Bringing a Rigorous Computer Science Principles Course to the Largest School System in the United States

该项目涉及教育发展中心、加州大学伯克利分校、纽约市计算机科学基金会和纽约市教育部之间的伙伴关系。 该项目团队将开发课程材料，基于加州大学伯克利分校开发的计算课程的美丽和乐趣，用于使用Snap！编程语言.他们将在每年夏天举办面对面的教师培训课程，并开发一个在线教师发展课程。在该项目期间，将培训纽约市的100名高中教师讲授这一课程，早期参与者还将成为教师培训员，与后来的参与者一起工作。参与的教师将成为实践社区的一部分，该社区将继续为教师群体提供支持。该项目是一项设计和开发研究。 中心研究假设是，可视化编程语言的解释能力可以使高级技术，如递归和高阶函数，高中生，包括传统上代表性不足的群体。该项目团队还希望表明，完成这门计算机科学（CS）原理课程的学生将受到激励，并为在以后的课程中取得成功做好充分准备，例如高级安置（AP）CS A课程。 他们将利用从纽约市（NYC）的经验中获得的知识，通过迭代开发和改进来改进课程，并更广泛地了解这些想法在高中环境中的实施。 形成性数据将在整个项目中收集和分析，并用于通知后续修订的课程材料。他们将使用定性，定量和混合方法分析方法。在该项目的四年中，项目团队将与100名教师合作，他们将参与该项目，参加专业发展活动，并向纽约市约2，000名学生教授CS原则课程。评估工具将包括背景调查，反馈调查，课程评估，AP CS原则考试（目前正在由大学理事会开发），课堂观察，学生兴趣和参与评估，学生论文和教师访谈。 所有参与的100名纽约市教师都将参加这项研究。

This project involves a partnership between the Education Development Center, the University of California-Berkeley, the New York City Foundation for Computer Science, and the New York City Department of Education. The project team will develop curricular materials, based on the Beauty and Joy of Computing course developed at University of California-Berkeley, for teaching Computer Science Principles at the high school level using the Snap! programming language. They will run in-person teacher-training programs each summer, and develop an online teacher development course. During the project, 100 high school teachers in New York City will be trained to teach this course, and early participants will also become teacher-trainers who will work with later participants. The teachers involved will become part of a Community of Practice that will continue to provide support for the teacher cohorts.This project is a design and development study. The central research hypothesis is that the explanatory power of a visual programming language can make advanced techniques such as recursion and higher order functions accessible to high school students, including traditionally underrepresented groups. The project team also hopes to show that students completing this Computer Science (CS) Principles course will be motivated and well prepared to succeed in later courses, such as the Advanced Placement (AP) CS A course. They will use the knowledge gained from this experience in New York City (NYC) to improve the course through iterative development and refinement and to increase understanding of the implementation of these ideas in high school contexts more broadly. Formative data will be collected throughout the project and analyzed, and used to inform subsequent revisions to the curriculum materials. They will use qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods analysis approaches. Over the four years of the project, the project team will work with the 100 teachers who will participate in the project, attend professional development activities, and teach the CS Principles course to a total of approximately 2,000 students in NYC. Evaluation instruments will include background surveys, feedback surveys, course assessments, the AP CS Principles exam (currently under development by the College Board), classroom observations, student interest and engagement assessments, student papers, and teacher interviews. All 100 NYC teachers involved will be part of the research study.