In need of a Base Case
Comments about coding, research and life

So from a link by Coby Loup over at the Fordham Foundation on their new blog Flypaper here’s an article about why NYC pizza is better than anywhere else.

Coby implied that educational environments are often similar. I think this is even more evident in a subject like computer science in a HS - why a good program is often ascribed to a “good teacher”.

My HS classroom was like the 100 year old pizza oven. Projects on the walls and tucked away in the cabinets reflected the things that students had done in previous semesters. Students consistently “hung out” in the lab during free periods and after school which created this culture of social involvement with the others in the room (there was often a Go board that was brought out after school for either lessons or serious games). Programming team and Robotics club students always had some interesting question to ask me when I had a free moment - either about how to solve a USACO problem or about their robot.

For a new student, walking into that environment was purposefully made welcoming. We often (in the after school setting) threw problems out to the room for brainstorming (especially with robotics) and whiteboard over paper was preferred because it welcomed comment from the others in the room.

It took years to build that culture. (one of the reasons I hated leaving was knowing I would have to “rebuild”)

I would again though have to state that cultures like that are even more important in subject areas like computer science where there is a view of it being isolationist and hard. I strongly believe that open dialog about problems when modeled by the teacher helps give students the understanding that CS is a collaborative activity.

So onto the idea of replication. How do we help fledgling or failing computer science programs grow? What should we tell new teachers as we help prepare them for the role of guiding such a group of students? What do you think?

So prompted by a question from the ASCD Inservice blog “Who Supported you Growing Up?”

I dont know if many people in my professional life know, but I had a rough time growing up. I had a phenomenal teacher in high school who influenced me in large ways. She reminds me of my own personal optimism, and often looked for the joy and positive in any event. She taught me to be proud of my successes (even if they were so small or personal that only I recognized them), and to not underestimate myself. (sometimes I still fall back on that one) She forced me to look outside my box. It wasnt just about how good I could be in my playground, my comfort zone, but how could I compete at a state and national level.

She often had great “personal reflection” sessions with me. What went on, whats going on, how do you change your circumstances if you are not where you want to be.

Who influenced you? Tell your story here, or link to your personal story and perpetuate this.. I would love to read them all.

The group Common Core just released a new report called “Still at Risk: What Students Don’t Know, Even Now” by Frederick Hess.

Its not a long read, and makes some interesting points, although I think their perspective is a little skewed towards the literature/history side.

Some highlights for me:

“In 1983, the report [A Nation At Risk] set off a national discussion and launched what was then called ‘the excellence movement’. This movement was devoted to strengthening the curriculum by ensuring that the content of what was studied was coherent, substantive, and meaningful. For a time, there was extended discussion about how to deepen the study of history, what literature to teach, how to related the curriculum to the nation’s changing demography, and how to engage more student in the study of mathematics and science… However, a decade later, the excellence movement was overshadowed by Congressional demands for accountability in title I legislation, beginning in 1994. Congress required all states to create standards and testing, but only in reading and mathematics. Almost overnight the emphasis in school reform changed from ‘excellence’ to ‘basic skills.’”

It really does feel that we have rejected excellence in favor of basic skills over the last 10 years. When I first started teaching (in 1997) there was still a shadow of that goal in the school system. It was not just about the number of passing students, but your overall mean grades. Curriculum discussions were more about how to make the subject interesting and exciting rather than the best way to teach it so that the students on eye level with the bar could pull themselves over it.

One of the other results that I was tempted to label as shocking, but disregarded that term as I reflected on it, was that children with parents who had a college degree performed significantly better than children of parents without a college degree. One of the things I have witnessed here is that so many of the graduate students come from academic families. Most of them (not all clearly but what feels like a large percentage) have one or more parents with either a PHD or a Masters degree. Very rarely do you find a first generation college goer within the PHD ranks.

Is that a statement about the education system? I think we would all agree that college degree holding parents probably make more than those without, and therefore it stands to reason that their children live in areas with better school districts (an inequity? maybe). The report argues that it is from the education that children receive outside of school, and that could also be a contributing factor as well.

Anyway, I recommend you read the report. One of the quoted facts that I didnt know - apparently the original “A Nation At Risk” report stated that EVERY child should have a 1/2 year of computer science as a part of their high school education. And that was 25 years ago.

From Education Week:

“The program, which John V. Roach said would cost the manufacturer of Radio Shack products “in excess of $100 million,” will offer one teacher from each public and private school 23 hours of instruction in programming and other classroom computer uses, as well as in the use of audio-visual materials and books.”

I love how programming is listed first. I’m curious what this training will be, how do you sign up for it, and will it be in person? online? will teachers get continuing education units for it?

This is coming from Tandy Corporation. Definitely interesting.. I would love to find out who is putting this together and try and recruit them to get involved with CSTA in some manner.

15 minutes later… So apparently education week is adding articles from their archive to their web database, why they show up in my RSS reader, I’m not sure.

Still wouldnt be a bad idea even today..

So with the AP AB exam being cancelled in the future there has been a flurry of conversations from a wide variety of sources. Of course all the stake holders have different directions they are focusing in, and its nice to sit back a little and soak it all up.

The AP List Serv has been mulling around the problem of what to do with the students for whom AP A is just too easy and how do they justify keeping their full program going and offer diverse and enriching experiences to their kids.

A number of teachers have talked about using Dual Enrollment courses (where HS students take courses at their HS but are enrolled in a participating college at the same time, and obtain credits from that college and a college transcript that hopefully will be accepted by the college they eventually attend full time.) There are a number of HSs around the country which are already offering dual enrollment courses in all subjects, not just computing.

I have some experience in this, the high school I used to teach at participated in Syracuse University’s SUPA program. At the time I didnt know that they offered computer engineering courses which included programming and also hardware and networking. Check it out - there are over 180 high schools that currently participate in this program and have students earning Syracuse University credits.

Through a member of the ACM’s Education Policy Committee (board?) I made the recommendation that perhaps we encourage the US News and World report to include dual enrollment credits earned in their formula for determining the top 500 high schools in the country. If we can change that formula than we can open up a much broader series of courses that will count towards raising the status of the school (always goes over well with administrators).

Now for the NCLB part. Reading all the NCLB legislation (looking to see how AP or Dual Enrollment plays into AYP) I noticed something a little alarming. Repeatedly when looking at the AYP pages reference was made to the number of students achieving excellence in elementary and middle school and graduation rates in high school. Why do we step down our expectations? Why look for excellence at lower grades and just be satisfied with graduation at the high school level? I read somewhere that US students are very strong in Science at the 4th grade level, but we loose so much ground to other countries by the time they graduate HS.

Perhaps allowing dual enrollment courses to contain just as much weight as AP courses when evaluating schools will help CS teachers diversify their offerings, and also help us keep these programs in schools.

So another article, this time in Edutopia by Marc Prensky. This one is entitled “Programming: The New Literacy” and I highly recommend you go and read it.

One thing that jumps off the page at me is Marc’s definition of programming:

“I believe the single skill that will, above all others, distinguish a literate person is programming literacy, the ability to make digital technology do whatever, within the possible one wants to do — to bend digital technology to one’s needs, purposes, and will, jsut as in the present we bend words and images. Some call this skill human-machine interaction; some call it procedural literacy. Others just call it programming.”

I really like this broad definition of programming. I think we as computer scientists sometimes take such a narrow view of programming as writing code. (for example the person who commented to the article outraged that writing HTML was used as an example of a programming task) Maybe programming isnt the right word, but I think its not too far off. Doesn’t society already use programming in the more general sense than writing code in a programming language? We program our VCR (or TIV0), “program” the settings on our phone or other electronic devices.

Maybe we need to redefine what it means to be computer literate. No one denies that computer literacy (in its broad sense) is just as important for our students to have as reading, writing and arithmetic skills. Because until this point “literacy” has only encompassed a limited number of computer applications doesn’t mean the definition has to stay that way.

At one time a person was math literate if they could perform simple operations (addition/subtraction/ etc.) and manage their personal finances. With the types of exit exams from HS required by NCLB there is a new implicit definition of math literate to include algebra and geometry skills. Why can we redefine what it means to be computer literate?

Ok, so what would that manifesto look like? I have some ideas below, but would love your input. Remember these are the skills that your average Joe employee should have. Since we are taking an average of Joe’s lets assume that the CS phd’s and programmers, sys admins, etc. balance out the construction workers and McDonalds employees. So we are talking about the average HS graduate who will be going to college for either a 2 or 4 year degree.

Computer Literacy for All:
1. Have a knowledge of the tools that are available in a variety of domains (software, hardware, communication technologies, web 2.0 technologies, etc.) and be able to discuss the uses of those tools to solve problems.

2. Given a piece of software and basic instructions, be able to use the software as designed to solve a problem.

3. Be able to talk about “settings” on electronic devices. Be able to reason about settings that are “possible” for such a device and manipulate and change settings on standard devices.

4. Understand how computers store and process large amounts of information. (this could take the form of some kind of database course, or a course in information storage and retrieval over the web)

5. Reason about, and discuss the social aspects of computing. This includes privacy, ethics, security, etc.

6. Be able to automate processes. (This could start as writing/recording macros and expand to simple programming in appropriate situations)

7. Identify sources of lifelong learning. How do you find out about new technologies? How do you keep yourself on the cutting edge as an employee in order to be the most productive at your job?

.. I’m sure that there are more to go here.. and many of these are already listed by ISTE and the CSTA Level 1 curriculum. Now we need to get them infused into state standards as well. But the question is how do we do that… anyway - one question at a time.. any other “literacy” topics that I missed?

Theres an interesting article here: http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=274 that shows the “History of Computers” with pictures.

What struck me more than the interesting types of storage that were displayed in the pictures was the fact that the majority of operators of those computers in the pictures were women.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040303925.html?referrer=emailarticle

Go and read the washington post.

So a small update to the left sidebar - I found a wordpress plugin that allows me to display what I have recently bookmarked on del.icio.us. Feel free to add me to your del.icio.us network! I’m always looking for good sites. My username is lsudol there.

So, I came in this morning and went back to my RSS feed and now there is again 7 tabs open in my browser for which I either want to comment or write a summary up for my zotero.

First of all a public service announcement - and for those of you that have your own blogs - please pass this information along. The Entertainment Software Association Foundation is offering grants to individuals or groups looking to provide youth programs for a variety of reasons. I have heard a number of people talking about outreach, and creating after school programs for your area - why not write the grant to help MS students from underprivileged areas to experience some of the power of computer science? Teach an afternoon program on responsible use of the web (see another part of this post later) or use Alice to engage them in 3D multimedia environments and spark their creativity. The website for the grant application is here and if you want some ideas for curriculum just ask! I have a ton of resources I can share with you.

So, in an effort to make this post coherant and focused, I’ll pick out three things that specifically reference STEM. Dont stop reading - for once this is not a rant about people not getting it - in fact its a ray of light!

First of all edweek.org is sponsoring a chat on the 9th at 1pm EST entitled “Where are the T and E in STEM?”. Amen, hallelujah and a lot of other good things They are currently accepting questions for the moderators and if you have any I encourage you to submit them and/or participate in the chat if you are able.

On March 27 Sean Cavanagh and Andrew Trotter who are fast becoming my favorite edweek writers, wrote an article entitled “Where’s the T in STEM?” I would highly recommend reading it, it says a lot of what I have been thinking about recently.

Another article is about Baltimore Polytechnic Institute which has evolved into a Science and Engineering magnet school in the Baltimore area. The article, entitled “A School where STEM is King” has some great examples of the kind if interdisciplinary work that is going on in the best classrooms. I would love to get my hands on their syllabus for their Intro to Technology course..

Ok, so that allowed me to close 3 windows

I hope that this is an indication that the message we are trying to spread - that computing is not an applications based elective anymore. Students need the experience and explicit instruction in how to apply these technologies to the complex problems they will encounter in the global marketplace where communication, connection and collaboration is key.