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Developing an Inclusive K-12 Outreach Model
... CSINC have developed pre-and post PD surveys as part of a longitudinal study [1][2][3]. The survey was tweaked to take account of the new online session format. ...
As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming,there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming.
This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research.
The study¹ described in this paper investigates the role that gender plays in making the decision to study Computer Science in University College Dublin in Ireland (background influences) and investigates whether there is a difference in the perceived sense of belonging between the genders. The aim is to improve diversity and sense of belonging amongst Computer Science students, in order to ensure that our school is an inclusive space, where anyone can feel a sense of belonging regardless their gender.
Europe, Australia, and North America face two similar challenges with respect to computing--there have not been enough students matriculating to keep up with demand and the lack of diversity remains an issue. To address these challenges, private and public resources have been allocated to educate primary and secondary students in computing. Previous meta-studies on these often segregated outreach efforts within the United States indicate that research on their impact remains spotty, short-term, and inconsistent, leaving a gap in the ability to evaluate their long-term impact. Building upon previous research focused in the U.S., this study examines similarities and differences in the results of 17 formal, peer-reviewed computing education research journals and conferences across Australia, Europe, and North America during 2009-2015. Results indicate that a lacuna exists in international research, paralleling results of the more narrowly focused study of U.S. venues. The paper further defines the major issues researchers face in conducting assessment studies for outreach and recommendations for addressing this gap.
In this paper we have examined the position and roles of Computer Science in curricula in the light of recent calls for curriculum change and we have proposed principles and issues to consider in curriculum design as well as identifying priority areas for further research. The paper is based on discussions within and beyond the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) Education Community since 2012 as well as an analysis of curriculum developments in five different countries. Emerging themes have been discussed with reference to important perspectives from curriculum theory including “powerful knowledge” as a key element of entitlement and management of the growth of expertise. Based on this analysis we have identified areas of consensus as well as constraints, risks and issues that are still subject to controversy. There is an emerging consensus of the importance of Computer Science and the nature of its “powerful knowledge”. Furthermore current understanding of the opportunities and benefits for starting to learn Computer Science early in primary schools has identified this early start as an entitlement and equity issue. There is a strong consensus that teacher professional development in Computer Science Education is critical for supporting curriculum change and is currently a major challenge in many countries. Other key issues include understanding how the growth of expertise affects potential structure and sequencing in the curriculum and the balance of content. Further considerations include how new technological opportunities interact with pedagogical approaches and can provide new potential for the growth of expertise.
It is widely known that our computer science students do not reflect the diversity of the population at large [1]. One method for encouraging broader participation in computer science is to design and deploy outreach activities targeted for K-12 students [2,3,4]. Goals for outreach activities are numerous: to provide a more accurate view of the computer science discipline, to increase students' confidence in their CS abilities, to provide opportunities for students to meet working professionals, and to counter negative stereotypes about the computing culture. Outreach activities can vary widely in terms of target audience, duration, and overall objective; therefore, it might seem daunting to design and deploy outreach activities. The goal for this panel is to provide models of outreach activities for audience members to import for use in their own communities and institutions.
The Bebras International Contest on Informatics and Computer Literacy is a motivation competition in informatics that addresses
all lower and upper secondary school pupils divided into three age groups: Benjamin (age 11-14), Junior (age 15-16) and Senior
(for upper secondary level). Using a computer the pupils have to solve 15 to 21 tasks of different levels within 45 minutes.
Two general types of problems have been used: interactive tasks and multiple-choice tasks. Creating interesting and attractive
tasks that are also motivating and funny for the pupils is very challenging. The paper deals with criteria for good tasks.
Some examples of tasks are presented and discussed as well.
This paper presents an international study of K-12 Computer Science implementation across Australia, England, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Scotland and the United States. We present findings from a pilot study, comparing CS curriculum requirements (intended curriculum) captured through country reports, with what surveyed teachers (n=244) identify as enacting in their classroom (the enacted curriculum). We address the extent that teachers are implementing the intended curriculum as enacted curriculum, exploring specifically country differences in terms of programming languages and CS topics implemented. Our findings highlight the similarities and differences of intended and enacted CS curriculum within and across countries and the value of such comparisons.
This poster describes the early development of a K-12 outreach model, named CSinc, to promote CS in Ireland. It has already been piloted with over 4500 K-12 students in its first year. At the heart of the model is a two-hour camp that incorporates an on-site school delivery. Schools from all over Ireland self-selected to participate, including male only, female only and mixed schools. The no-cost nature of the model meant a range of schools participated from officially designated "disadvantaged" to private fee-paying. During the initial deployment over 2500 pre- and post- surveys have been collected. This data will allow for further model improvement and validation. A positive initial outcome was the balance of male and female participants, 46:54 respectively. This poster describes the model structure in detail and outlines early findings.
There has been a growing interest and increase in work shared about national K-12 Computer Science Education (CSED) curriculum and implementation efforts around the world. Much of this work focuses on curriculum analysis, country reports, experience reports and case studies. The K-12 CSED community would benefit from an international strategic effort to compare, contrast and monitor K-12 CSED over time, across multiple countries and regions, to understand pedagogy, practice, resources and experiences from the perspective of teachers working in classrooms. Furthermore, there is a need for validated and robust instruments that can support comparable investigations into the current state of K-12 CSED in schools around the world. Through a collaborative effort, this Working Group will develop a validated teacher survey instrument and collect data about CSED implementation and practice in K-12 classrooms. The authors will pilot the survey with K-12 teacher cohorts and analyse, compare and contrast survey findings across countries.
Between January and April of 2018, a comprehensive survey of introductory programming courses was undertaken across all sectors of Irish third-level institutions (universities, institutes of technology, and private colleges). The survey instrument was based on - and nearly identical to - recent surveys in the UK and Australasia. In total we report on 39 introductory programming courses at 25 third-level institutions. This includes 6 of 7 universities and 13 of 14 institutes of technology, representing 90% of all publicly funded institutions. We also report on 4 private colleges representing 80% of colleges in the Irish Higher Education Colleges Association that offer computing degrees.
In addition to general course structure and composition, we explore programming language use, the reasons for using them, and their impact on teaching and learning. We also gain first-hand insight from instructors through an analysis of their own course aims, and explore their viewpoints on teaching introductory programming. The results of this survey provide a unique insight into the CS1 courses of a single country that is currently introducing computer science at the K-12 level.
Background and Context: Vygotsky's sociocultural theory emphasises the importance of language, mediation, and the transfer of skills and knowledge from the social into the cognitive plane. This perspective has influenced the development of PRIMM (Predict, Run, Investigate, Modify, Make), a structured approach to teaching programming.
Objective: The objective of the study was to find out if using PRIMM to teach programming had an impact on learner attainment in secondary school, and the extent to which it was valuable for teachers.
Method: We evaluated the use of PRIMM in 13 schools with 493 students aged 11-14 alongside a control group, using a mixed-methods approach. Teachers delivered programming lessons using the PRIMM approach for 8-12 weeks. Data were collected via a combination of a baseline test, a post-test to compare control and experimental groups, and teacher interviews.
Findings: Learners performed better in the post test than the control group. Teachers reported several benefits of the PRIMM approach, including that PRIMM helped them to teach effectively in mixed-ability classes, enabling all learners to make progress.
Implications: PRIMM makes a contribution to programming education research by building on previous work in effective pedagogy for teachers, and encouraging the use of language and dialogue to facilitate understanding.
The SIGCSE Technical Symposium is celebrating its 50th year, and a constant theme throughout this history has been to better understand how novices learn to program. In this paper, we present a perspective on the evolution of introductory programming education research at the Symposium over these 50 years. We also situate the Symposium's impact in the context of the wider literature on introductory programming research. Applying a systematic approach to collecting papers presented at the Symposium that focus on novice programming / CS1, we categorized hundreds of papers according to their main focus, revealing important introductory programming topics and their trends from 1970 to 2018. Some of these topics have faded from prominence and are less relevant today while others, including many topics focused on students, such as making learning programming more appropriate from gender, diversity, accessibility and inclusion standpoints, have garnered significant attention more recently. We present discussions on these trends and in doing so, we provide a checkpoint for introductory programming research. This may provide insights for future research on how we teach novices and how they learn to program.
This paper initially describes the introduction of a new computer
science subject for the Irish leaving certificate course. This is comparable
to US high school exit exams (AP computer science principals)
or the UK A level computer science. In doing so the authors wish
to raise international awareness of the new subject’s structure and
content. Second, this paper presents the current work of the authors,
consisting of early initiatives to try and give the new subject
the highest chances of success. The initiatives consist of two facets:
The first is the delivery of two-hour computing camps at second
level schools (to address stereotypes and provide insight on what
computer science really is), which was delivered to 2,943 students,
in 95 schools between September 2017 and June 2018. Second, the
authors followed this with teacher continual professional development
(CPD) sessions, totalling 22, to just over 500 teachers. Early
findings are presented, showing potentially concerning trends for
gender diversity and CPD delivery. A call is then raised, to the
international computer science education community for wisdom
and suggestions that the community may have developed from
prior experience. This is to obtain feedback and recommendations
for the new subject and the authors’ current initiatives, to address
early concerns and help develop the initiatives further.
This paper describes our experiences developing and teaching two different interventions focused on computational thinking and computer science at a yearly STEM outreach program hosted by a local school district. We describe the creation of our lesson plans, how we worked with experienced and pre-service teachers alike to deliver the lessons, and how we assessed the effectiveness of each intervention. We will discuss our successes and failures, and provide information on our future plans to incorporate more formalized education theory, pedagogy, and research methodology in future years to further this project. Based on our assessment results, we observed statistically significant gains in student self-efficacy with creating computer programs that perform a variety of operations. In addition, students reported a significantly higher understanding of how computer programming can be used in daily life. Our survey also highlighted differences in student self-efficacy between the two interventions, and we discuss possible sources for that result. We discuss observed results based on student groups with various backgrounds, previous STEM experiences, and socioeconomic status.
This paper describes a multivariate, multi-institutional study conducted in the academic year 2015-16. Six hundred and ninety-three students participated from 11 institutions, (ten institutions in Ireland and one in Denmark). The goal of the study was to compare the profile of male and female students enrolled on introductory programming modules (CS1), to determine if any significant differences could be identified by gender. The gender split was 79:21, male to female respectively. The study took place early in the CS1 module with three instruments used to capture data: a background survey, a survey on programming self-efficacy, comfort and anxiety, and a short programming test. At the end of the module, the overall result for each participant was gathered. Of importance, the study was conducted across multiple levels of Computer Science education, from Level 5 Certificate up to and including Honors Bachelor Degree and Higher Diploma, (which are based on the Irish National Framework of Qualifications NFQ). This paper describes the approach taken and the detailed analysis performed. Several significant differences between male and female students were identified early in CS1, some of which did not hold true at the end of the module. A gender comparison between the two participating countries and the different institution types was also performed and discussed. The findings could be used to positively influence teaching practice and to the development of gender focused retention and recruitment strategies.
In the past six years, dozens of conference papers and journal articles have been presented in Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) educational forums concerning computing outreach activities. Nearly half of these (47.5%) appeared in SIGCSE venues. In this study, we used the free-form question "What type of data has been collected in formal, peer-reviewed research that has been conducted on computing outreach activities in recent years"? as a basis for a systematic literature review in these venues from 2009-2015. During the analysis of the articles, it was discovered that a majority of efforts focused on middle school and high school students, a majority of the reported events took place in the United States, and almost half had a goal of increasing gender diversity in computing. This paper summarizes the information about the studies, including their data collection techniques and the data that was collected. We also present a list of recommended practices for data collection, methodologies, and reporting for educational researchers engaged in these activities in an effort to provide comparative data and allow us as a community to more scientifically understand the impact that these activities are having on the participants.
Young Women in Computing (YWiC) is an outreach initiative housed in the Department of Computer Science at New Mexico State University (NMSU). The program is designed to increase the number of women introduced to computer science; promote the role and presence of women in the field of computing; improve the retention of female students in computing programs; establish a permanent infrastructure (i.e., pipeline) to promote the participation of women, especially of Hispanic heritage, in computing activities; and, serve as a model of effective computer science outreach practices to reach young women. Since 2006, YWiC programming has reached over 10,200 students. By enhancing interest in computing among student populations, YWiC has successfully created a pipeline into Computer Science and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM-C) undergraduate programs, particularly at NMSU; among the 366 non-repeated summer campers, 99% of the 98 high school graduates attended college in the fall term immediately following their graduation, with 61% declaring a major in a STEM-C field. This paper will present quality practices and lessons that YWiC has learned in order to become a successful and sustainable outreach program in southern New Mexico.
The recent successes of Computer Science Education Week and code.org's Hour of Code have meant that more K-12 students than ever are being given an authentic, engaging and eye-opening exposure to the wonders of computer science. There are resources aplenty to help high school and college faculty with outreach. These range from easy-to-learn, open-ended programming environments (Scratch, Alice, Snap!), to online coding challenges (code.org, Lite-bot), to non-computer activities with live performances (CS Unplugged, cs4fn), to having the entire outreach experience delivered "in a box", thanks to NCWIT.
We wanted to bring educators together to share experiences with what they've done specifically with a one-day event, given these vast resources. Now that there are so many online coding experiences, it is enough to shuttle young students into a computer room, point their browser at one of these experiences, and answer questions as they come up? Is it important to include hands-on and hands-off (e.g., nifty demos, inspiring talks) components, and if so, in what order? What do different demographics find the most engaging? Is there any chance that we can do "damage", since these highlight-reel experiences might over-simplify how hard some of the problems are, and that not every important result has a flashy payoff? Do some of the early experiences leave students with the impression that computer science is only (say) apps, interactive multimedia programs or solving mazes? Finally, when it's over, what follow-up is appropriate? Participants on the panel will share best practices, common pitfalls, and advice.
There is an urgency to have school students exposed to Computer Science (CS) concepts so that they can make informed decisions about career paths. An effective way to address this is through outreach programs that can operate outside or in conjunction with the formal education system. Outreach programs like Roadshows communicating the importance and diversity of computing to K-12 students are essential to improving attitudes toward computing. This paper describes the outreach efforts by the author and presents several interesting findings about the attitudes of high school students towards CS careers and the impact of the outreach activities. The surveys indicate that events like roadshows can significantly influence students' awareness of CS and cybersecurity, and enhance their interest in pursuing a career in CS.
This paper presents lessons learned from five years of teaching a five-day game design and programming outreach course. The course was offered in summer time and targeted at middle and high school students. In total, 462 youngsters have taken part in 21 course instances. We describe our course concept, and discuss our successes and challenges. In particular, we focus on understanding our student populations by presenting descriptives and statistics of the events, and performing a statistical cluster analysis based on pre- and post-surveys. The cluster analysis was complemented with an analysis of the qualitative data, also originating from the surveys. Taken together, students could be classified into five groups with substantial differences: Enthusiasts, Newbies, Uncertains, Experimenters, and Unsatisfieds. Awareness of the clusters helps instructors of similar courses in developing course content, designing differentiated instruction, and planning follow-up or advanced courses.
Declining interest in computing programs nationwide presents a threat to America's security and limits potential for innovation across all domains. One way to address this problem is to remove misconceptions held by the nation's youth about computing, including information about how it positively impacts many subjects and showing them that applying computing can be fun and rewarding. One program at a Midwestern university accomplished this goal through a week-long, residential, summer camp for high school students to educate them about career opportunities and possibilities for people with Information Technology skills. Participants completed a variety of hands-on activities daily, along with listening to work experiences of computing professionals. Feedback collected from the student participants showed that in addition t o raising awareness about computing opportunities, the program increased youth interest in IT, prompted many to enroll in computing/engineering courses, and improved their performance in school. This paper shares details about the program and participant feedback to make a case for offering similar programs to correct the knowledge people have about computing.
Qatar is working towards becoming a knowledge-based society by 2030. However, there is a limited understanding of the field of computer science, especially at the K-12 level, as well as its potential impact to achieve the above goal. We have developed several outreach activities to help introduce K-12 students and their teachers to computer science through workshops on CS such as education, problem solving through puzzles, programming through Alice, robotics, and high school programming competitions. These initiatives have dramatically improved the understanding and acceptance of the field of computer science in Qatar in K-12 students, teachers, and administrators.
In our faculty we have run week-long K-12 game programming courses now for three summers. In this paper we investigate what programming-related activities students do after they take a course, and what factors in the students' background relate to post-course programming. We also investigate a possible change in the students' interest towards higher education science studies. We find that most students continue programming after the course and that their interest towards science studies keeps increasing. In student background we observed some indicative trends, but did not find reliable explaining factors related to post-course programming or increased interest towards science studies.
Declining enrollments in computer science are a cause of great concern. There has been a 30% decline in enrollments in US computer science bachelor programs over the previous decade and more than a 50% decline in the enrollment of women in computer science. Some research suggests this is due to the negative perceptions high school students hold of computer science. IMPACT is a unique way of attracting excellent students to the major by inviting students and their teachers to a day of exploration and competition hosted by our college. The aim of our research is to investigate how the students' attitudes change and to assess the impact of this daylong event. This paper will demonstrate that IMPACT increases awareness of computer science and changes the perceptions of the students who attend the event.
Up to 4,500 Jobs Unfilled Due to Skills Shortage in IT
- Mark Keenan
- Keenan Mark
Mark Keenan. 2013. Up to 4,500 Jobs Unfilled Due to Skills Shortage in IT. Irish
Independent (May 2013). https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/up-to-4500-jobs-unfilled-due-to-skills-shortage-in-it-29289669.html
Dramatic Fall in Number of Students Entering Third-level to Study Computing
- Katherine Donnelly
- Donnelly Katherine
Katherine Donnelly. 2018. Dramatic Fall in Number of Students Entering Thirdlevel to Study Computing. Irish Independent (Dec 2018). www.independent.ie/
irish -news / education / dramatic -fall -in -number -of -students -enteringthirdlevel-to-study-computing-37605169.html
Think Pair Share: A Teaching Learning Strategy to Enhance Students' Critical T hinking
- Mahmoud Kaddoura
- Kaddoura Mahmoud
Mahmoud Kaddoura. 2013. Think Pair Share: A Teaching Learning Strategy to
Enhance Students' Critical T hinking. Educational Research Quarterly 36, 4 (2013),
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https://doi.org/10.1145/3293881.3295779