Category Archives: CSTA Committees

The Certification Committee

Posted on by

The Certification Committee is primarily concerned with issues surrounding teacher certification for Computing teachers. Our most recent effort was the publication of the white paper, Bugs in the System: Computer Science Teacher Certification in the U.S.. This was a substantial effort of members from almost every state! You can see the state map that resulted from this work, where each state has a color code based on whether or not that state has a certification for HS, for MS or no certifications at all. One of the criteria is Computer Science as a required course, but not one state had that in 2013.

Currently, we are working on a public response to the Teacher Preparation Regulations being proposed by the U.S. Dept of Education. Public comments close on February 2, 2015.

On our website, you will find the Certification section at the bottom of the left side navigation. We currently have two links, one to the resources which include downloadable PDFs of our two white papers as well as information on a methods course for teacher prep programs. The second link is to an interactive map of the United States. Each state contains answers to three questions: Is Computer Science a required course? Is there a Middle School Computer Science teacher certification? and Is there a High School Computer Science teacher certification?  Soon, we will be adding a link to this page to allow our members to self-report changes to these questions for their state. Advocacy for Computer Science education is having an effect on this data, and we would like to keep this information current.

Who is on the Certification Committee?
Chair – Tammy Pirmann
Members – Deborah Seehorn, Aman Yadav, Stephanie Hoeppner, and Lissa Clayborn

Share by emailShare on FacebookShare on Google+Share on LinkedInTweet Share

Better Know a Committee

Posted on by

This posting kicks off a new series of blog posts, intended to inform you, the CSTA membership, as to how your Board of Directors works. In brief, the CSTA Board of Directors consists of eleven members, elected by the general CSTA membership. To ensure a diverse set of perspectives and experiences on the Board, members are elected to specific positions: K-8, 9-12 (two representatives), School District, Teacher Education, International, College Faculty, University Faculty, and At-Large (two representatives). The Board members select a Chair every two years from among the eleven, who coordinates the Board’s activities.

The CSTA Board of Directors is a working board. Board members work closely with the Executive Director to articulate the vision for the organization, plan initiatives and activities, and help carry out the organization’s business. Much of this work is done through standing committees and task forces. Over the coming weeks, the chairs of the committees and task forces will be posting summaries of their group’s goals and activities. If you would like to know more about a committee or task force, or possibly volunteer to help out, please feel free to contact us.

Dave Reed
Chair-elect and College Faculty Representative
CSTA Board of Directors

Share by emailShare on FacebookShare on Google+Share on LinkedInTweet Share

Assessing Computer Science Education

Posted on by

With the current national focus on making computer science (CS) count as a high school math or science credit or as core admissions credit for colleges and universities, the first step is to examine CS assessment landscape in K–12 education. In particular, it is imperative to conduct a landscape study on how the key players (teachers and CS education researchers) utilize assessment in their work. As more and more states adopt CS as a requirement, quality assessment will be a necessity that not only measures knowledge, but also assess student conceptual understanding. Currently, the quality and state of computer science assessment is generally unknown and opinions differ on what is available to the K–12 community at a cost effective rate (or free) and is easy to implement and access. Furthermore, the open-ended nature of computer science tasks makes it imperative that assessments are carefully developed and they fit the philosophy of open-ended algorithmic thinking.

Why is assessment so important? Having students demonstrate their understanding of the topic is essential to their learning process. Assessment helps to evaluate the student’s understanding of the subject matter and provides instructors with evidence of whether or not their educational goals are being met – both as a formative and a summative tool. However, the use of different programming languages and tasks in computer science classrooms make it challenging to develop a standardized test. Hence, it is important that we develop an understanding of what assessments are available, the caliber of the assessments including validity and reliability of available CS assessment.

Given the role of assessment, CSTA with funding from Google is undertaking this important task of examining the assessment landscape in high school computer science classroom. To meet the objective, CSTA Assessment Landscape Planning Committee will conduct a study to learn more about how CS teachers are using assessment in their own classrooms both to inform day-to-day instruction as well as end of course learning outcomes.

Aman Yadav
Chair, CSTA Assessment Landscape Planning Committee

Share by emailShare on FacebookShare on Google+Share on LinkedInTweet Share