cs principles panel jeff gray, ph.d. - associate professor amber wagner – ph.d. student (former ap...
TRANSCRIPT
CS Principles Panel
Jeff Gray, Ph.D. - Associate ProfessorAmber Wagner – Ph.D. student (former AP CS teacher)K-12 Colleague: Bill Cowles, Booker T. Washington HS
University of AlabamaDepartment of Computer [email protected]://www.cs.ua.edu/~gray
SIGCSE 2012Raleigh, NC - March 2, 2012
Observation: Teaching CS – 1980s style Typical example was text-based, trivial, and
uninspiring
Motivation: New and Exciting Contexts Media Computation
Programming in a more exciting context by manipulating multimedia artifacts
Robots Lego NXT
2D/3D Animation Environments Alice, Scratch, AgentSheets
Motivation: Newest Context Teen smartphone penetration around 62%1
Novel ways to engage through the “creative hook” and tinkering
“I wish I had an app for that”
Social networking and crowd sourcing a daily activity among teens
Increasing adoption of smartphones in science and medical applications
1http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/168085/nielsen-smartphone-penetration-reaches-48.html
Summary of Alabama Principles Course Split between BYOB (Snap!) and App Inventor Readings
Books: Hal’s Blown to Bits, Wolber et al. App Inventor book
Papers: Wing’s Computational Thinking, Kramer’s Is Abstraction the Key to Computing?
Grades: Six individual assignments (two short essays) Two team projects (presentation, implementation) Three exams and 7 very short quizzes
Sample Projects Homework Examples
Hangman App Essays: Reflective essay on student major and CS;
research and analyze a computer simulation model Team Projects
BYOB Almost all were game variations (Example)
App Inventor Rendezvous planner Tornado damage assessment app for Civil Engineers Textbook buying broker
Collaboration with High School Peer Bill Cowles, Booker T. Washington HS Montgomery, AL
Almost exactly a 2 hour drive from Tuscaloosa Shared syllabus, homework ideas, various lectures Restriction on meeting times
Visit and talk to Bill’s class Initial planning during CS4HS summer workshop in 2011 Weekend AP training session Bi-weekly email
Things that we felt were a success Creativity Soared Team Projects Highly Collaborative Diversity
17 different majors across 29 students (first essay) Broad interest from Freshman to Seniors 13 of 29 students were women or males from
underrepresented populations Sustainability
Strong interest on campus to offer again in Fall ’12 11 High School teachers in Alabama want help in pursuing
an early adopter Pilot for 2012-2013
Things that did not work so well Rushed to cover all CS Principles
topics in a 3-hour course
Recruiting issues (temporary) Big Data idea never finalized
(but almost ready) Four students dropped the course
before midterm Some team project ideas were
unrealistic 1 case of cheating