Flash Talk: Instructional Strategies, Successes, and Challenges By Art Lopez, Sweetwater High School; CSP Curriculum provided by Dr. Beth Simon

Agenda Curriculum. Instructional practices and recommendations for: engaging and retaining students. supporting success in the classroom. Successes and challenges in piloting CSP. Recommendations. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

An Inner City School: Sweetwater High School: 89% Free/Reduced Lunch. 80% Hispanic. 80% English Language Learners (Second Language spoken at home). Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Why Teach CSP at Inner City Schools Increase number of women and ethnically diverse students for CS field. Introduce and engage students in a new way of thinking- computational thinking. Increase student computing skills and foster a passion and wider appeal for the computer science discipline. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

ComPASS CE21 Curriculum Curriculum for this course taught at both UCSD and SDSU. Dr. Beth Simon designed this introductory Computer Science for non-Computer Science majors. Dr. Simon’s students have an 90% pass rate; students exhibit confidence in computing and computational thinking. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Instructional Practices Engaging CSP curriculum designed by Dr. Beth Simon (aligned with many LO’s of Pilot AP CSP) based upon the Alice 3D program. Alice On-Line Book: Expeditions Through Alice. Alice On-Line Book: Teacher’s Guide. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Instructional Practices Online book: Modules covering many CSP LO’s such as programming concepts and computational thinking. Alice: excludes problems such as syntax within programming languages. Alice provides visual instant feedback if program works or does not work. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Instructional Practices Clicker-response questions and group discussions (for each module) for deeper understanding. Alice programs based on online book and labs. Projects based on programming concepts and computational thinking learned in course. Lecture presentations and quizzes for each module Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Engaging and Retaining Students Students use the Alice 3D program, a visual IDE. Students create animated short stories and video games to learn Computer Science Principles. Students had fun, enjoyed learning, and formed a passion for creating these programs! Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Engaging and Retaining Students Students realized that creating programs were based on fixing errors. Students learned to work together and individually to solve programming problems. Students expressed joy and a sense of passion for learning about computing and computational thinking! Creating projects demonstrated this. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

General Successes of CSP Students excited to learn about CSP. Students enjoyed creating programs of animated short stories and video games. Students were challenged to reconsider what they were learning in Computer Science Principles. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

General Successes of CSP Many students challenged themselves to complete performance task. Students had to incorporate what they learned into the project. Students learned to “think computationally and critically”. Describe how students did this. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

General Successes of CSP Different instructional strategies directed students to think critically (Clicker-Response Questions). Students “exhibited confidence with new computing skills”. Student continually reflected on what they were learning. Clicker Response Questions; answering participation questions based on lecture presentation having students work in groups Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Challenges of CSP Student enthusiasm for course waned during the year due to number of Learning Objectives taught. Students felt “rushed” learning all of the required LO’s; this disengaged them. A number of LO’s are beyond the scope of an entry-level Computer Science Course (ComPASS). Opinion Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Challenges of CSP Too many performance tasks are required within the course. The amount of time required to complete these tasks conflict with the number of LO’s taught. Common core: cover fewer topics and reach for a deeper level of understanding of learning (retention!). Share Connor’s story here: Anecdote: Not only is this part of the common core I have heard great students repeat this claim over and over. My nephew took 12 AP classes and was his high school valedictorian. he went on to major in chemical engineering at Uc Berkeley. He would rave about classes where he was given the time to delve into a topic. His least favorite classes were those where the teacher felt rushed And covering as many topics as possible as superficially as possible. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Student Success and Confidence Students that took this CSP course find learning other programming languages easier to understand. Students that proceeded to AP Computer Science (Java-Based) found they understood Java much easier than their peers. Students had a lot of fun and loved learning computational thinking! Based upon both my students and Beth’s. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Students Want to Continue to CS Courses First group I taught, 18 out of 22 students passed with C or better. 15 out of the 22 are going to or are considering CS or CS related degrees. Many students in the two current AP CSP courses I taught did not have the same reaction. Are you doing this out of state? audience might not know acronyms like UC or CS... Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Some Final Thoughts CSP should be a required course for high school graduation. CSP curriculum provided by ComPASS made an abstract subject much easier for students to understand, learn, and love learning! Engage and attract young women and ethnically diverse students into Computer Science field. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Some Final Thoughts ComPASS/CE21 curriculum: an example of how course can be taught and reach a broad audience and maintain academic rigor. Designed to teach students deeper level of understanding of computing and computational thinking. Students are successful and love learning CS curriculum; gives them confidence in their computing skills and computational thinking! Teachers of this course are not required to have a CS major or background. Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019

Common Core and CSP Teach fewer LO’s and performance tasks. This does not compromise academic rigor. Engage students. Get them to fall in love with learning. Lead them to a path to mastery. Broad participation is a main goal: do we seek to engage a few students or many students? Art Lopez: Sweetwater High School 4/4/2019