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Computer Science (CS) Frontiers is a 4-module curriculum, 9 weeks each, designed to bring the frontiers of computing to high school girls for exploration and development. Our prior work has showcased the work in developing and piloting our first three modules, Distributed Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT). During the summer of 2022, we piloted the completed curricula, including the new Software Engineering module, with 56 high school camp attendees. This poster reports on the newly developed software engineering module, the experiences of 7 teachers and 11 students using the module, and our plans for improving this module prior to its release in formal high school classrooms. Initial survey and interview data indicate that teachers became comfortable with facilitating the open-endedness of the final projects and that students appreciated the connections to socially relevant topics and the ability of their projects to help with real-world problems such as flood prevention and wheelchair accessibility. The CS Frontiers curriculum has been added to course offerings in Tennessee and adoption through the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is currently underway. Teachers from Tennessee, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York have piloted the materials. Together with researchers, we are working to package the course and curricula for widespread adoption as additional support to students as they try out computing courses in their high school pathways. Our aim is to increase the interest and career awareness of CS for high school girls so they may have an equitable footing to choose CS as a potential major or career.
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Engaging Female High School Students in the Frontiers of Computing
Creating pathways that stimulate high school learners’ interest in advanced topics with the goal of building a diverse, gender-balanced, future-ready workforce is crucial. To this end, we present the curriculum of a new, high school computer science course under development called Computer Science Frontiers (CSF). Building on the foundations set by the AP Computer Science Principles course, we seek to dramatically expand access, especially for high school girls, to the most exciting and emerging frontiers of computing, such as distributed computation, the internet of things (IoT), cybersecurity, and machine learning. The modular, open-access, hands-on curriculum provides an engaging introduction to these advanced topics in high school because currently they are accessible only to CS majors in college. It also focuses on other 21st century skills required to productively leverage computational methods and tools in virtually every profession. To address the dire gender disparity in computing, the curriculum was designed to engage female students by focusing on real world application domains, such as climate change and health, by including social applications and by emphasizing collaboration and teamwork. Our paper describes the design of curricular modules on Distributed Computing, IoT/Cybersecurity, and AI/Machine Learning. All project-based activities are designed to be collaborative, situated in contexts that are engaging to high school students, and often involve real-world world data. We piloted these modules in teacher PD workshops with 8 teachers from North Carolina, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York who then facilitated virtual summer camps with high school students in 2020 and 2021. Findings from teacher PD workshops as well as student camps indicate high levels of engagement in and enthusiasm for the curricular activities and topics. Post-intervention surveys suggest that these experiences generate student interest exploring these ideas further and connections to areas of interest to students.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1949472
- PAR ID:
- 10408424
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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