A Hybrid Google Computer Science for High School Workshops

Afrin Naz; Mingyu Lu; Jordan Bowen; Cody Ryan Zackoski

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Conference: 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Publication Date: June 23, 2018
Start Date: June 23, 2018
End Date: July 27, 2018
Conference Session: COED Modulus Topics
Tagged Division: Computers in Education
Page Count: 9
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--29690
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/29690
Download Count: 528

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Paper Authors

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Afrin Naz West Virginia University

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Dr. Afrin Naz is an associate professor at the Computer Science and Information Systems department at West Virginia University Institute of Technology. She is working with high school teachers to inspire the K-12 students to the STEM fields. In last four years Dr. Naz and her team launched six workshops for high school teachers. Currently her team is training the high school teachers to offer online materials to supplement their face-to-face classroom.

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Mingyu Lu West Virginia University

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Mingyu Lu received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1995 and 1997 respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2002. From 1997 to 2002, he was a research assistant at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 2002 to 2005, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Electromagnetics Laboratory in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was an assistant professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, the University of Texas at Arlington from 2005 to 2012. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, West Virginia University Institute of Technology in 2012, and he is currently an associate professor. His current research interests include wireless power transmission, radar systems, microwave remote sensing, antenna design, and computational electromagnetics. He was the recipient of the first prize award in the student paper competition of the IEEE International Antennas and Propagation Symposium, Boston, MA in 2001. He served as the chair of Antennas and Propagation Society of IEEE Fort Worth Chapter from 2006 to 2011.

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Jordan Bowen West Virginia University

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I am a junior Computer Science major at West Virginia University Institute of Technology.

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Cody Ryan Zackoski

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Currently, I am a third-year student enrolled at WVU Institute of Technology, studying for a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Information Systems. Before coming to WVU Institute of Techonology, I graduated suma cum laude from both Midland Trail High School and from Fayette Institute of Technology in the Aries Computer Maintenance course. I taught a 12-week night class at Fayette Institute of technology on smartphones and tablets on three separate occasions. After coming to WVU Institute of Technology, I began working under Dr. Afrin Naz in a work-study arrangement. In this work-study, I researched implementing low-cost high-performance computing (HPC) clusters. Additionally, I assisted in research on using the Scratch programming language as a tool for STEM education in the K-12 fields.

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Abstract

In this paper, we describe our experience in a hybrid Google Computer Science for High Schools (CS4HS) workshop for the high school teachers of West Virginia in the summer of 2016. As Computer Science education in high schools of West Virginia is highly underdeveloped, it is very necessary to initiate this CS4HS project by visiting the teachers and holding face-to-face interactions with them. After the initial face-to-face phase, rigorous instructions can be delivered online. Based upon the above strategy, our CS4HS project consists of three phases. Phase 1 of this project constitutes several one-day workshops in the summer of 2016. We made visits to high schools in four school districts of . All the participating school districts were very supportive, and all the facilities were offered to us for free. During the one-day workshops, high school teachers learned how to log onto our university servers remotely. Also during Phase 1 workshops, training sessions were offered on several software tools such as Google Course Builder, Google Hangouts, Scratch, and Piazza Discussion Board, as Phase 2 and Phase 3 heavily rely on these software tools. More importantly, personal relationships were established between the participating teachers and us, which greatly facilitated the next two phases. Phase 2 was entirely online. It was offered as a four-week online workshop. Specifically, fundamental hardware and software content knowledge of Computer Science was delivered to the participating teachers systematically. In Phase 3 of this project, year-round online and on-site support was provided for the participating teachers to incorporate Computer Science into their teaching. Two university students are in charge of online support, and they also travel to high school classrooms to provide assistance. This phase aims to reinforce the outcome of the summer workshop as well as to maintain a long-term community of practice among high school teachers and us. More than 30 teachers have participated in our workshop and none has any CS degree. Only 8% have taught a CS course before. For assessment, Google administered pre and post workshop online survey. Google asked the participants to provide grades in 1 to 5 range for the question “How successful was your implementation of CS4HS PD content?”. Total 22% provided 5, 73% provided 4 and 5% provided the lowest score 1. No participants provided 2 or 3. Also when Google asked “Would you recommend this PD opportunity to other colleagues? Everyone except one answered “Yes”. The remaining person answered “Maybe” whereas no one answered “No”. In the paper we will analyze other data collected during the surveys and demonstrate how this CS4HS project accomplishes multiple outcomes, and meets the major goals laid out in our proposal. To this end, we are offering year-round online and on-site support to the teachers. As a matter of fact, developing a Computer Literacy course in high schools involves multiple challenges, such as the readiness of instructors, budget, and enrollment requirement. We are currently working closely with the teachers as well as their administrators to overcome the above challenges.

Citation
Format

Naz, A., & Lu, M., & Bowen, J., & Zackoski, C. R. (2018, June), A Hybrid Google Computer Science for High School Workshops Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--29690

TY - CPAPER
AB - In this paper, we describe our experience in a hybrid Google Computer Science for High Schools (CS4HS) workshop for the high school teachers of West Virginia in the summer of 2016. As Computer Science education in high schools of West Virginia is highly underdeveloped, it is very necessary to initiate this CS4HS project by visiting the teachers and holding face-to-face interactions with them. After the initial face-to-face phase, rigorous instructions can be delivered online. Based upon the above strategy, our CS4HS project consists of three phases. Phase 1 of this project constitutes several one-day workshops in the summer of 2016. We made visits to high schools in four school districts of . All the participating school districts were very supportive, and all the facilities were offered to us for free. During the one-day workshops, high school teachers learned how to log onto our university servers remotely. Also during Phase 1 workshops, training sessions were offered on several software tools such as Google Course Builder, Google Hangouts, Scratch, and Piazza Discussion Board, as Phase 2 and Phase 3 heavily rely on these software tools. More importantly, personal relationships were established between the participating teachers and us, which greatly facilitated the next two phases. Phase 2 was entirely online. It was offered as a four-week online workshop. Specifically, fundamental hardware and software content knowledge of Computer Science was delivered to the participating teachers systematically. In Phase 3 of this project, year-round online and on-site support was provided for the participating teachers to incorporate Computer Science into their teaching. Two university students are in charge of online support, and they also travel to high school classrooms to provide assistance. This phase aims to reinforce the outcome of the summer workshop as well as to maintain a long-term community of practice among high school teachers and us.
More than 30 teachers have participated in our workshop and none has any CS degree. Only 8% have taught a CS course before. For assessment, Google administered pre and post workshop online survey. Google asked the participants to provide grades in 1 to 5 range for the question “How successful was your implementation of CS4HS PD content?”. Total 22% provided 5, 73% provided 4 and 5% provided the lowest score 1. No participants provided 2 or 3. Also when Google asked “Would you recommend this PD opportunity to other colleagues? Everyone except one answered “Yes”. The remaining person answered “Maybe” whereas no one answered “No”. In the paper we will analyze other data collected during the surveys and demonstrate how this CS4HS project accomplishes multiple outcomes, and meets the major goals laid out in our proposal.
To this end, we are offering year-round online and on-site support to the teachers. As a matter of fact, developing a Computer Literacy course in high schools involves multiple challenges, such as the readiness of instructors, budget, and enrollment requirement. We are currently working closely with the teachers as well as their administrators to overcome the above challenges.

AU - Afrin Naz
AU - Mingyu Lu
AU - Jordan Bowen
AU - Cody Ryan Zackoski
CY - Salt Lake City, Utah
DA - 2018/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - A Hybrid Google Computer Science for High School Workshops
UR - https://peer.asee.org/29690
DO - 10.18260/1-2--29690
ER -