Meet 2019-20 CSTA Equity Fellow Rebecca Luebker.
Full Story
In today’s CSTA Equity Fellow Spotlight, we’re introducing you to Rebecca Luebker, a Social Science Chair at the Haas Hall Academy in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Luebker is working together with Abigail Joseph, who we’ll spotlight later this month, on a project to create ways to encourage non-CS teachers to welcome CS into their curriculum.
Five Questions with Rebecca Luebker
What do you hope to achieve as a CSTA Equity Fellow? As a CSTA Equity Fellow, I would like to achieve great accessibility and I would like to find ways of bringing it back to my community. As a woman who is Cherokee, I would like to find ways of connecting it to the Native American population. Whether it’s in my state, or in my area, we tend to have a higher population of Native American students and I would like to find ways of getting more Native American children involved.
Can you describe how you’ve disrupted inequities in your classroom?
I think something that has been disruptive in my classroom is I’m traditionally a social science teacher. Combining computer science in the fields of economics and government, we have used different programs cross-curricular with computer science so that gives more students the ability to be exposed that traditionally would not happen.
How did you get involved in teaching computer science?
I began teaching CS because the computer science teacher at my school noted that I kept asking him questions about computer science because my daughter is interested in computer science. He nudged me into teaching the new computer science class that was going to be offered for 7th and 8th graders. He was like I think this would be an awesome opportunity for you and so, therefore, I was like sure why not and fell in love teaching computer science to 7th and 8th graders.
What does equity in CS mean to you?
Equity in CS means access, that students have the ability to access the knowledge, the curriculum, the ability to engage with computer science.
Why should others consider teaching computer science?
Computer science is everywhere and is in everything. Sometimes you don’t realize you’re computing. It is one of those that it gives more opportunity to explore different subject areas. I use it in social science. It’s bringing my social science kids into areas of math and science and it’s also bringing math and science kids into the areas of social science.
Our CSTA Equity Fellows will be sharing their projects with attendees at CSTA’s 2020 Annual Conference, July 11-15, 2020, in Arlington, Virginia. Don’t miss out on their presentations!