More Like this

1. Computer Science through Concurrent Enrollment: Reflections and Lessons Learned Offering Mobile CSP as a Concurrent Enrollment Course

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3432545  

   Freeman, Seth; Kaiser, Dan; Lindsay, Ryan; Veseskis, James (March 2021, SIGCSE '21: Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)

   null (Ed.)

   Concurrent enrollment enables high school teachers approved by a partnering college or university to teach college-level coursework to their students. The collaborative research-practice partnership project CS-through-CE examines if and how concurrent enrollment (CE) programs can effectively broaden participation in computing for secondary students. In the CS-through-CE project two participating higher education institutions - Capital Community College (CCC) in Hartford, CT, and Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) in Marshall, MN - collaborated with the Mobile Computer Science Principles (CSP) team to train secondary teachers to teach the Mobile CSP course, and then offer the Mobile CSP course as a CE course. In this experience paper, faculty from CCC and SMSU detail their experiences recruiting secondary partners to teach Mobile CSP as a CE course, including the barriers and challenges encountered and the strategies identified for overcoming them. Additionally, participating secondary instructors from Hartford Trinity Magnet College Academy in Hartford, CT and Northeast Range School in Babbit, MN detail their experiences teaching Mobile CSP as a CE course in their high schools. They share their experiences teaching Mobile CSP as a CE course, contrast this experience to teaching the course in an Advanced Placement (AP) format, and detail the benefits they see in each modality. The experiences of the college faculty and secondary instructors in this paper are informative for any secondary or post-secondary educator interested in cultivating or expanding pathways in CS through concurrent enrollment. 

   more » « less
2. Gender and Racial Disparities in College Admissions and Computing Programs: The Future of Black Women in the Face of Widespread Anti-DEI Legislation

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3653666.3656087  

   Lee, Celeste; Warner, Jayce R; Garvin, Megean; McCann, Cameron; Zarch, Rebecca; Brown, Bailey A; Goldwasser, Talia (May 2024, ACM)

   This study aims to examine the current experiences of high school students in computer science (CS) courses and the factors that motivated them to continue their future enrollment. The participants were 603 high school students in grades 9 through 12 in Indiana, all of whom enrolled in at least one CS course during the 2020-2021 academic year. This research revealed that fun and meaningful CS pedagogy, knowledgeable CS teachers, and relevance to their lives and future careers enabled high school students to hold positive experiences in their CS classes. These experiences impacted students to take additional CS courses. In addition to these positive experiences, gender and early exposure to CS emerge as predictors to pursue CS courses. The findings will carry significance for policymakers and educators offering insights to enhance and broaden students’ participation and engagement in the CS course. 

   more » « less
3. Building CS Teacher Capacity Through Comprehensive College/High School Partnerships

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3478431.3499364  

   Flatland, Robin; Matthews, James; White, Pauline; Egan, MaryAnne; Moya, Jesse (February 2022, SIGCSE 2022: Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)

   Expanding access to and engaging diverse groups of students in high school computer science (CS) classes depends on qualified CS teachers. In this paper, we describe how faculty at our liberal arts college built CS teacher capacity at over 20 school districts through comprehensive college/high school partnerships. The majority of these districts serve rural or high-needs students, groups underrepresented in CS classrooms. The program works primarily with in-service teachers from other disciplines, helping them develop the expertise to teach CS. It is comprehensive in that it includes curricula and professional development for a high school level CS course and a dual-enrollment college level CS course, pathways to CS certification, community events, and opportunities for teacher leadership and collaboration. These modes of engagement are structured so that novice and veteran teachers and college faculty have opportunities to interact in different capacities over several years to create a robust professional learning community. Initial survey results show increasing levels of teacher confidence and sense of belonging, and increasing student confidence in their CS abilities. 

   more » « less
4. Some Bridges Span More than Water: Engaging High School Java Learners with Data Structure Visualizations and Real-World Data

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3439558  

   Perry, Kathryn; Subramanian, Kalpathi; Saule, Erik (March 2021, Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)

   Many high school mathematics teachers have stepped up to the charge of learning computer science and offering CS courses to their students. As CS grows in popularity, more students are completing AP CS A as sophomores or juniors, and looking for advanced opportunities while still in high school. Our project seeks to support high school teachers in their quests to meet students' needs for advanced CS coursework. I am one such teacher who faced that need, and was relieved to find the BRIDGES libraries and projects repository website for CS college professors. I began the work of adapting their data structures related projects for use in my courses. Solving Java programming challenges using BRIDGES libraries has helped my students visualize and program with one- and two-dimensional arrays and linked lists. In this talk, we encourage/recruit high school teachers to try our adapted-for-high-school BRIDGES materials, and share in the joy of cool visualizations that make data structures come alive. Using one sample project, I will show how an engaging problem, scaffolded learning materials, and dynamic visualizations converge to facilitate student understanding of, and programming agility with, two-dimensional arrays. 

   more » « less
5. Practitioner Perspectives on COVID-19’s Impact on Computer Science Education Among High Schools Serving Students from Lower and Higher Income Families

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3557047  

   McGill, Monica M.; Snow, Eric; Vaval, Luronne; DeLyser, Leigh Ann; Wortel-London, Stephanie; Thompson, Angelica (January 2022, ACM Transactions on Computing Education)

   Research Problem. Computer science (CS) education researchers conducting studies that target high school students have likely seen their studies impacted by COVID-19. Interpreting research findings impacted by COVID-19 presents unique challenges that will require a deeper understanding as to how the pandemic has affected underserved and underrepresented students studying or unable to study computing. Research Question. Our research question for this study was: In what ways has the high school computer science educational ecosystem for students been impacted by COVID-19, particularly when comparing schools based on relative socioeconomic status of a majority of students? Methodology. We used an exploratory sequential mixed methods study to understand the types of impacts high school CS educators have seen in their practice over the past year using the CAPE theoretical dissaggregation framework to measure schools’ Capacity to offer CS, student Access to CS education, student Participation in CS, and Experiences of students taking CS. Data Collection Procedure. We developed an instrument to collect qualitative data from open-ended questions, then collected data from CS high school educators (n = 21) and coded them across CAPE. We used the codes to create a quantitative instrument. We collected data from a wider set of CS high school educators ( n = 185), analyzed the data, and considered how these findings shape research conducted over the last year. Findings. Overall, practitioner perspectives revealed that capacity for CS Funding, Policy & Curriculum in both types of schools grew during the pandemic, while the capacity to offer physical and human resources decreased. While access to extracurricular activities decreased, there was still a significant increase in the number of CS courses offered. Fewer girls took CS courses and attendance decreased. Student learning and engagement in CS courses were significantly impacted, while other noncognitive factors like interest in CS and relevance of technology saw increases. Practitioner perspectives also indicated that schools serving students from lower-income families had 1) a greater decrease in the number of students who received information about CS/CTE pathways; 2) a greater decrease in the number of girls enrolled in CS classes; 3) a greater decrease in the number of students receiving college credit for dual-credit CS courses; 4) a greater decrease in student attendance; and 5) a greater decrease in the number of students interested in taking additional CS courses. On the flip-side, schools serving students from higher income families had significantly higher increases in the number of students interested in taking additional CS courses. 

   more » « less