Expanding Access to K-12 Computer Science Education: Research on the Landscape of Computer Science Professional Development Baker Franke (Moderator)
Jeanne Century
Michael Lach
University of Chicago Lab Schools
UEI/CEMSE, University of Chicago
UEI/CEMSE,University of Chicago
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Cameron Wilson
Mark Guzdial
Gail Chapman
Owen Astrachan
ACM
Georgia Tech University
UCLA
Duke University
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] SUMMARY
General Terms
This session will present the research findings to date from an 18month study commissioned by the ACM in partnership with the National Science Foundation, Google, Computer Science Teachers Association, Microsoft, and the National Center for Woman and Information Technology that started in July, 2012. The study seeks to understand the national landscape of K-12 computer science (CS) professional development (PD) and the capacity to provide high quality CS PD on a large scale. The study is being conducted by The University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute (UEI) and The University of Chicago’s Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education (CEMSE) who will present findings from the landscape study conducted in the Summer and Fall of 2012, as well as preliminary findings about the CS community’s capacity for increasing the ranks of K12 CS teachers in light NSF’s stated goal of preparing 10,000 secondary education teachers to teach high-quality computer science[1].
Human Factors, Standardization
A goal for this work is to produce actionable findings that will be of use to the broad CS education community. Therefore, this session will be an important opportunity for researchers to share the work in progress and raise awareness about the study and for the attendees to share feedback, questions, and suggestions to ensure that the findings and plans for the remainder of the study are useful and actionable. This session will also provide opportunities for an important wider discussion about the implications of the findings to date for scaling high-quality K-12 education across the United States.
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
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Keywords Professional Development, K-12 Teachers, Scaling, CS10K
1. BACKGROUND Numerous sources [2, 3, 4, 5, 6] have identified the critical need to expand the teaching and learning of computer science in K-12 schools in the United States. However, major questions still exist about our nation’s capacity to increase (1) the number of people teaching K-12 computer science, (2) the number of schools in which computer science is taught, and (3) the quality and effectiveness of the computer science instruction. This study will provide a picture of the current CS PD landscape, putting facts and figures behind questions about PD that will help us understand how existing opportunities might fit together in a strategic framework for systematically growing the number of teachers and learners of computer science. In order to increase the number of K-12 CS teachers it is critical to have a clear understanding of existing PD opportunities so that we may address the needs of not only current K-12 CS teachers but those new teachers we hope to find and recruit to the field. This study will move us toward having the answers to these questions, and provide a foundation for understanding of where we, as a field, have room to grow and of our capacity to increase the number of people teaching high quality computer science in K-12.
2. OUTLINE OF THE SESSION The presenters will take 40 minutes to explain the motivation for the study, methods of research, the most recent findings, and give some perspective on the findings to provide context for discussion. A 35-minute moderated open forum will follow in which the community at large may comment on the study and ask questions.
2.1 Introduction and Background – 10 min Cameron Wilson, Director of the Office of Public Policy, ACM, will describe why ACM is interested in understanding the community’s capacity to scale K-12 computer science education and the partnership it built to support the study.
Michael Lach, Project Director, UEI/CEMSE, will explain UEI/CEMSE’s interest in doing this work, as well as explain the organization of project and its goals. The project has four main strands: (1) documenting the landscape of K-12 computer science professional development (2) identifying the community’s capacity for growing the number of K-12 computer science teachers (3) identifying the professional development and institutional supports needed to both attract new and retain computer science teachers and (4) working with PD providers to help develop models and best practices that will help expand the ranks of K-12 CS teachers.
Presumably they, along with all of the other stakeholders of those PDs, are interested in the findings. Many who wish to have some tractable information about the national landscape of PD will be interested in how they might use the study’s results to inform their own efforts and perhaps contribute to a larger strategy for reaching the CS10K goal.
2.2 Presentation of Research – 20 min
4. SUITABILITY
Furthermore, broad questions about both the need to expand the teaching and learning of CS at the K-12 level, and United States’ capacity to do so, are of wide-ranging interest to the CS education community.
Jeanne Century, Director of Research and Evaluation, CEMSE, with Michael Lach and Baker Franke will present the research findings to date, as well as the methods and instruments used to collect data. By March, 2013 major findings from the landscape study will be presentable. We also hope to have preliminary findings from the capacity study. Plans for the remainder of the work will also be presented.
It is vital that the CS community understand and support the goals of this project. This status report is an opportunity for members of the CS community to offer critique of the findings thus far, and contribute suggestions for improving the work and the direction of the study so that it most effectively addresses their questions and needs, as well as those of the broader CS community.
2.3 Perspective – 10 min
[1] Astrachan, O., Cuny, J., Stephenson, C., Wilson, C. (2011). The CS10K Project: Mobilizing the Community to Transform High School Computing. Proceedings of the SIGCSE 2011 Symposium.
Three members of the CS education community involved in existing large-scale professional development opportunities, Owen Astrachan (CS Principles), Gail Chapman (Exploring Computer Science), and Mark Guzdial (Georgia Computes!), will kick off the open forum session by providing some perspective on these findings, and suggest what the findings might mean for scaling CS courses and PD in general. The goal of this segment is not to exclusively highlight any particular PD opportunity, but rather to invite as much inclusion from the community as possible. These long-standing members of the CS education community will help provide some context and framing for the discussion to follow.
2.4 Moderated Open Forum – 35 min This open forum will build on questions suggested from the three previous presenters. The discussion will be lightly moderated only to the degree necessary to ensure that adequate time be allotted for 1) Q&A about the project, methods and findings and 2) discussion and feedback about the direction of the project and plans for future work that would be most helpful to the CS education community. Since one of the goals of this project is acceptance of its findings by the computer science education community this feedback and discussion is vital to its success.
3. EXPECTATIONS AND AUDIENCE Hundreds of members of the CS community who are providers of PD opportunities, such as workshops, conferences, summer institutes, and PD associated with CE21/CS10K grants, will be aware of this research project since they will have been surveyed as part of the landscape study during the Fall of 2012.
5. REFERENCES
[2] CSTA Curriculum Improvement Task Force, Chris Stephenson, Chair. (2005). The New Educational Imperative: Improving High School Computer Science Education. CSTA. Retrieved September 1, 2012 from: http://www.csta.acm.org/Communications/sub/DocsPresentat ionFiles/White_Paper07_06.pdf [3] CSTA Teacher Certification Task Force, Barbara Ericson, Chair. (2008). Ensuring Exemplary Teaching in an Essential Discipline: Address the Crisis of Computer Science Teacher Certification. CSTA, ACM. Retrieved September 1, 2012 from: http://www.csta.acm.org/Communications/sub/DocsPresentat ionFiles/CertificationFinal.pdf [4] Margolis, J. (2008). Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race and Computing. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. [5] United States. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Report to the President. Prepare and Inspire: K-12 Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math for America’s Future. (2010). Washington, Executive Office of the President. Retrieved Sept. 1, 2012 from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp /pcast-stem-ed-final.pdf [6] Wilson, C., Sudol, L.A., Stephenson, C., Stehlik, M. (2012). Running on Empty: The Failure to Teach K-12 Computer Science in the Digital Age. ACM, CSTA. Available: http://www.acm.org/Runningonempty
