The Programming the Acceleration of Computing Education Toolkit (PACE Toolkit) is designed to support districts and schools in successfully establishing and implementing the PACE program. It provides step-by-step guidance—from initial planning and setup to monitoring progress to fostering continuous improvement. The toolkit also includes real-world examples from districts and a variety of practical resources.
The primary goal of the PACE Toolkit is to help districts and schools effectively integrate CS as a key element of middle school education, ensuring that all students have access to meaningful and engaging learning opportunities in this critical subject area.
The Pace Toolkit provides numerous access points to the PACE program. You can either navigate to these sections on the website or download the PDF version of the toolkit for your use.
- About PACE. This page provides information on the PACE program.
- District Highlights. This page gives an overview of how PACE has been implemented in six Massachusetts districts. We suggest you read this if you are interested in expanding access to CS in your district and are not familiar with this program.
- Key components of implementing the PACE Program:
- District Stakeholder Council (DSC). The DSC oversees the PACE initiative. This section highlights the role of the DSC and provides guidance for DSC meetings in the first few years including a self-paced DSC meeting guide and agendas for meetings.
- High Quality CS Curriculum. Student engagement and interest in CS hinges on a high quality CS curriculum. This section provides information about how to select a high quality CS Curriculum.
- Professional Learning (PL). A key element of the PACE program is a high quality CS curriculum, which requires sustained PL for quality implementation. This page provides additional information about PL activities.
- Monitoring progress and continuous improvement. Understanding the implementation and impact of the PACE program is important for making improvements. PACE has developed a student interest and engagement in CS survey that can be used to assess the impact of the PACE program and any areas for improvement as well as an infrastructure readiness survey to assess district readiness to implement and sustain CS. PACE also has a continuous improvement planning template that can be found in the PDF version of the PACE Toolkit (Appendix G).
- Key Levers for Leading District-Level Systems Change. This page describes the learnings from district case studies that included classroom observations and student, teacher, and administrator interviews about what matters most in creating lasting CS change.
If you need additional help implementing the PACE initiative, Education Development Center (EDC) can provide support in all phases of your program implementation: from considering PACE to planning for, implementing, and evaluating PACE in your districts. Contact us through the Support for Implementing PACE page.