This award establishes a new Research Experiences for Teachers site at Drexel University. The Drexel team plans to create a summer research institute in computer science for STEM high school teachers and 2-year college faculty in the City of Philadelphia and Greater Philadelphia Metropolitan Area. Teachers will spend the time performing research with faculty and students in the associated labs and initiating work on educational modules for use at their home institutions. They will prepare poster presentations and videos summarizing their projects, initial accomplishments, further expectations and descriptions of their modules. Participants will remain engaged year-round by participating in Teacher2Teacher discussion groups, facilitated by the Math Forum@Drexel. They will also visit campus for quarterly meetings, culminating in a 1-day showcase event in the spring to present results, materials and posters, and to which their colleagues and students are invited. The objectives of the program are to build partnerships between high schools, community colleges and the university, introduce teachers to cutting edge research in the computer science community, inform and excite them about computer science principles and computational thinking, produce learning materials for use in high school and community college STEM curricula, and expand the pipeline of students studying STEM and computing curricula in college.
Intellectual Merit: The intellectual merit is in the strong research expertise of the participating faculty in research as well as their significant experience with pre-college education. The focus is on important themes of big data and machine learning which are areas that are current and of importance all citizens. The translation of the research experiences into modules compatible with Computer Science Principles should also add to the significant body of work linking fundamental computer science to classroom practice and applications.
Broader Impacts: The project makes significant outreach to the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area, with a population exceeding 5 million, and the eighth largest school district in the USA. The Math Forum involves a substantial community of mathematics teachers and professionals, providing a variety of services and resources. Through the partnership with these organizations and dissemination through other widely used services, the team expects to provide significant impact for these activities.
