skip to main content

Attention:

The NSF Public Access Repository (PAR) system and access will be unavailable from 11:00 PM ET on Friday, December 13 until 2:00 AM ET on Saturday, December 14 due to maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Incorporating Cybersecurity Concepts in Connecticut's High School STEM Education
This paper presents the GenCyber Teacher Academy (GTA), a unique professional development program that provides Connecticut's high school teachers across various STEM disciplines with opportunities to explore cybersecurity concepts and incorporate them in their curriculum. Participating teachers experienced inquiry-based learning, focused classroom discourse, and collaborative learning that centered on GenCyber Cybersecurity Concepts. Results indicate GTA enabled teachers to reflect on best practices in incorporating cybersecurity concepts while promoting online safety. Moreover, GTA established a sustainable GenCyber Teacher Academy Teaching Learning Community of high school teachers supported by a community of practitioners that will collectively shape the future of cybersecurity in Connecticut.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1921813
PAR ID:
10519506
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Editor(s):
Lu, Baochuan; Johnson, Jeremiah W
Publisher / Repository:
ACM Digital Library at https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3606402.3606422
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of computing sciences in colleges
Edition / Version:
1
Volume:
38
Issue:
8
ISSN:
1937-4771
Page Range / eLocation ID:
173-187
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
Cybersecurity Teacher Training Professional Development Secondary Education High School
Format(s):
Medium: X Size: 0.8MB Other: pdf
Size(s):
0.8MB
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ( , Journal of computing sciences in colleges)
    Lu, Baochuan ; Johnson, Jeremiah W (Ed.)
    The GenCyber Teacher Academy (GTA) stands as a pioneering professional development initiative, empowering Connecticut's high school educators in diverse STEM fields to explore and integrate cybersecurity concepts into their teaching. The inaugural 2022 edition facilitated inquiry-based learning and collaborative discourse on GenCyber Cybersecurity Concepts. However, program evaluation uncovered areas for curriculum enhancement. This paper delineates the evaluation process, curriculum revisions, and their implementation outcomes. Findings demonstrate that the revised 2023 GTA fostered improved teacher engagement with modules, enhancing their ability to integrate cybersecurity principles while prioritizing online safety. Notably, the revised GTA fortified the sustainable GenCyber Teacher Academy Teaching and Learning Community, bolstering a network of educators and practitioners destined to collectively mold Connecticut's cybersecurity landscape. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ( , 11th IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference)
    To both broaden and increase participation in any STEM field such as cybersecurity, we need to attract more students. Research shows that to do this, students need to be engaged with cybersecurity during middle school. There is a lack of age-appropriate and classroom-ready cybersecurity curriculum, however, and many teachers feel unprepared to teach the subject. To address this gap, the CyberMiSTS project team created a summer professional development workshop for middle school teachers that integrated a recent research-based understanding of cybersecurity into a curriculum that is accessible to both middle school students and their teachers. The project sought to encourage participation of a broad and diverse set of students in the field of cybersecurity by showing them how human relations play an important role in cybersecurity. We discuss our prior related work using branching web comics to introduce middle school students to cybersecurity concepts and careers, and the state of evidence-based research into effective approaches and methods for cybersecurity education. We identify challenges to broadening the pipeline for a truly diverse cybersecurity workforce that can meet industry’s need for cybersecurity professionals with a wide range of experience and skills. The paper introduces our approach for the teacher professional development workshop, maps how we designed the project to meet our research goals, and documents initial findings regarding what is needed to increase teacher self-efficacy about cybersecurity concepts and careers in a middle school classroom. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; ( , Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn))
    Game based learning is a new game play mechanism that the players explore various aspects of game play in a learning context designed by the instructor or the game designer. Nevertheless, general acceptance of game based learning as a new learning paradigm was deferred by a lack of well-controlled, large sample efficacy studies. To address the increasing need of cybersecurity workforce, this paper introduces a game based learning method for high school cybersecurity education. Purdue University Northwest launched GenCyber high school summer camps to about 200 high school students in Chicago metropolitan area. The survey conducted after the summer camp indicated that the game based learning for cybersecurity education was very effective in cybersecurity awareness training. Further analysis of survey data revealed that there is a gender difference in raising students’ interests in cybersecurity and computer science education using game based learning method. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ( , Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering)
    In this study we followed a qualitative case study design to examine the perspectives of 20 school stakeholders (e.g., district and school administrators, school board members, teachers, school counselors, parents, staff, and advisory board members) regarding (in)equitable ways they promote and broaden the participation of Black male students in a high school academy of engineering. Using the concept of cultural matching and the formation of STEM identities, we understood that Black students at Madison River Academy did not participate in rigorous academic programs (e.g., the academy of engineering), partially due to a lack of the school stakeholders' abilities to provide culturally congruent, compatible, responsive, or synchronized learning environments that connected them with their home cultures and lived experiences. Findings from our case study demonstrate how the change in the historical mission of career academies has limited access to rigorous STEM opportunities and engagement of ethnically and racially diverse (particularly Black) students. In this academy, the lack of Black male student and teacher representation as well as mathematics were two barriers limiting the engagement of Black male students. Thus, we contend that it is critical that STEM academy school stakeholders, particularly school leaders, prioritize equity as a strategic goal for their STEM programs and recruit Black teachers who are willing to create culturally responsive curricular experiences to elicit interest in STEM for Black students. 
    more » « less
  5. ( , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)
    The ongoing workforce shortage of skilled and diverse cybersecurity professionals coupled with the continued upward trend of cybercrime has led to an increased number of funding opportunities from the federal government to support projects focused on technical skills development. Significant emphasis is placed on academic transfer pathways and education-to-career pathways for students from K-12 to community college and beyond. Utilizing funding from multiple sources, faculty have intertwined grant project activities to increase awareness of cybersecurity careers and academic pathways, emphasizing digital forensics and incident response. The two grant projects, Cyber Up! and GenCyber Girls, aimed to develop college-level curriculum and cybersecurity workshops for female high school students. Project activities were synthesized to create a summer camp for high school students based on the curriculum developed for the college programs in digital forensics and incident response. The synergy between the projects has shown an increase in female participation in the digital forensics course and helped build interest in cybersecurity careers among K-12 students. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email