A Pre-College Professional Development Program

pdf Stephen Cooper, Wanda Dann, Dan Lewis, Pam Lawhead, Susan Rodger, Madeleine Schep, and RoxAnn Stalvey, The 15th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE 2011), Darmstadt, Germany, (to appear).

This paper talks about the successful results of a four-year collaborative project among Colorado School of Mines, Duke University, Santa Clara University, College of Charleston, Columbia College, and the University of Mississippi funded by an NSA grant. The results were impressive: 80% of teachers that attended the summer workshops indicated that they had used what they learned about Alice in the classroom throughout the year. I was struck by one sentence in the paper: “There is also the widespread view among state educators that computing belongs as part of Career and Technical Education (CTE). CTE is largely a rebuilding of the Vocational Education programs (auto mechanic training, woodworking, home economics, etc.), historically intended for those high school students who were not likely college bound.” This is basically saying that people believe that computing is best-suited for people who can’t go to college. I find that very offensive, and I think that most people in the world of computer science would as well.