Quinn Burke

Quinn is a Director of Computational Thinking Research at the national education non-profit Digital Promise in San Mateo. His research at Digital Promise examines the effectiveness of different activities by which to introduce students to programming and how computational thinking (CT) can support core curricula coursework. His research has been supported by a number of state and federal grants, including awards from the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Education. He has written numerous articles around integrating computing into the school day, as well as co-authored two books on K-12 coding and digital gaming through MIT Press.

• Multimedia & digital literacies
• Computational thinking
• Organizational behavior
• Research methods in design-based research

• University of Pennsylvania, EdD in Learning Sciences, 2012
• Columbia University, MA in English Literature, 2003
• Boston College, BA in English, 1999

• Computational Thinking Research Director, Digital Promise Global
• Senior Research Scientist, Digital Promise Global
• Associate Professor, College of Charleston
• Head Grant Writer/Curriculum Consultant, Digital Network Group
• English Department Chair & Teacher, Maritime Academy Charter High School

• National Science Foundation Computer Science for All (2022-26) Award # 2219350
  • Principal Investigator - Districts Helping Districts: Scaling Inclusive CT Pathways
• National Science Foundation Computer Science for All (2022-25) Award # 2219401
  • Co-Principal Investigator - Drawing on Kinship: Rurally Sustaining CT Pathways
• National Science Foundation Computer Science for All (2019-22) Award #1923314 Principal Investigator - Tough as Nails, Nimble Fingers: Developing a K-8 Coding Pathway for Kentucky Appalachia
• College of Charleston (SC) 2018 Distinguished Researcher Award Nomination
• American Education Research Association (AERA) 2015 Outstanding Book Award Nomination

• Burke, Q., Angevine, C., Proctor, C., & O’Donnell, K. (2022). “Credentialing computation: Empowering teachers in computational thinking through educator microcredentials.” In Professional Development for In-Service Teachers: Research and Practices in Computing Education (Eds., C. Mouza, A. Yadav, & A. Leftwich). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
• Burke, Q. & Bailey, C. (2020). "Becoming an “adaptive” expert: Investigating students’ knowledge-transfer and metacognitive activities at college computer science departments and at coding bootcamps." Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery (CACM), 63(9).
• Burke, Q. (2016). "Mind the metaphor: Charting the rhetoric about introductory programming in K-12 schools." On the Horizon. 24(3).
• Burke, Q., O’Byrne, W., & Kafai, Y.B. (2016). "Computational participation: Understanding coding as an extension of literacy instruction." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59(4),371-75.
• Kafai, Y.B. & Burke, Q. (2014). "Connected code: Why children need to learn programming." Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.