This award provides funding to the Association for Computing Machinery for core support of the activities of the Computer Science Teacher's Association (CSTA). The award is jointly funded by the CISE Special Project program and the Broadening Participation in Computing Program. Through collaboration with leaders from all levels of education, government, industry, and partnering non-profit organizations, the CSTA has begun reframing computer science within K-12 education as a true science. CSTA provides a voice to K-12 educations involved in computing education. CSTA has launched national programs to conduct research, develop curriculum standards, provide professional development, and create and disseminate new resources for teachers nationwide. Through these activities, CSTA is building a community of individuals and organizations who collectively work together to address issues in K-12 computer science education.
The intellectual merit lies in the efforts to establish K-12 computer science as an essential academic discipline and to conduct fundamental research to document and support the emergence of K-12 computing education as a viable area of research and study. The CSTA relies on its leaders and volunteers, all recognized experts in the field, to develop and carry out many far-reaching programs and initiatives which solidify the discipline and provide an intellectual basis for core integration of computing into K-12 education.
The broader impacts lie in the potential of the CSTA initiatives to impact computing education and thus the nation's technological workforce in an area of national need. Through multi-level collaboration with key stakeholders, the CSTA supports the implementation of curriculum and teaching certification standards that will ensure the quality and consistency of student learning. CSTA conducts and disseminates research and best practices that can facilitate the flow of knowledge from researchers to the practitioners in the classroom. The CSTA goals and activities support ensuring greater participation of underrepresented groups in the computing workforce. Thus, CSTA offers a broad range of programs and activities that provide a broad spectrum of impact on the nation, K-12 education, and the computer science community.
