Gail Chapman

Beyond curriculum: the exploring computer science program

➧1 In the past few decades, computer science has driven innovation across a variety of academic fields and become a robust part of democratic participation and the labor economy. Today’s youth are surrounded with applications of these new technologies that affect how they access and produce information and communicate with friends, family, and educators. Yet, though students often gain skills as “users” of these technologies in schools, too many have been denied opportunities to study computer science and produce new knowledge required to become “creators” of computing innovations. The students who do study computer science courses often represent only a narrow band of students that excludes significant numbers of girls and students of color. Further, for a field that depends on creativity, a homogenous workforce fails to take advantage of those with diverse experiences and world viewpoints that likely foster divergent and fresh thinking. This article will provide an overview of Exploring Computer Science (ECS), a curriculum and program developed to broaden participation in computing for high school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. This program is framed around a three-pronged approach to reform: curricular development, teacher professional development, and policy work across a variety of educational institutions. The focus is to provide the necessary structures and support to schools and teachers that leads to high quality teaching and learning in computer science classrooms. In ECS classrooms, high quality teaching and learning is viewed within the frame of inquiry-based teaching strategies that lead to deep student content learning and engagement. The incorporation of equity-based teaching practices is an essential part of setting up the classroom culture that facilitates inquiry-based learning. As the second largest and one of the most diverse districts in the United States, the Los Angeles Unified School District provides an important context to understand opportunities and obstacles encountered while engaging in institutional K-12 computer science education reform. This article will begin with an account of the educational research that provided key information about the obstacles students encounter in computer science classrooms. Next, we will describe the key elements of the ECS program. Finally, we will highlight several lessons that we have learned that inform the CS 10K campaign (see Jan Cuny’s Critical Perspective “Transforming High School Computing: A Call to Action”, this issue).

Beyond access: broadening participation in high school computer science

Broadening participation” and “equity” are now common parlance among computer science reform educators who are challenging the underrepresentation in computer science. However, what do we all mean by these words and phrases? In this article, we discuss the key theoretical components of our strategy for broadening participation and increasing equity in computer science education. We do so through a description of our goals of our Exploring Computer Science program—a K-12/university collaboration between Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). For us, broadening participation goes beyond issues of access to computer science (CS) learning; we also must transform CS classroom culture and teaching in ways that engage and deepen how diverse students learn. High standards for learning and equity are two foundational elements that must be coupled together. Our mission goes beyond the “pipeline” issue of who ends up majoring in CS in college. Rather, our mission is to democratize CS learning and assure that all students have access to CS knowledge. In today’s world, this knowledge is a critical part of being an educated citizen1 and being qualified for 21st century opportunities across a growing number of fields and professions.

An equity lens for scaling: a critical juncture for exploring computer science

The computer science education community has been on a wild ride recently. After decades of feeling like we were speaking to the wall, today numerous non-profits, industry, state and national politicians, policy makers, school districts, social media, and parents are beginning to pay attention and speak out of the need for more access to K-12 computer science education and for broadening participation in computing. As we write this article, a steady beat of news media has been covering the lack of diversity in technology and why computer science education is critically important. Even politicians are getting into the act. Broadening participation in computing has gone from being underthe-radar to being a presidential topic of attention. And along with this increase of attention have come opportunities to expand and scale up educational programs. Exploring Computer Science (ECS) is one of the programs that has expanded and scaled in the last five years. And, with this growth, come new questions, pressures, and challenges. We write this article at a time when we are reflecting on these challenges and questioning how we assure that the ECS mission of equity and democratizing computer science knowledge for all students remains strong. We begin the article with a brief summary of Exploring Computer Science development and expansion. We then review a part of our early history that exemplifies how numbers are often the first indicator of success in broadening participation, yet numbers can also be superficial and misleading. We follow this with a discussion of what we need to learn now, the challenges before us, and how we measure programmatic success. We hope that the questions posed in this article will be useful for the larger community and for programs that are also beginning to scale, whether they are ECS, Computer Science Principles, or other curricular efforts to broaden participation in computing.

Expanding access to K-12 computer science education: research on the landscape of computer science professional development

This session will present the research findings to date from an 18-month 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, and invite an open discussion about them. 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 Chicagos 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 communitys capacity for increasing the ranks of K-12 CS teachers in light NSFs stated goal of preparing 10,000 secondary education teachers to teach high-quality computer science[1]. A goal for this work is to produce actionable findings that will be of use to the broad CS education community. In the spirit of togetherness and engendering some collective action toward a coherent national strategy for expanding computer science education, its vital that the SIGCSE community be both aware of this studys findings and be given an opportunity to reflect on its implications. Therefore, over half the time of this session will be devoted to open discussion during which several key questions stemming from the findings will be raised as well as questions raised by audience members. This session is an important opportunity for the SIGCSE community to offer feedback and help to guide the future direction of this study to ensure that the findings and plans for the remainder of the study are useful and actionable.

That classroom 'magic'

Effective teaching practices for broadening participation in computer science.

The reasoning for the advanced placement C++ subset

The programming language used for the Advanced Placement Computer Science (AP CS) courses and examinations will change from Pascal to C++ beginning with the 1998-1999 academic year. This decision, proposed by the AP Computer Science Development Committee and approved by the College Board, was made in 1994. The 5-year transition period was crucial in defining a C++ subset and providing time for the high school teachers teaching AP CS to attend professional development activities. In [1], the authors appear to misunderstand the reasoning and the forces that helped define the AP C++ subset. This paper attempts to correct those.

Scaling High School Computer Science: Exploring Computer Science and Computer Science Principles

Changing the landscape of computer science education at the high school level is a key component of several initiatives of (1) the National Science Foundation (NSF), e.g., as the cornerstone of the CE21 program partnered with academic institutions and (2) the private sector with both non-profits such as Code.org, CodeVA, and MassCan; and for-profits such as Tynker, CodeHS, and Trinket. This collaboration between privately and publicly funded initiatives is designed to reach every student; and to achieve this at scale.

A public/private partnership for expanding computer science in schools

This special session brings together leaders from three groups: code.org, Exploring Computer Science [1-3](ECS) and Computer Science Principles [4, 5] (CSP) who have formed a public/private partnership to generate resources for introductory computer science students at many levels. These leaders report on work completed as well as ongoing and future work to help the community broaden participation in computer science while scaling and facilitating communities of students and teachers in high school and college.

Exploring computer science: computational practices in action (abstract only)

The ECS program includes an inquiry-based college-preparatory curriculum that introduces students to the creative nature of computing, technology as a tool for solving problems, and the relevance and impact of CS. This workshop will provide participants the opportunity to engage in activities from the ECS curriculum that highlight the six computational practices common to ECS and CS Principles. We will explicitly model the inquiry-based design of the activities and facilitate discussions that highlight how inquiry manifests itself in the computational practices. This workshop is appropriate for K-12 educators and college/university faculty who are interested in deepening their understanding of how teacher pedagogy is critical to broadening participation in computing. Laptop Optional.

A new partnership to reform HS

Changing the landscape of computer science education for both K-12 and higher education requires efforts by a large community working together to achieve education reform at scale. We are excited to announce that three groups---Code.org, Exploring Computer Science (ECS) and Computer Science Principles (CSP)---have formed a public/private partnership that will build on previous work of ECS and CSP.