Almost every day I receive electronic newsletters with articles discussing STEM and robotics competitions, but I rarely see a mention of Computer Science. So, my business administration mentality has caused me to wonder, “Do we have an image problem in CS?” Why am I not reading about Computer Science on a daily basis? Do we need a new promotional plan? What is our CS “brand”?
In yesterday’s ACTE Career Tech Update, the leading article was titled Computer Science Education Declining in K-12 Classrooms, Study Finds:
Computerworld (1/11, Betts) reports: “Computer technology may drive the US economy, but computer science education is absent in most American K-12 classrooms, according to a report by the Association for Computing Machinery and the Computer Science Teachers Association.” According to the study, “the number of secondary schools offering introductory computer science courses dropped 17% from 2005 to 2009, and the number offering Advanced Placement computer science courses dropped 35% in that time period.” Co-author Mark Stehlik, an assistant dean at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, said, “Some states and some schools are offering some really excellent courses. But overall, the picture is pretty bleak.”
How sad! And yet, I know all too well that our enrollment in Computer Science at the secondary level has been declining. I recall how intrigued I was when I took my first computing course (many, many years ago) and how that course held my interest and was much more engaging that my math courses. Why are today’s students not intrigued with computing? What can we do to recruit more students into Computer Science? Those of us who work with Computer Science on a daily basis know the importance of students studying CS. President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan both know the importance of students studying CS. Business and Industry leaders know the importance of students studying CS. Maybe we do need a new promotional plan, a new image, a new brand.
An article in the ACM Tech News in November highlighted a DARPA funded project designed to “spark” Computer Science Education:
DARPA-Funded Project to Spark Computer Science Education
eSchool News (11/04/10) Jenna Zwang
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently awarded TopCoder a contract to develop a virtual community featuring competitions and educational resources in order to boost computer science education and help middle and high school students improve their science, technology, engineering, and math skills. DARPA’s Melanie Dumas says the virtual community is needed to help reverse the decline in the number of students pursuing computer science degrees, including a 70-percent reduction since 2001. “We’ve seen staggeringly disappointing results as far as the U.S. population is concerned, both in terms of participation and then, once they do participate, their actual performance,” says TopCoder’s Robert Hughes. TopCoder will construct a virtual community focused on computer science activities, including logic puzzles and games. “The intent isn’t necessarily to improve the quality of education that’s out there right now, but more to attract and then retain students in computer science,” Hughes says. He hopes the project also will help get students interested in computer science jobs. “The lack of qualified technologists has really driven the prices [of hiring] to almost a prohibitive level, where new technology development is almost prohibitive because of the cost,” Hughes says.
Certainly, the proposed virtual community should interest (and maybe even intrigue) potential Computer Science students. Reaching those students at the middle school and high school level is a good strategy. Maybe if students can associate virtual communities with CS, they will study CS in droves.
Another article in a December issue of the ACM Tech News was titled “Inspiring the Next Bill Gates”. Now, that is a noble aspiration for a high school teacher! Interesting high school boys in debugging computer games is certainly a great hook to convince them to study CS.
Live Online Briefing: Inspiring the Next Bill Gates
National Science Foundation (12/03/10)
The U.S. National Science Foundation will host a Webcast on Dec. 7 at 12 noon (EST) featuring Georgia Tech’s Amy Bruckman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Leah Buechley, and ACM’s Cameron Wilson, as part of the federally sponsored Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek), which takes place Dec. 5-11. The Webcast will include demonstrations and suggestions on how to improve K-12 computer science education. Georgia Tech students will help Bruckman describe GLITCH, a program that enlists high school boys to debug computer games in an effort to inspire them to pursue computer science. Meanwhile, Buechley will show how E-Textiles has encouraged young girls to learn computational skills. The U.S. Congress created CSEdWeek to highlight the importance of computer science education and the need to improve technology education at the K-12 level.
Possibly students just don’t realize what they can DO with Computer Science. CS is so varied, students probably do not realize the ubiquitous nature of the discipline (our brand again). We really need to work on that brand, that image, that promotional plan. We need to help our students see what the possibilities are with CS. Happily, another article in a December ACM Tech News noted the surge in enrollment in CS courses at the collegiate level:
Schools See Surge in Computer Science Classes
Poughkeepsie Journal (NY) (12/05/10) Sarah Bradshaw
Many colleges saw significant growth in computer science enrollment this fall compared to three years ago, demonstrating the growing importance of technology education among young people. “I think the students are aware that they have it in their power to be the next Bill Gates if they come up with something really great,” says Andrew Pletch, chairman of the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz’s computer science department. SUNY New Paltz experienced a 53 percent increase in computer science majors since last spring. At Dutchess Community College, enrollment is up 43 percent in computer information management, 40 percent in computer certificate programs, 10 percent in computer science, and six percent in computer information systems. Many students think that information technology opens up employment opportunities, notes Dutchess’ Frank Whittle. Professors also attribute the ability to specialize in specific areas of interest in computer science as a big factor in their programs’ success. This fall Vassar College had 134 students sign up for at least one computer science class, and many of those students were taking additional classes, even though they are pursuing a different major, notes Vassar’s Jeff Kosmacher.
Apparently students realized that CS would in fact open up employment opportunities for them. Others liked being able to specialize in areas of specific interest to them. Maybe it is all of the above.
Whatever works is what we need to do to interest students in studying CS. We can’t start too early. Elementary students can be taught computing. Middle school and high school students must develop an interest in computing. I recently read an article in the ASCD SmartBrief that asked if playing a musical instrument improved cognitive ability. Well, we know that studying Computer Science improves cognitive ability. Maybe we need to emphasize that. Let’s make that, along with so many other highlights, part of our image or brand and certainly include that in our promotional plan. We can have a brand every bit as successful as STEM.
Deborah Seeehorn
CSTA Board of Directors

A joint blog post by Chris Stephenson of CSTA, Alfred Thompson of Microsoft, and Mark Guzdial of Georgia Tech
As much as we believe and try to make the case that studying computer science is good for all students, there is a profound lack of research to actually support this contention. With the movement to data driven decision making in every area of education, our inability to advocate for more and better computer science education in K-12 is severely curtailed by our inability to support our own observations and claims.
There are some things we do know which may help us make a more effective argument for K-12 computer science education, or at least make us better K-12 computer science educators.
We know that even pre-teen students have serious misconceptions about what computer science is and that this fundamental lack of understanding makes it very difficult to engage and retain students. Research has shown us that many students believe that computer science is simply using applications well. In one study, after six weeks of learning Scratch, Alice, Pico Crickets, and similar tools, and with Mike Hewner (a PhD student in CS education at Georgia Tech) lecturing them on CS topics, students still came away with the belief (for example) that “Someone who does Photoshop really well is a great computer scientist.” They probably think that programmers work in locked window-less rooms and never shower too!
We know that *not* having a CS background can be a serious detriment in a wide variety of professions. In 2005, Mary Shaw, Chris Saffidi, and Brad Myers presented a research paper focusing on the gap between professionals who program as part of their jobs and the number of people actually trained to do this work. These researchers estimated that by 2012 there will be 3 million professional software developers and 13 million people who program as part of their jobs but aren’t software developers. Brian Dorn’s just-completed dissertation shows why this is a significant problem. In his study of graphics designers who are self-taught programmers, Dorn found that in order to understand code fragments, the designers do things like search for a variable name — not knowing that that’s completely arbitrary and not useful. One of Brian’s subjects who was working in JavaScript, for example, stumbled onto a Java web page, and spent 30 minutes poring over language details that were irrelevant for his task
We still don’t know, however, whether learning computer science helps with anything else in the curriculum. . We have results showing that learning a visual language *does* transfer knowledge to textual programming later. Chris Hundhausen just did a careful HCI study showing that learners could get started more quickly with a visual programming language (like Scratch, Alice, or Kodu), and that parts of that knowledge did transfer to textual programming. That’s a big deal, because it says that Scratch and Alice really are useful for learning CS that will be useful later in life.
There are, however, no recent, scientifically-valid studies that show that students are able to transfer key concepts that they learn in computer science to other learning or that students who study computer science perform better on high-stakes testing in other subject areas (specifically math and science). The last major review of the research in this space (by David Palumbo in 1990) showed little evidence that programming impacted problem-solving in other domains. Neither are there recent studies (the most recent was Taylor and Mountfield in 1991) that determine whether students who study computer science in high school perform better in any area of post-secondary study including computer science. Sharon Carver’s dissertation work in 1988 showed that one *could* teach Logo so that it improved how elementary students solved problems in other areas (e.g., debugging instructions on maps), but little research has followed up on that result.
This lack of research-supported evidence is particularly troubling in light of the current discussions about the importance of “Computational Thinking”. While there is strong support for CT in many parts of the community including the National Science Foundation, without a strong and agreed-upon definition and effective assessment measures for students at various learning levels, we don’t have hard evidence there that CT is useful let alone necessary for every student.
We do know that we need to do a better job of convincing students that computer science is worth their interest and we might actually be making some progress on this front. For example, many teachers are working hard to help students see the connections between the current technologies that students are interested in (social networking, mobile applications, etc.) and the issues that they care about (the ways that medical agencies use computers to track and control epidemics or how relief agencies depend on computerized logistical systems to get the right sort of aid to the right places at the right time in an emergency). But once again, we have not established scientifically whether these connections motivate students who would not otherwise be interested in computer science.
There are some things we do know and some we can even prove scientifically but the bottom line is that we need more research. We need research that is long-term, broad reaching, and scientifically valid. We need to know what our students are learning and why it matters to them. We need to know how to help them learn better. And we need to know how to do a better job of engaging, inspiring, and retaining them. It is time for computer science education to grow up and prove its value, just as all of the other core disciplines are now having to do.
Chris Stephenson, CSTA
Mark Guzdial, Georgia Tech
Alfred Thompson, Microsoft

Since I have spent most of the last twelve months of my work life aligning the proposed revision to our standard course of study to the career clusters, I seem to frame many of my thoughts around those career clusters. I can’t help but try to put the entire career cluster initiative into perspective, and I wonder, where in the world of career clusters is computer science?
I have positioned the information technology courses in our standard course of study in the Information Technology Career Cluster:

network administration courses in the Network Systems Pathway.
Those are information technology courses, but are they not computer science? Is the Information Technology Career Cluster the home for computer science?
I championed Valerie Barr’s December 2, 2010 blog post and wholeheartedly agreed with her statement “We need to raise our voices to demand that the term STEM, when used by government people, must include computer science.” STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) is actually one of the sixteen career clusters and computer science would by its very nature be a huge part of STEM. Since so many people in positions of authority strongly support the STEM initiative, one would logically hope that the same support would transfer to support for computer science.
So, is the STEM Career Cluster the home for computer science? That would certainly seem a good place for computer science to reside. In our state, the Technology Education folks staked an early claim on in the STEM Career Cluster. They do have technology in their program name and they certainly teach technology in their courses. They even teach robotics and scientific visualization. Well, aren’t robotics and scientific visualization computer science?
One could argue, and I certainly agree, that computer science cuts across all sixteen career clusters. Computer science is obviously present in the Health Sciences Cluster in the Health Informatics Pathway as well as others. Computer science has a place in the Business, Management, and Administration Cluster in the Business Information Management Pathway, the Operations Management Pathway and elsewhere. Computer science is an integral part of every career in the 21st Century and beyond.
One of the drawbacks that I noted early on in the career cluster initiative is that today’s careers are so interrelated. It is difficult to pigeon-hole careers and disciplines into sixteen neat categories. Computer science is ubiquitous. It is the literacy for our time. Every student needs to study computer science in some format to be career-ready. Where in the world of Career Clusters is computer science? It is everywhere, in every cluster.
Note: “The States’ Career Clusters Initiative (SCCI) is an initiative established under the National Career Technical Education Foundation (NCTEF) to provide Career Clusters as a tool for seamless transition from education to career in this era of changing workplace demands. SCCI helps states as they connect career technical education (CTE) to education, workforce preparation, and economic development. To this end, SCCI develops new products and promotes information-sharing, techniques, and methods to aid the development and implementation of Career Clusters within states.”
More information can be found at http://www.careerclusters.org/index.php.
Deborah Seehorn
CSTA Board of Directors

Last week was an awesome week for Computer Science Education. A total of 1,693 people took the pledge on CSEdWeek.org to share information, participate in activities and spread the word of the essential role computing and Computer Science Education has in our society. Teachers participated in classroom activities, students designed websites and participated in field trips, and guest speakers tapped into the minds of middle and high school students. So what now? It does not have to end there.
The United States House of Representatives endorsed December 5-11 as Computer Science Education week, however there are ways to advocate all year. Use last week as a momentum to develop programs, host industry partners, create a local task force and get things started in your area. I have provided a list below of suggested steps being used by CSTA’s Leadership Cohort. You can select one to two items in support of Computer Science Education. Get on board! Contact the CSTA Leadership Cohort member for your state to begin the process of collaborating in efforts to gain support in your local area.
Suggested Items:

Computing in the Core released the Top 10 facts about Computer Science Education. These are great talking points to share during your journey.
Advocacy Resources:
Computer Science Teachers Association
Computing in the Core
CSEdWeek.org
Computer Science Rocks!
Shemeka D. Shufford
Board of Directors