Collaborative Research: Scaling up an Innovative Approach for Attracting Students to Computing

尽管计算机科学(CS)和信息技术(IT)领域未来的就业岗位预计将迅速增加，但美国高校计算机专业的招生人数正在急剧下降。这反映出参加AP计算机科学考试的学生数量有所下降。为了解决这一问题，该项目将在全州范围内建立大学、中学和高中教职员工网络，他们将在学年期间提供研讨会和持续支持。这些网络将在三个不同的州(北卡罗来纳州、南卡罗来纳州和密西西比州)建立。学院和大学教职员工将直接与中学和高中教师合作，以创新和有效的方式将计算和计算机编程引入教学，并将计算思维融入其他学科。该项目利用Alice 3D编程环境，为学生和教师扩展了之前一个成功的协作项目。该方法关注面向对象的交互环境中基本编程概念和问题解决技术的强大核心。该项目的外部评估将包括收集有关教师指导和学生入学和表现的定性和定量数据。该项目将直接培训约265名教师，并为大师教师提供支助，以便为其家乡地区的其他教师提供后续培训。这个项目有可能增加大量初中生和高中生在面向对象编程概念和解决问题方面的教学数量和有效性。通过对初中和高中教师进行拟议方法的培训，并通过提供支持网络和建立社区，该项目应该能够影响到三个州的学生。编写的课程材料将存储在一个在线、可搜索的数据库中，供所有教师免费使用。通过使计算、计算机科学、编程和计算思维对初中生和高中生更具吸引力，该项目团队希望鼓励更多的学生主修STEM，特别是大学水平的计算。

US college and universities are experiencing a dramatic decline in enrollment of computing majors, despite a predicted, rapid increase in future jobs in the computer science (CS) and information technology (IT) sectors. This reflects a decline in the number of students taking the AP computer science exam. To address this issue, this project will build statewide networks of college, middle school, and high school faculty who will offer workshops and provide continuing support during the academic year. The networks will be set up in three different states (North Carolina, South Carolina, and Mississippi). College and university faculty will work directly with middle school and high school teachers in teaching and learning innovative and effective ways of introducing computing and computer programming, and in incorporating computational thinking into other disciplines. This project scales up a previous, successful collaborative project for students and teachers using the Alice 3D programming environment. The approach focuses on a strong core of fundamental programming concepts and problem-solving techniques in an object-oriented, interactive environment. The project's external evaluation will include the collection of qualitative and quantitative data on teacher instruction and students' enrollment and performance. The project will train approximately 265 teachers directly, and provide support for master teachers to provide subsequent training for other teachers in their home districts. This project has the potential to increase the amount and effectiveness of instruction in object-oriented programming concepts and problem-solving to a large number of middle school and high school students. By training middle school and high school teachers in the proposed approach, and by providing support networks and building community, the project should be able to impact students throughout three states. Developed curricular materials will be stored in an online, searchable database to be freely available to all teachers. In making computing, computer science, programming, and computational thinking more attractive to middle school and high school students, the project team expects to encourage more students to major in STEM, and particularly computing, at the college level.