Collaborative Research: Type I: Taste of Computing: Adding a CS Entree to the Education Choices in a Large Urban School District

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DePaul University and Loyola University of Chicago propose a project to improve and expand computer science (CS) education in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) high schools. The project will create a high-quality CS course that will serve as the introductory course for all tracks of the three-year CPS Career and Technology Education InfoTech (CTE InfoTech) program that is offered at 32 high schools. The course will adapt and extend the successful pilot "Exploring Computer Science" (ECS) curriculum originally developed for the Los Angeles Unified School District. With a focus on computational thinking, the ECS curriculum includes units on Human Computer Interaction, Problem Solving, Web Design, Programming, Computing Applications, and Robotics. This project will create new units on Game Programming and Project Management as alternatives to the Robotics unit. These new units won?t require expensive technology, facilitating the adoption of ECS in a wider range of schools; in addition, they will also better serve some of the tracks being introduced in the newly revamped CTE InfoTech curriculum. To increase adoption beyond the CTE program, the new course is likely to be offered also as a Mathematics elective and it will be a great preparatory course for the new AP Computer Science Principles course that is being developed. Finally, the CPS high school population is 51% African American and 37% Hispanic, making Chicago an ideal location to reach students from underrepresented groups, and leveraging the expertise of the PIs, specific efforts will also be made to achieve a more equitable representation of the female half of the population.