with the goal of increasing the number of underrepresented minority and female students from San Diego County that graduate from high school interested in and prepared to pursue college majors in computer science and related fields. PEECS was inspired by the BPC Alliance, "Into the Loop," which introduced a new course, "Exploring Computer Science" (ECS), in the Los Angeles Unified School District. ECS is an introductory course that could be a steppingstone to Computer Science Principles, the proposed new Advanced Placement (AP) course. These two courses have the potential to transform high school education in computing.
The CS Principles course is being piloted at UC San Diego this year. Together with the facts that "Into the Loop" personnel live in the San Diego region, there are close ties between the UCLA and UCSD campuses, UCSD Computer Science is already involved in revamping their freshman curriculum, and UCSD's San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) has a well-established technology and computational science professional development program for pre-college teachers (SDSC TeacherTECH), this puts San Diego at the right time and place for a major overhaul of its high school computer science programs.
PEECS proposes to pave the way for a successful expansion and adaptation of ECS into a new region, San Diego County. There, multiple school districting structures, policies, processes, and academic community cultures present their own new challenges to change. Experiences gained in adapting the ECS program to the diverse needs of the San Diego region will provide valuable lessons as the wider dissemination of ECS and CS Principles goes forward. This planning grant will bring together the important stakeholders to develop the necessary partnerships and directions for this effort.
Building a Partnership for Computer Science Education Introduction A strong US economy requires workers who understand computing and how it contributes to their own chosen field. San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) launched Partnerships for Expanding Exploring Computer Science (PEECS), in fall 2010 to create a collaborative support network for sustainable change in the region’s pre-college computing education. PEECS’s objectives were to identify and enlist the diverse stakeholders whose support was essential for strengthening and sustaining computer science (CS) education in San Diego County secondary schools. The project engaged educational leaders from the San Diego County Office of Education; the San Diego chapter of the Computer Science Teachers Association (SD-CSTA); district superintendents, administrators and technology specialists; and high school teachers and principals. Through presentations, meetings, and discussions with these key stakeholders, PEECS created a regional network of CS education stakeholders to support national efforts to introduce a new AP CS Principles course. Activities and Outcomes The SDSC/ UCSD/ SD-CSTA partnership Advisory Committee (AC) of early advocates among the region’s educational leaders guided project leads on protocols, processes, and political priorities, suggesting strategies for gaining buy-in from principals and superintendents. The AC and district-based ambassadors identified key decision makers whose endorsements were needed for CS Principles introduction. The region’s sixteen different secondary school districts (ranging from one to 30 high schools per district) required customized approaches. Ambassadors ranged from IT support staff, to STEM coordinators, to the District Superintendent, depending upon each district’s size and organizational structure. Following informational presentations, discussions and strategy meetings, small teams outlined tailored, local approaches. Highlighting overlap between national initiatives (the CS 10K Project and the proposed new AP CS Principles exam) and the San Diego County Board of Education’s own "2011-2012 Superintendent’s Scorecard" goals yielded their endorsement and introductions to district superintendents. Introduced as a freshman general education course at UCSD in fall 2010, CS Principles had demonstrated its ability to provide all students with a firm CS conceptual foundation and heighten their interest in taking additional computer science courses. Four schools, principals and teachers offered to pilot a CS Principles course at the high school level for formative evaluation. Pilot teachers (with diverse levels of CS experience) agreed to teach the course (or elements) in fall 2011. San Diego State University also agreed to offer CS Principles as a college freshman general education course in fall 2011. The pilot team and San Diego State University (SDSU) colleagues audited the freshman course at UCSD; worked through course activities and lessons; experienced, discussed, and used the active learning pedagogical methods; and reflected on their experiences as they sought to identify challenges to applying those methods to the content they planned to teach in the subsequent (2011-2012) academic year. They drafted curriculum outlines and timelines, and developed personal approaches to integrating the course content into their existing, approved courses. Project team members outlined support activities to help teachers with the initial pilot introduction, including in-class mentors, weekly phone calls, additional professional development focused on CS content knowledge, and informal meetings to strengthen the pilot team’s sense of community and diminish teacher/faculty barriers. A project web portal shared class podcasts, class activity outlines, homework assignments, exams, answer guides, extended instructional materials, related resources, and a blog. Weekly calls exposed teachers’ frustrations, challenges, solutions, and feedback (notes on the project portal helped those who missed calls.) Pilot team members shared observed learning outcomes and changes in the classroom culture with the shift to active learning. Broader learning objectives and assessment methods for those outcomes were discussed. Teachers readily suggested improvements to the professional development and ongoing support. Conclusions Diverse challenges exist to strengthening pre-college computer science education. Broad constituencies of stakeholders must be engaged to introduce and sustain new courses. Student recruitment is critical but students won’t enroll in courses lacking proven value toward college entrance. For this pilot project, UCSD and SDSU offered credit to students who successfully passed the exams and project requirements of the college course while in high school ("guerilla AP" credit) in order to fill the classes. Recruitment challenges will persist until the AP CS Principles exam introduction, but our economy demands immediate action. Introduction of pre-college CS Principles courses nationally is challenged by logistics, staffing and funding limits of working with in-service teachers with diverse training and backgrounds. Preparing teachers to introduce pre-college CS Principles may be accelerated by a multi-pronged approach. Complementing professional development for in-service teachers, we suggest that CS Principles be taught to college freshmen as a breadth requirement and to college seniors planning to teach. Regardless of their credential, these students will carry an understanding of the principles of computing, its connections to their subject, and methods for teaching that encourage students to work collaboratively to solve problems and communicate their ideas.
