution to retail stores and households across America and finally to its eventual disposal in places like the slums of Agbogbloshie, Ghana (Ensmenger 2013, p.80). 90% of waste transported to Ghana includes lead, dioxins and carcinogens dumped into landfill and contaminates the water supply. Children melt down components to extract copper, aluminum and mercury. Smoke from the open fires create personal and environmental dangers. On the right, America’s largest Superfund site, Tar Creek, Oklahoma, home to the Quapaw Indians. Once a productive lead and zinc mining site and now an environmental wasteland.
- The final activity, is to consider the challenges to decolonising the computing and IT curriculum. We have provided a selection of tutor and student responses to the same question and these are to inform a prompt for a conversation. For ease just do this with the person sitting next to you or in small group of 3. The outcome is for you to tell us individually what you perceive the main challenge to be and why and to share that with us anonymously via menti.
- HOSTILE responses and RESISTENCE For example some students felt that you cannot decolonise computing, this may be because they believe that computing and IT teaching were not colonial before, “I think it is irrelevant” “I honestly don’t know… I don’t feel its particularly colonised” “being ridiculously over the top”
- A second theme was that this type of activity is not needed because they see it as a science or technical curriculum they simply did not know how to decolonise computing and IT. and suggested via comments such ‘this isn’t an issue, move on’. So other issues are more important Students say they “Not sure as I am not sure how / where this curriculum is "colonised" in the first place.” And they say “I personally don’t think it is colonised as everybody has the same opportunity no matter your background or ethnicity.”
- A third theme is what we are called ‘woke markism’ as some students as you can see here felt strongly that it is a troubling ideology that has no place in education in other words…. “another dumb buzzword used by the woke left”