Computer Science through Concurrent Enrollment: Reflections and Lessons Learned Offering Mobile CSP as a Concurrent Enrollment Course

Abstract

Concurrent enrollment enables high school teachers approved by a partnering college or university to teach college-level coursework to their students. The collaborative research-practice partnership project CS-through-CE examines if and how concurrent enrollment (CE) programs can effectively broaden participation in computing for secondary students. In the CS-through-CE project two participating higher education institutions - Capital Community College (CCC) in Hartford, CT, and Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) in Marshall, MN - collaborated with the Mobile Computer Science Principles (CSP) team to train secondary teachers to teach the Mobile CSP course, and then offer the Mobile CSP course as a CE course. In this experience paper, faculty from CCC and SMSU detail their experiences recruiting secondary partners to teach Mobile CSP as a CE course, including the barriers and challenges encountered and the strategies identified for overcoming them. Additionally, participating secondary instructors from Hartford Trinity Magnet College Academy in Hartford, CT and Northeast Range School in Babbit, MN detail their experiences teaching Mobile CSP as a CE course in their high schools. They share their experiences teaching Mobile CSP as a CE course, contrast this experience to teaching the course in an Advanced Placement (AP) format, and detail the benefits they see in each modality. The experiences of the college faculty and secondary instructors in this paper are informative for any secondary or post-secondary educator interested in cultivating or expanding pathways in CS through concurrent enrollment.