0 AP CS: Past, Present & Future Directions

Chris Stephenson, CSTA
www.csta.acm.org

Why a New AP CS course?

• AP enrollment has stayed stagnant over the last ten years
• Compared to other AP disciplines, the female participation is PITIFUL
• African Americans - Enrollment: 17%, APCS exams 3%

We need a more engaging course

• In many states APCS is the only CS course that counts for "anything"
• This isn't just an equity issue, it is a survival issue
• We are failing to engage young women and minority students
• Students are concerned that the APCS class will take their GPA's down
• AP CS is a "gatekeeper" course; perceived to be more difficult than other AP classes
• Designed as a college level course
• Never meant to be the first CS course a student ever takes
• Sets the students up for failure and convinces them CS is not the field for them

Systemic issues

• - unless we increase the number of students taking hs cs, our enrollments will languish at the post-secondary level
• because CS is an elective and not a core course
• - states are increasing the number of math and science credits students must have in order to graduate

Need to prove that CS is relevant

• establish that CS is a science and not a technology
• need to make what we teach connect with kids today
• need a sensible, age level appropriate series of courses that students can take and that colleges can depend upon to be consistent and rigorous

Background

1. last year the college board announced they were eliminating the AP CS AB exam, leaving only the AP CS A exam
2. the AP CS A exam will continued to be reviewed and updated based on these changes and previous issues

Current Players
- AP CS Development Committee: review content and specifications, make suggestios for research studies
- AP CS Development Commission: writing the new AP CS principles course
- Chis Stephenson & Rich Lamb is on this committee (CS Dev Commission); "want a language neutral course"
- AP CS Advisory Committee: advising the commission on the big ideas of the new AP CS Principles course, advising regarding the supporting concepts; providing key feedback


Where is the Commission now

• developed and revised big ideas
• developed and revised key concepts
• developed and revised supporting concepts
• revising skills and practices document

The big ideas (shshhh!)

• Computing is a creative human activity.
• Abstraction is the process of reducing information and details to solve problems.
• Humans use computer programs to manipulate data
• Algorithms are tools for developing and expressing solutions to computational problems
• Programming is a tool for computational problem solving and the exploration and creation of knowledge
• Computer systems and networks facilitate communication and computational problem solving

Jan Cuny (NSF) - Making HS CS work for all students
BPC - Broadening Participation in Computing

Why high school?
1. We need to do much better there.
2. We need to start at high school to do much better elsewhere (eg. college, workplace)

Only 1% of students show up at college stating they want to study computer science
The number of degrees awarded is about equal to the number of students who enter

Why focus on AP?
- Only course that carries college credit?
- Attractive to students & schools
- 2,000 CollegeBoard audited teachers
- Single point of national leverage


2007 Stats about AP CS test takers
14,529 took AP CS A
~204,000 Calc AB
141,321 Bio
96,282 Stats

AP CS had the worst gender balance of any of the AP test
18% CS A
48.7 Calculus
50.2% Statistics

What's wrong with the current AP course?

• doesn't appeal to many students
• inaccessible

Math and Science in US High Schools (NRC< 2002)

AP courses should
- reflect what we know about how students learn
- build students' transferabl, conceptual understanding and inquiry skills
- convey the content and unifying themes

New AP CS course (Gold Standard Course - GSC)

• engaging, inspiring, rigorous
• focused on the fundamental concepts of computing
• target for 9-12
• pilot at the college level 2010
• pilot at the high school level 2011
• test available 2015

HS Computing Curriculum (course sequence)
- Intro Computing (for everyone)
- GSC
- AP CS A (possibly modified)

Goal: have the new curriculum taught in 10,000 schools by 10,000 well prepared teachers by 2015.

CS/10,000 Project

- Curriculum development
- Teacher preparation
* in-service preparation
* pre-service preparation
* ongoing professional development
* entree into schools

Where is CS in STEM? Everywhere!

The time is right. Get OUR foot in the door. There is a lot of talk about STEM education. Be aggressive. "We are not going to have this option again in 5 years."

(Short) Discussion

1. Why was AP CS AB canceled? Not enough students taking the exam.

Another great session!

0 Stuck in the Shallow End

Stuck in the Shallow End
Education, Race & Computing
Jane Margolis
with Rachel Estrella, Joanne Goode, Jennifer Jellison Holme and Kim Nao

This is my second time hearing Jane Margolis speak about education, race and computing. Earlier this year, Jane was a keynote at the Tapia Conference in Portland, Oregon. I read some of her research, regarding race and computing, sometime around 2004-2005. Her work led me to a commitment in computer science education. Today she is the morning keynote speaker at the K12 Teachers workshop.

One of the outcomes of her work in computer science education is the Exploring Computer Science Curriculum - A pre-APCS course. If you are teaching (or plan to teach) an introduction to computing course, I recommend reviewing this curriculum. It includes day to day lesson plans and activities.

• Over 20 schools/750 students
• relevant/engaging
• need to assess student achievement
• PD is important**

Key Question

Why are so few African American, Lationo/a and Female High School Students Learning Computer Science?

The Schools

East River High School

• Built for 2000 students, has 5000 students
• Technology rich, but curriculum poor; "filled with technology!"
• Classes: word processing, internet publishing, No APCS
  
• Teachers, administration were confusing computer literacy with computer science
• The thinking and problem solving was missing from the curriculum
• CS was vocational, NOT academic core; Did not "boost" academic transcript of college bound students, so they opted not to take the course.
• Teachers "out of subject"/no CS credential
• CS as a "dumping ground"
• Interest is there, courses are NOT

Westward Senior High - Math Science Aerospace Magnet

• Predominately African American, middle/working class families
• Similar to East River in many ways
• AP was there, but canceled after 1 year because the student's scores were so low
• Classes: Internet publishing class, Introduction to computers

Canyon High School

• "Preparatory Privilege" vs. Innate Talent
• Students from over 101 zip codes
• two- thirds of the students are of colore
• "Two schools in one"
• Incredible racial divide - but students of color not in honors classes

Issues in K12 Computer Science

• Disparities falling along race/class lines
• CS -- vocational
• Teachers isolated; need more training
• Pedagogy "boring", rote
• Pressure of high-stakes testing/shrinking curriculum
• computer classes as "Dumping Grounds"
• Insularity of AP CS
• Belief systems rationalize low curriculum

K12/University Partnership Formed: CS Equity Alliance

Initial Focus: Equity Access to AP CS (2004-07)

1. 11 (out of 57) High Schools offered AP CS
2. Commitments from principals
3. AP CS teachers attend UCLA Institute

Results

African Americans: 17 to 33
Latino/as: 53 to 297
Females: 47 to 230

Jane used the line "Two steps forward, one step back" to describe the persistent problems that exist, even though there is a big effort (and success) in computer science education at the K12 level.

1. loss of teachers and classes (testing pressures)
2. teachers need more training
3. students need more support/more preparation
4. frustrations with AP CS

Great keynote (as usual)!!

0 Grace Hopper Conference and K12 Teachers workshop

Arrived in Tucson, AZ yesterday afternoon for the Grace Hopper Conference. They are also sponsoring a K12 Teachers Workshop that began yesterday (Friday) evening with an entire day of workshops on Saturday. I am looking forward to meeting other computing teachers, sharing best practices and learning about the plethora of classes that K12 teachers are offering in computer science.

There were 650 applications to attend this workshop (full funding + stipend) and they only chose 100 of us! So it is a great privilege to attend this workshop with my colleagues. Look forward to my posts about the different sessions I attend.

0 Scaffolded Intro to Dynamic Website Development

A Scaffolded Introduction to Dynamic Website Development for Female High School Students -wConnect is a project that is "building an online community of women in computer and information science at Penn State University. The workshops are designed by women for high school girls, with hands-on construction of dynamic web sites." The undergraduate girls develop and deliver the material to high school girls. The results are online (http://wconnect.ist.psu.edu/). The girls are using a pre-build java-based database called bridgetools to develop the websites (by Jack Carroll). The workshop included 56 girls, across four sessions, mostly rising juniors and seniors. Each session was 90 minutes and they completed a pre and post survey. The pages created varied from 1-6, average was 2.72.

Comprehension had mixed results:
- 75% could explain difference in query specification
- Only 50% understood filters

Last year, we introduced TLI students to databases using two approaches: (1) creating a YouTube listing of their favorite videos and (2) Creating a personal blog. Students were given a simple interface (ie. template pages so they don't have to learn php, etc.) Most students successfully completed each project successfully, but I think that starting with something similar that wConnect uses to teach the girls querying and filters will be useful. Databases and dynamically generating web pages is an interesting topic for students, but tools to teach these topics are very much needed.