Computer Science Education

The COMPUGIRLS Scale-Up project utilizes a culturally relevant technology (CRT) program to prepare girls ages 13-18 from the Phoenix high needs district to enter the STEM workforce. This project builds on the successful NSF-funded COMPUGIRLS award (DRL 08-33773), which uses social justice-based multimedia projects to engage young women in activities that increase knowledge, understanding, and awareness of careers in STEM and information and communications technology (ICT).

Bits-2-Bites is a strategies project that will engage middle school and high school students in learning to apply computational thinking and computer based tools to address STEM related community issues.

The project is creating and assessing an adaptable scale-up model that enables the participation of underserved audiences in intensive, experiential STEM learning, acquisition of 21st century skills, and increased engineering career awareness.

Two successive MESA cohorts totaling 80 local underrepresented high school students take a one-year introductory computer game programming course at the university and at their high school, along with mentoring and other activities.

GUTS y Girls is a three-year ITEST Strategies project targeting middle school girls in Santa Fe, Las Cruces, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. This project builds on a previously funded NSF Academies for Young Scientist award (06-39637) and includes partnerships between the Santa Fe Institute and MIT, University of New Mexico, New Mexico Tech, New Mexico State University, Santa Fe Complex, Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails, the Supercomputing Challenge, regional educational organizations, and local schools.

Enhancing student learning and understanding by combining theories of learning with the computer’s unique attributes.

In “Computational Thinking,” Jeannette Wing struck a chord that has resonated strongly (generating positive as well as negative responses) with many computer scientists and non-computer scientists. In this article, Cooper et al. reframe the way computational thinking is conceptualized and present a new model for computational learning in K-12 education.

Dr. Kimberly Scott is the principal investigator and creator of a National Science Foundation-funded ITEST project COMPUGIRLS, an innovative technology program designed to teach girls of color how to use technology to bring about social change. She was concerned with the low participation of young women from higher needs school districts in STEM, so Scott developed COMPUGIRLS from a program she initiated at Hofstra University in New York.

This book brings together new media theorists, game designers, educators, psychologists, and industry professionals, including some of the contributors to the earlier volume, to look at how gender intersects with the broader contexts of digital games today: gaming, game industry and design, and serious games.

The Virtual Hall of Science has the potential to extend those lessons well beyond the New York Hall of Science’s brick-and-mortar walls and reach students all over the world.  Built by NYC middle and high schoolers over the course of two years, this ITEST project not only provides interactive installations to the general public, but also cultivated the teamwork, illustration, and programming skills of its builders.

Presenters: Siobhan Bredin, ITEST Learning Resource Center at EDC; Cynthia Newson, ITEST Learning Resource Center at EDC; Dr. Kimberly A. Scott, COMPUGIRLS; Dr. Kevin Clark, Game Design Through Mentoring and Collaboration; Dr. Daryl Williams, National Science Foundation

The report, written by Janice Cuny (U. of Oregon) and William Aspray (CRA), is the result of a workshop that was held in June, 2000. Workshop participants included long-time members of the CSE academic and research communities, social scientists engaged in relevant research, and directors of successful retention efforts. The report's goal is to provide departments with practical advice on recruitment and retention in the form of a set of specific recommendations.

ComputerScienceOnline.org provides students and lifelong learners with educational, career and developmental information related to the world of computer science.