Teaching Computing to Everyone Mark Guzdial & Barbara Ericson

Story Computer science has been tasked for over 50 years with teaching computing to everyone. We’re not even close. How do we create interest in Computing, and sustain that interest through High School? Sustainable and Effective Summer Camps Competitions Professional Development Sustaining Teachers through Communities How do we teach Computer Science to adults who do not want to become software engineers or computer scientists? Media Computation Assessing CS1 Graphics Designers who Program

The Two Cultures

Learn Programming to Re-Think Process Everywhere (1961) Alan Perlis argued that computer science should be part of a liberal education. Explicitly, he argued that all students should learn to program. Why? Because Computer Science is the study of process. Automated execution of process changes everything Including how we think about things we already know

Today, there’s a growing call

High School Participation in AP STEM Disciplines — Chris Stephenson, CSTA, 2010

Undergraduate Curriculum Has a Second-Order Effect Students decide to avoid computing long before they have any idea what the university curriculum is. 3. Source: Eric Roberts & Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, 2005

Our work: Starting out better, then supporting adults NSF BPC Alliance “Georgia Computes!” from How do we create interest in Computing, and sustain that interest through High School? Sustainable and Effective Summer Camps Competitions in Scratch, Alice, and AP CS A Professional Development for teachers Developing a community of computing teachers How do we teach Computer Science to adults who do not want to become software engineers or computer scientists? Media Computation Assessing CS1: Valid and language-independent Graphics Designers who Program

Creating Interest in Computing Start early We start with 4 th graders (9 – 10 years old) Provide lots of opportunities for engagement Weekend workshops, afterschool programs, summer camps, courses in 9 th – 12 th grade, competitions, a lending library, student helpers Use activities that are creative, hands-on, and social Use a variety of activities No one thing appeals to everyone

Summer Computing Camps Engaging introduction to computing for 4 th -12 th grade students Adding elementary students made the camps financially self-sustaining Reaches students that are not served in formal education Majority-minority Test bed for new activities In 2011 App Inventor In 2012 EarSketch

Summer Computing Camps: Effective The camps decrease the belief that programming is hard The camps increase confidence and interest Sorting by gender or race results: Girls show greater change on "Programming is hard" Boys end up with greater confidence than girls Black students show statistically significant changes StatementNPre/Post Mean Paired t-test Effect size 2. Programming is hard / ** I am good at computing1683.8/ * I like computing1684.4/ † I know more than my friends about computing / **0.24 ** p<.01, * p<.05, † p <.1

Summer Computing Camps: Learning Pre and post multiple choice tests on Scratch and Alice Only data from one high school camp on Alice Error in the data mapping for middle school camp Statistically significant changes in 7 of 10 questions on Scratch test 106 paired pre and post tests Statistically significant changes in 4 of 10 questions on Alice test 16 paired pre and post tests

Seeded Computing Camps Georgia Computes! provided "seed" funding and training from to 11 institutions Up to $ each year per institution for equipment In 2011 there were 39 weeks of computing camps at 7 colleges and universities in Georgia

Seeded Camps: Similar Results ** p<.01, * p<.05, † p <.1 StatementNPre/Post Mean Paired t- test Effect size 3. Girls can do computing / * I am good at computing / ** I like computing / ** I know more than my friends about computing / **0.20 Seeded camps show statistically significant changes

Competitions Advanced Placement CS A Bowl since 2005 Practice multiple choice exam Prizes for the top scorers and raffle off the rest Scratch and Alice since 2010 Scratch competition was > 50% female Why offer competitions? Teachers like them Encourages the teachers to learn more Students spend lots of time on entries

Competition Examples Scratch Competition Most Creative Middle School Alice Competition 1 st High School Group Movie

Influencing State Ed Policy “Georgia Computes!” (specifically, Barbara) has been involved in each of the major state computing education public policy decisions since 2006: Establishing a high school CS curriculum based on the ACM/CSTA Model K-12 Curriculum. Creating a CS Teacher Endorsement, based on ISTE/NCATE standards. Making AP CS Level A count towards high school graduation and university admissions. Georgia was one of the two highlighted states in the ACM/CSTA Running on Empty report.

Teacher Workshops

Why Offer Teacher Workshops? Huge need Few teachers have formal training in CS/IT Multiplier effect One teacher has many students each year One teacher will teach for multiple years Teachers believe the stereotypes Programming is hard and for geeks Teachers have influence on students Can recruit students and encourage them

Outcomes: Professional Development for High School Teachers “Georgia Computes!” training has touched 36% of high schools in Georgia GC schools sent 58% of all CS1 students in our GA-wide study GC schools sent significantly more women and minorities to CS (than non-GC schools) Do they use what they learned? 35% of teacher-participants taught programming before vs 62% after Many taught computer applications and/or web development before taking the workshop

Successes, and not, in Georgia In 2011 the largest number of students ever took the AP CS A exam in Georgia From 422 in 2007 to 884 The # of women increased from 68 in 2007 to 154 The # of Hispanics increased From 13 in 2007 to 54 The # of Blacks increased From 40 in 2007 to 79 But, still not a representative percentage

Teaching Computing to All Undergraduates Fall 1999: All students at Georgia Tech must take a course in computer science. Considered part of General Education, like mathematics, social science, humanities… : Only one course met the requirement. Shackelford’s pseudocode approach in 1999 Later Scheme: How to Design Programs (MIT Press) Result: 78% success rate overall, but less than 50% in Liberal Arts, Architecture, & Management

Contextualized Computing Education What’s going on? Research results: Computing is “tedious, boring, irrelevant” Since Spring 2003, Georgia Tech teaches three introductory CS courses. Based on Margolis and Fisher’s “alternative paths” Each course introduces computing using a context (examples, homework assignments, lecture discussion) relevant to majors. Make computing relevant by teaching it in terms of what computers are good for (from the students’ perspective)

Media Computation: Teaching in a Relevant Context Presenting CS topics with media projects and examples Iteration as creating negative and grayscale images Indexing in a range as removing redeye Algorithms for blending both images and sounds Linked lists as song fragments woven to make music Information encodings as sound visualizations 24

Results:CS1“Media Computation” Change in Success rates in CS1 “Media Computation” from Spring 2003 to Fall 2005 (Overall 85%) Architecture46.7%85.7% Biology64.4%90.4% Economics54.5%92.0% History46.5%67.6% Management48.5%87.8% Public Policy47.9%85.4%

Recent Results at University of California, San Diego Using Java Media Computation as normal CS1 for CS majors at a research university. Did extensive data collection last semester before switching to Media Computation. Been following two cohorts of CS1 students for comparison. Simon, Kinnunen, Porter, Zaskis, ACM ITICSE 2010 Findings: MediaComp has more focus on problem-solving, less on language. MediaComp students have higher pass rates and retention rates one year later

Are they learning the same? We don’t know, but now we can know. Allison Elliott Tew (2010) created the first language- independent validated test of CS1 knowledge. 27

Graphics Designers who Program Brian Dorn studied graphics designers who program. Conducted a series of interviews and assessment activities. Found that these subjects want more computer science, but don’t find courses (and most other resources) adequate (Dorn & Guzdial, ICER 2010) P10: So, that was a really long way of saying yes, I think that an academic study would make me a better programmer, but not by a whole lot.

What do software engineers do? Answer: The Boring Stuff. P2: I was able to take different samples from different places and instead of just being let's say an MIS major, or computer science major, you know it's—you're not going to be front-end anything with computer science. You're going to be back-end everything. But they’re not afraid of coding: “What interests you about web design?” P12: The coding! I don't like to code. But the things that the code can do is amazing…Because I mean like the code is just, there's so much you can do with code and stuff. It's just like wow.

They’re Lost without Initial Knowledge Learning less than they might because of a lack of deep knowledge. For example: Exploring code by searching Google for function and variable names. Learning about Java when programming in JavaScript Brian’s experiment: Given a case library with conceptual information vs. a code repository alone, what gets learned, used, and liked? (ICER 2011) Bottomline: Users of both liked them, users of both solved programming problems, uses of a case library learned some CS.

Conclusions Computing is important for everyone. It has been our challenge for 50 years to teach computing to everyone. Creating and sustaining interest in computing requires a significant outreach effort and research on what works. We need techniques like contextualized computing education to teach everyone on campus. We need techniques like case libraries to teach adults about computer science in terms that make sense for them.

With thanks to our supporters US National Science Foundation Statewide BPC Alliance: Project “Georgia Computes!” CCLI, CPATH, and CE21 Grants Microsoft Research Georgia Tech's College of Computing Georgia’s Department of Education GVU Center GT President's Undergraduate Research Award Toyota Foundation

Thank you! For more on MediaComp approach:

Extra slides

Upticks in AP CS, but not everywhere

One-class CS1: Pass (A, B, or C) vs. WDF (Withdrawal, D or F) Success Rates in CS1 from Fall 1999 to Spring 2002 (Overall: 78%) Architecture46.7% Biology64.4% Economics53.5% History46.5% Management48.5% Public Policy47.9%

As percent of schools, best in Southeast

Summer Camps Influence on Pathways University faculty attend “How to run a summer camp” workshops. University faculty apply for seed funding, and set up Lending Library and/or Teacher Workshops. Local teachers are hired to lead the summer camps, try out curricula in an informal setting, and bring it into their classrooms. Use Lending Libraries for materials. Students attend computing Summer Camps. Some students become assistants at the camps.

How do we keep the CS teachers we get? We lose 47% of STEM teachers in first five years. –If we get CS10K by 2016, how do we prevent CS5K by 2021? We need a sense of teacher identity (Ni, 2011; Ni & Guzdial, 2012). Without certification: Use community. –No longer alone: “You teach what I teach!” –Sense of value: “Ooh, I could use that!” –Sense of goal: The power of master teacher-leaders. Disciplinary Commons for Computing Educators (DCCE) Results: –More confidence => More recruiting => 302% increase in students

Putting California in mix Number of SchoolsNumber of Test-takers

Simon et al. Key Findings Summarized