The Computational Thinking-Enabled STEM Professionals' Workshop (CTSTEM-PW) is a collaboration between Education Development Center (EDC), the New Mexico Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (NM-EPSCoR), Intel Corporation, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of New Mexico, and Navajo Technical College. It is a six-month project with two phases: (1) a workshop-planning phase, in which the project team will collaborate with key stakeholders in industry, government and academia, to adapt and apply workforce-development tools for identifying computational-thinking needs in the workplace and for assessing the alignment between those needs and available educational offerings; and (2) a workshop to share the findings from phase 1 with a group of undergraduate students from Tribal Colleges and Hispanic Serving Institutions, and to assist those students in planning for careers as CT-enabled STEM (CTSTEM) professionals. During the workshop, undergraduate students will become familiar with the major job responsibilities and work activities of CTSTEM professionals. They will also identify the courses and work-based learning opportunities available to prepare for those careers, and will develop a career plan laying out CT learning goals, necessary educational activities, and a timeline for achieving targeted objectives.
In short, the CTSTEM-PW project will refine and test an innovative workshop format for helping undergraduate students from disadvantaged backgrounds to launch professional careers in the emerging field of computation-enabled science and engineering. The CTSTEM-PW project will engage key stakeholders from academia, government and industry in determining CTSTEM workforce needs, in mapping those needs onto available educational opportunities, and in translating the resulting workforce-development vision into practical career advice for a concrete group of undergraduate students. By situating the pilot workshop in New Mexico, and by partnering simultaneously both with world-class technology leaders and with local Tribal Colleges and Hispanic Serving Institutions, the CTSTEM-PW team hopes to develop a broadly-replicable template for deepening and diversifying the pool of CTSTEM professionals in economically and socially disadvantaged communities across the nation.
EDC and the Santa Fe Institute held the Student Research and Practice Symposium on Computational Thinking (CT) Saturday, December 7th, 2013 at the Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico (https://sites.google.com/site/ctsymposium/home). The project had two major aims. The first was to test whether a symposium was a useful way to ignite interest and action among regional institutions of higher education and their industry partners to support pathways to careers enhanced through CT. The second was to determine if such an event was replicable. The Symposium brought together fifty-two students, college faculty, and industry representatives to discuss current research, practices and projects involving CT, and their relationship to opportunities for internships and jobs. A highlight of the symposium was a competitive student poster session. Key Learnings: There is a sizable gap between NM industry needs for CT-enabled STEM professionals and NM university offerings that prepare students for the CT-enabled STEM workforce. The NM industries representatives were very interested in knowing what students have been able to learn and do on their own (outside of their classes). Hosting an annual CT Symposium can serve as a comfortable and effective way to assemble education and industry partners to discuss key issues and to develop internships, while at the same time promoting and celebrating student project work in CT. Unanticipated Outcomes: There emerged a surge in interest in collaboration and learning from one another amongst the parties involved. Fruitful interactions took place between the Supercomputing Challenge and local industries around developing internship opportunities for Supercomputing Challenge students and alumni. Conclusions of the Final Evaluation Report: The Computational Thinking-Enabled STEM Professionals’ Workshop (CTSTEM) project has successfully built upon previously existing partnerships between computational science, industry, and education communities and provided opportunities for additional partnerships to form. Overall, the participants’ responses indicate that the "Computational Thinking Symposium" was successful in accomplishing all four of the project goals. Goals and Analysis of Survey Responses: Goal 1) Establishing communication between colleges/universities and business/industry about what skills, tools, and techniques CTSTEM professionals use through the building of partnerships that attempt to understand and forge alignments between industry needs and educational opportunities available to undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented groups in STEM and Computing. All members of both groups, business/industry representatives and university/college representatives, indicated they connected with others within both groups that they would like to form partnerships with. It is expected that representatives willing to give their Saturday for this student symposium would be people that are willing to go beyond and create better learning opportunities for undergraduate/graduate students that would encourage them to be CT-enabled. Goal 2) Identifying existing opportunities within partner institutions that offer courses or training for students interested in the CTSTEM profession, as well as identify new opportunities that are needed based on the use of the gap analysis tool. All three groups, business/industry representatives, university/college representatives, and students indicated that they learned about existing opportunities within partner institutions that offer courses or training for students interested in the CTSTEM profession. It seemed that this was new information for many of the students as well as the university/college representatives. Goal 3) Increasing the number of students who are aware of the preparation needed to become CT-enabled professionals and encouraging a greater number of students from underrepresented groups in STEM and computing to take steps to become a CT-enabled professional. The students overwhelmingly responded that they learned more about the preparation needed to become CT-enabled professionals and encouraging a greater number of minority students to take steps to become a CT-enabled professional. They not only learned, but many want to take action on what they learned by taking advantage of the existing opportunities within partner institutions by enrolling in courses or training in the CTSTEM profession. Goal 4) Plan and implement a "Computational Thinking Symposium" that can become a replicable model that state industry and education partners can use to collaborate on activities to strengthen pathways for students to take to CTSTEM careers. The highest endorsement that the "Computational Thinking Symposium" planners, implementers, and facilitators comes from the students, when 88% strongly agreed that they would encourage others to attend a similar "Computational Thinking Symposium" in the future. Both the business/industry representatives and the university/college representatives found their involvement to be time well spent. This indicates that they support replicating this model.
