Standardize Your (CS) World
Anyone even remotely connected with K-12 education knows the pervasive emphasis on standards in the education world today. One huge focus in today’s K-12 education world is the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), sometimes referred to as Common Core standards. Other national standards for K-12 education include the Next Generation Science Standards which have recently been completed and are now being adopted by some states. And of course, we also have our CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards, published in December 2011.
The national Common Core standards have taken some pretty big hits from critics throughout the country. Some politicians don’t think the federal government should be dictating what is taught in state schools. Of course, the CCSS initiative was a state-led initiative, led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, and not led by the federal government. There are also some pretty big misperceptions about exactly what the standards are. Some educators and others interested in education fear that the standards dictate exactly what is to be taught and how it is to be taught. In reality, “The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn.” These educational standards help teachers ensure their students have the skills and knowledge they need to be successful. The standards help teachers “by providing clear goals for student learning.” There is nothing in the CCSS that dictates how teachers are to implement the standards (though certainly some teaching strategies may need to be adjusted). If you have not already done so, you can read much more and find interesting facts about the Common Core State Standards at the website: http://www.corestandards.org/.
The CSTA Curriculum Committee has had the opportunity to receive feedback on the CSTA K-12 CS Standards from many people on various occasions. Some of the feedback the committee has received has indicated that there is a belief that the CSTA Standards are the CS curriculum that is to be taught in our schools throughout the nation. In fact, the CSTA K-12 Standards provide goals for student learning (what students are expected to learn at the different educational levels K-12) just as the Common Core State Standards do. The standards are not the curriculum itself, but merely a roadmap or blueprint of what the teacher is to cover in his or her class. The CSTA K-12 Standards do provide a scaffolded learning progression of computer science standards for students from kindergarten through the 12th grade. If students are not exposed to the content of one of the standards at the recommended grade level, it is absolutely acceptable for the students to have instruction on that standard at the next grade level, so instruction flows smoothly and students do not have gaps in their CS instruction. If you are not familiar with the CSTA K-12 Standards or wish to learn more about them, you can access them on the CSTA website on the standards webpage: http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/K12Standards.html.
To illustrate my point, I will share an interesting blog post that I read earlier this fall. The author provided three analogies demonstrating the distinctions between standards and curriculum:
1. The standards are like a map (Google map cited in the article) that provides the destination (the standards), but giving multiple routes (the curriculum).
2. A standard is like a bar set at different heights for high jumpers in track and field. There are many ways for the jumper to master clearing the bar, and those ways are like the curriculum.
3. The required dimensions for a football field in the NFL and the NFL rules are like standards. Each NFL team has a different playbook, and those playbooks are like the curriculum.
The map analogy and the two sports analogies provide a good way to visualize the differences between standards and curriculum. You may find the blog post by following this link: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/engagement_and_reform/2013/08/standardsnot_curriculum_three_analogies.html?cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS2.
In my “day job” as a curriculum consultant for the state education department, I am quite familiar with standards. We have state standards for all of our courses, and where national standards are available, our state standards reflect those national standards. Other educators are becoming more familiar with standards and the need to have them as well. The CSTA K-12 CS Standards have proven to be useful for many of our members; not as a CS curriculum, but as a roadmap or guideline in setting local and/or district CS curriculum. Read about (or listen to) some of the success stories that CSTA members have had with the CSTA Standards at the links given below:

If you have not already “standardized your CS world” yet, take a look at the CSTA Standards and the associated resources available on the CSTA website. The standards and the resources can be your roadmap and travel guides as you create curriculum to align to the standards, or as you align your existing curriculum to the CSTA Standards and/or other national standards. Happy motoring!
Websites and Web Resources cited:
Common Core State Standards
http://www.corestandards.org/
CSTA K-12 CS Standards webpage on CSTA website http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/K12Standards.html
Standards Not Curriculum: Three Analogies http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/engagement_and_reform/2013/08/standardsnot_curriculum_three_analogies.html?cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS2
Kelly Powers and Padmajah Bandaru webinar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJSN4RQCpkE&feature=youtu.be
Tammy Pirmann’s Blog Post Using CSTA K-12 Standards to Create Curricular Choices August 14 http://blog.acm.org/archives/csta/2013/08/
Stephanie Hoeppner’s Blog Post State Assessment Requirements and the CSTA Resources, Sept. 5: http://blog.acm.org/archives/csta/2013/09/
Deborah Seehorn
CSTA State Department Representative, Chair
Curriculum Committee Chair

When you are a Computer Science teacher there is a universe of knowledge that you can transfer to your students, depending on the interest they show. You can teach how to code, design video games, robotics, Web design and many other things. The universal language for computer science software and applications is English, so when you are a computer science teacher teaching outside the U.S. or any other country where English is the native language, new challenges appear. Such is my case. I teach in a Latin American country where Spanish is the native language but my school is an American School and therefore 90% or more of the subjects are taught in English. What does this mean and why is it important?
As an American School, we have a clear mission to prepare our students to be able to succeed in any college or university around the world but because of our geographic proximity to North America, most of our students envision themselves in a college in the United States. For this reason, we teach the “American Way”. This means that inside our campus, the English language and a U.S.-based curriculum are standard. At the same time, however, we must comply with national Education Ministry requirements.
As a Computer Science teacher, I deal with a triple threat very few teachers face:

In addition to these challenges, professional development in my area is scarce and basic compared to that provided for other subjects. So it becomes pretty easy to feel isolated and with no support system even in this social media and Internet era.
So, what to do? I went to my old reliable friend, the Internet, and started researching for blogs, forums, or associations that would help a K-12 Computer Science teachers whether U.S. native teaching abroad or local teaching in English or in American schools. I needed to find quality professional development, standards that could grow with my school’s expectations, resources and ideas to use with my students. I also needed all of these benefit to be accessible to all teachers, regardless of their location.
Fortunately I found CSTA and I immediately applied to become an international member. Why was CSTA different than other associations? Although CSTA is U.S.-based, it supports more than 14,000 K-12 Computer Science teachers all around the globe. Within CSTA’s webpage you can find a treasure of resources, articles, blog posts and documents to make your life easier and your class, better.
Reading the posts in CSTA’s Advocacy blog made me feel like I belong now to a larger community within my field and that the challenges and adventures that CS teachers live are similar no matter what part of the world you are in. I am not alone. I also found a set of standards that can be applied to any level my students are currently at and aligned with other sets of standards to make the CS instruction more complete and comprehensive.
CSTA also offers great professional development opportunities especially during the CSTA annual conference. This conference takes place in the U.S. since the majority of the members reside there but, if, as an international member you are unable to attend, most of the information and presentations are later posted on the website and you can make great use of it. If you can get your school, your administration or department to send you to the CSTA Conference this summer, you are in for a treat. Check out the agenda on the website to know what will be going on. As a preview, I can tell you from my past summer experience that the annual CSTA conference is a great venue to make great connections with other teachers and supporters, attend hands on workshops and get a feel of what other teachers are experiencing in their classrooms or labs plus ways to approach different challenges we face every day as CS teachers. Every year CSTA invites great speakers and presenters to make the conference as broad and useful as possible. As far as professional development goes, it is a great opportunity to have some face time with leaders and advocates of CS education in K-12 with invaluable information to take back to your schools and students.
CSTA also participates in several conferences sponsored by similar associations or affiliates in different countries and provides presentations so we keep in touch with our international audience to bring feedback and work on resources to support our international members.
If you are reading this, you probably are a member already so it might seem that I am preaching to the choir but I am writing about it because it took me quite a while to explore all the information available for me by CSTA.
Michelle Lagos
CSTA-International Representative

This morning the College Board announced that the National Science Foundation has committed $5.2 million in funding to support the continued development of the Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles course with the goal of officially launching the new course in the 2016-2017 school year.
Most CSTA members are aware of the ambitious development project that has been underway to create a new computer science course that is more engaging for all students and rigorous enough to receive AP credit. This work began in 2007 and has been supported by computer science educators from all levels and most recently by the universities and high schools that have been pilot testing the course and assessment approaches.
When development is completed, the course package will include a curriculum framework, a digital portfolio, and a final assessment. The final assessment will not be tied to a particular programming language, enabling teachers to select the language of programming instruction that they believe best meets the learning needs of their students.
This continued commitment of NSF funding is critical because it supports important next steps, especially the provision of professional development for teachers. As the NSF’s Jan Cuny has noted since she launched the CS10K project supporting its development, successful implementation of this new course will require a large cadre of well-trained teachers with sufficient computer science expertise to teach the material. Through programs such as the NSF’s Broadening Participation in Computing and Computing Education in the 21st Century and Google’s CS4HS, universities across the country are now offering an unprecedented number of workshops focusing on K-12 computer science.
Over the last year, CSTA (with help from Google and Oracle) has also been working with its 46 chapters to build local capacity for offering professional development, with the expectation that CSTA chapters will serve as supportive learning communities for teachers adopting and implementing the AP CS P course.
Wide-scale adoption will also requite the development and dissemination of teaching and learning resources. Toward this end, the College Board has committed an additional $1.5 million for the creation of support materials and professional development and an additional $2 million for the development of a platform that will deliver the digital portfolio assessment.
These new funding commitments are a clear indication of both the deep need for the new course and of the tremendous commitment of the computer science community.
Karen Lang
CSTA 9-12 Teacher Representative

The career prospects look bright for CS graduates and according to the Kiplinger Management Group Letter there is an exciting reason for the news.
Amazing new computer chips are in the works as American chip makers, universities, and the US Government have ramped up semiconductor research and development. The new chips will revolutionize existing products such as mobile phones and medical equipment. Research centers are popping up across the US. Over $200 million in investments (public and private) will go to dedicated microchip research centers including the University of Michigan, Notre Dame, the University of Minnesota, the University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Nanotechnology will get a boost from all of this and this is great news for your students! Exciting new nanotechnology careers will emerge. Think about:

A quick web search yielded many sites on nanotechnology. I found this one particularly interesting for K-12 teachers. The National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN). In addition to resources for computer scientists, there are many classroom resources including curriculum resources, projects, and the Nanooze magazine for students. Most items appear to be created by teachers (many of whom have participated in Research Experience for Teacher (RET) programs in Atlanta, Phoenix, Santa Barbara, and Minneapolis).
One more exciting topic for your CS classroom.
Pat Phillips
Editor, Voice

I just returned from my first SIGCSE conference inspired and renewed. After listening to Dr. Margolis’ closing keynote session, where she confirmed that computer science education is truly for all students and that early exposure is key, I knew that, as a K-8 computer science educator, my role was more important than ever. Validation that a CS education needs to start pre-college, and that K-8 teachers are an important part of the discussion, is slowly gaining support. But in order for K-8 teachers, or for that matter, any teacher, to be successful, proper professional development is essential.
Another session at SIGCSE, Expanding Access to K-12 Computer Science Education: Research on the Landscape of Computer Science Professional Development examined the current state of high school computer science professional development (PD). The researchers found that only “49% of the participants for the professional development were in-service computer science teachers” and the providers “designed and delivered their PD with little or no involvement from local schools and/or districts”. While PD for high school teachers is far from ideal, professional development for K-8 teachers is almost non-existent.
Although there is consensus is that capturing students’ attention early is important, accomplishing this is close to impossible without teachers to make it happen. Computer science is not a required course in the elementary/middle school landscape, so most K-8 teachers integrate computing into their courses as a direct result of personal interest or prior industry experience. Unlike other disciplines that provide consistent professional development with vetted curriculum and methods classes, computer science relies on the motivation and initiative of the individual teacher to bring this material into the classroom.
Thankfully, there are K-8 educators that have embraced computing and school districts that are mandating integration of computational thinking into the elementary classroom. One such district is the Ramapo Central School District (RCSD) in Suffern, NY. RCSD implemented Scratch in five of their 3rd grade classrooms as part of their unit on computational thinking. (See Scratch at RCSD.) In order to make this venture successful, the school district provided the teachers with training prior to implementation and continued support during the school year; two crucial elements to help insure success.
Professional development is an important component of CSTA membership. Local chapters host workshops throughout the year. CSTA’s annual conference is another excellent source of PD. This year’s conference will have a variety of sessions for middle school teachers.
Unfortunately, attending a workshop or conference is not enough support in the K-8 arena. Identifying computer science learning objectives for the youngest of our students is just as important as learning what to teach and how to teach it. A lot has been said lately about 21st century learning. In my case, I want my students to truly understand the power of computing, and become proper digital citizens, and I’m thankful for CSTA’s vision and support as I navigate a path towards becoming a successful computer teacher. Join me and other K-8 CS teachers, no one need travel alone.
Patrice Gans
CSTA K-8 Rep,
Chair, K8 Task Force

Earlier this month, computer science education fever spread throughout the nation as promotional videos from code.org were publicly released. The media frenzy can be linked to the endorsement of 84 “Leaders and Trendsetters “from government, academia, industry, and entertainment who endorse the organizational vision that “every student in every school should have the opportunity to code”.
The leading paragraph of the Department of Education blog, shows the publicity value of the endorsements by beginning a discussion of code.org with the following paragraph: “Where can you go to find – in one place – Arne Duncan, Mark Zuckerberg, Marco Rubio, Stephen Hawking, and Snoop Dogg agreeing with each other? Not sure? Now add into the mix Dr. Oz, Richard Branson, and Michael Bloomberg. Give up?”
But a visit to the statements of support from these 84 “Leaders and Trendsetters” left me feeling incredibly unsettled. Though Sheryl Sandberg, Lucy Sanders, and Jane Margolis highlight the need to explicitly including girls and other underrepresented groups in this computing education movement – only ONE person (Dennis Van Reeked, President, National Education Association) mentions teachers in their support of computing education!
If we believe coding should be accessible to all students in all schools, shouldn’t computing teachers contribute and have a voice in these important discussions? I found this visible absence of any mention of supporting teachers disappointing and short-sighted, as I feel that computer science teachers have much more experience, wisdom, and ideas of how to actually implement these admirable access goals than, say, Ashton Kutcher.
Joanna Goode
Equity Chair, Board of Directors

As a teacher, I love it when real-world events seem to come together and influence my teaching. Just the last week, I ran across a great Dilbert comic in which Wally refers to bits and their value, which was the perfect conversation piece in my seminar class where we are reading Blown to Bits. It also reminded me of an old xkcd strip that I then pulled up and used in a lecture on efficiency and nP-hard problems. Dilbert and xkcd are great sources of computer and technology humor that can liven up many computing topics.
What are your favorites?
If you have a great comic that you think other teachers could use in the classroom, please share. I’ll even throw in another interesting one I found: a semi-historical comic book biography of Ada Lovelace.
Dave Reed
College Faculty Representative
CSTA Board of Directors

As is my usual practice, I have been mulling over what to write in my blog post for approximately the last month. The good news about computer science is that it is definitely in the news. Almost every day! There have been articles about Women in Computer Science, Computer Science in K-12 Education, Computer Science in STEM, Business and Industry Involvement in Computer Science, Interesting our Youth in Studying Computer Science, the Computer Science Employment Outlook, and the list keeps growing.
One issue near and dear to me is the issue of women in CS or the lack thereof. The first article I encountered was titled Fewer Women Obtaining Computer Science Degrees published in the Orlando (FL) Sentinel in September. The article notes that “Officials at the National Center for Women & Information Technology report that women accounted for 18 percent of computer and information-science bachelor’s degrees across US colleges in 2010 – a 51 percent drop from 1985 when a wave of women earned high-tech degrees.” Wow, 18% is woefully low. (The article also notes the abysmal lack of CS courses required for high school graduation as well as stereotype issues for CS.
But, the good news is that we can work to improve on both of those. An opinion piece in Mashable noted that only 25% of the STEM workforce is comprised of women and that it is critical to get girls interested in STEM early on. Yet another article noted that whereas the number of women in CS and IT-related jobs is still lagging, there are more startups that are actively recruiting women by giving them the “red carpet treatment” because “two-thirds of my users, my most valuable users, are women”. Another article in Science Daily noted that the problem is world-wide. The report found that “the number of women working in the science, technology, and innovation fields is very low, and in some cases declining, in the world’s leading economies”. The research shows that women have greater parity in countries that support health and childcare as well as equal pay.
More good news came in the form of articles about how people are addressing the gender gap in CS. Chicago Tech Academy is “pretty evenly split between male and female students” and the girls don’t seem fazed by the gender gap they will face in the world of employment. (Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?) The Girls Who Code program in New York City enrolled female students, ages 13 to 15, in their summer program and exposed them to CS, Web design, robotics, and other STEM subjects. Tech Crunch reports that Square is hosting a Code Camp Contest, “a three-day, expense-paid immersion program at Square’s San Francisco headquarters called Code Camp” for female engineering students. Forbes pondered whether toys would inspire girls to pursue engineering. We do in this in CS with Legos and robots, but they are considering something called “GoldieBlox” designed to appeal to young women the way American Girl dolls did. USA Today reported that a Seattle middle school invited female engineers to spend time at the school teaching girls to write computer code. This is a great way to provide role models! Gamasutra.com reported that the Entertainment Software Association Foundation provided 30 scholarships to women and minority college students who are studying game development and computer science. And, the University of Texas at Austin received a grant to attract more women to the engineering and computing fields and to retain more women in those fields.
STEM was another area of good news for CS. Most of us realize that CS is an integral part of STEM, but I’m not so sure that the general population realizes that. US News and World Report noted in an article titled High Schools Not Meeting STEM Demand that of “the more than 42,000 public and private high schools in the United States, only 2,100 high schools offered the Advanced Placement test in computer science last year, down 25 percent over the past five years” according to a report conducted by Microsoft. This is a great way to look at the need for improvement in STEM in our nation’s high schools. The article, drawing on research conducted but CSTA and ACM, goes on to note that only nine states allow computer science courses to satisfy core math or science graduation requirements.
CS in our K-12 schools was another notable topic in the good news. In an Education Week article, Tony Wagner notes that we need to graduate all students to be innovation-ready. His method for inspiring students to be innovators involves focusing “primarily on teaching students skills and not merely academic content, including critical thinking and problem-solving, effective oral and written communication, and many of the other survival skills, such as collaboration and initiative”. These are things that we can do so well in computer science! US News and World Report reports that Microsoft finding that “high schools nationwide are not training enough students in computer science” and that the participation rate in the AP CS exam has declined 25% within the last five years. Ross Pomeroy cites that Microsoft report and declares that CS should be required in K-12: “Implementing and requiring uniform computer science education, a course that actively encourages modern age computational thinking, logic, reasoning, and problem solving, and leads to riveting, futuristic careers in video game design, robotics, cognitive science, cryptography, and computational physics, is a good way to catch up.”
A great way to promote CS for high school students is to reach out to parents and administrators about the employment outlook for CS. TechRepublic reported that there is a predicted 19% increase in CS jobs by 2020. The Washington Post cited a report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers that its members plan to hire 13% more new college graduates in 2013 with a particular demand for graduates with degrees in finance, computer and information science, and accounting. The increase in the demand for CS graduates has prompted business and industry to partner more with K-12 education. A New York Times article noted that Microsoft is sending employees to the front lines and encouraging them to teach for a full year in a high school computer science class. The Microsoft engineers earn a small stipend for their classroom time and are in two to five hour-long classes a week. Time reports that a New York City non-profit group is teaching students in underserved areas “the computer science skills they need to land jobs in this high-tech economy,” by teaching JavaScript to high school freshmen twice a week after school.
So, the good news is indeed that CS is in the news. But we do need to continue to promote our message and to attract young people, especially women and other underrepresented groups to computer science.
Websites:
Fewer Women Obtaining Computer-Science Degrees
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-09-24/business/os-women-in-technology-20120924_1_computer-science-majors-computer-science-high-tech-degrees
Graduating All Students Innovation-Ready
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/08/14/01wagner.h32.html
The Growing Field of Computer Science
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/career/the-growing-field-of-computer-science-where-are-the-jobs/4624
Why more women should consider STEM
http://mashable.com/2012/09/23/stem-technology-careers/
Microsoft Sending Engineers to High Schools

High Schools Not Meeting STEM Demand
http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2012/10/01/high-schools-not-meeting-stem-demand
Why Women are Getting the Red Carpet Treatment at Startups
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-02/women-flock-to-startups-while-trailing-in-computer-science-tech
High Schools not Focused Enough on Computer Science
http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2012/10/01/high-schools-not-meeting-stem-demand
STEM Program Helps Girls Overcome Stereotypes
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680646/empowering-young-women-by-teaching-them-to-be-the-next-tech-genius
Female Engineering Students Sought for Code Camp

Square Launches Code Camp Contest To Inspire Women Engineers

New York Non-Profit Teaches Underprivileged Students Computer Coding

Nonprofit ScriptEd NYC Teaches Coding to Underprivileged Students

Numbers of Women in Science and Technology Fields Alarmingly Low in Leading Economies
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121003082719.htm
Chicago High School Tackles Tech Gender Gap by Teaching Girls to Code
http://www.wbez.org/news/tackling-tech-gender-gap-teaching-girls-code-103078
Can Toys Inspire Girls to Pursue Engineering?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/siliconangle/2012/10/15/women-engineers/
Computer Science in K-12
http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2012/10/should-computer-science-be-a-required-course.html
Outreach Efforts to Encourage Girls to Pursue Technology
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/15/teaching-for-future-steering-girls-science/1630391/
Class of 2013 to Find Improved Job Market
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/for-next-years-college-graduates-a-better-prospect-of-getting-a-job/2012/10/14/9466320a-125a-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html
Scholarships to Support Women, Minorities in Game Development
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/179573/ESA_scholarships_promote_diversity_in_the_game_industry.php
University of Texas at Austin Receives Grant to Increase Number of Women in IT
http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2012/10/18/ut-gets-1m-to-increase-women-in-it.html
Deborah Seehorn
CSTA Chair-Elect

Here’s a cool idea for a lesson to get students thinking about the impact of technology on their lives and on their futures.
Checkout the 75 references on this year’s Beloit College Mindset List (www.beloit.edu/mindset/2016/). This nonscientific compilation is meant to remind teachers that college freshmen, born mostly in 1994, have experienced the world in a much different way than we have. Many of them relate to technology; they have never seen an airplane “ticket,” never listen to music on the car radio, gene therapy has always been an available treatment, and they watch television everywhere but on a television. Seriously!
1. Ask students to read the list and discuss the references to the”old days” that they don’t get just to clear things up.
2. Identify the technology related items in the list.
3. Ask them to create their own list as they image technology will change their lives five or ten years from now. Might be fun to add it to your files to see just how “prophetic” they happen to be.
4. Now tie it altogether with a discussion of how computer science will make these things happen.
What CS concepts are they going to learn about that will be necessary to bring their predictions to reality?
What CS careers will be involved?
Pat Phillips
Editor, CSTA Voice