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Bulletin of the Technical Committee on Learning Technology (ISSN: 2306-0212) |
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Authors: Rita Kuo
, Amy Knowles
I. Introduction
In New Mexico, only 44% of all public high schools teach a foundational computer science course. To conquer this issue, the Randolph program in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering collaborated with the Master of Science Teaching (MST) in New Mexico Tech to support a CS Buzz course for the K-12 teachers in New Mexico. There are two components in the CS Buzz: (1) the MST course in Summer for K-12 teachers; and (2) three one-week long summer camps for middle and high school students in different age groups (7th to 8th, 9th to 10th, and 11th to 12th).
II. CS Buzz
CS Buzz is a two-week-long, on-campus course designed for K-12 teachers to use as professional development or as part of the MST program to earn 2 graduate credits. The K-12 teachers enrolled in the CS Buzz course will learn different topics in Computer Science and teach these topics in one of the one-week summer camps for middle or high school students hosted by the Computer Science Department at New Mexico Tech.
By the end of this course, teachers will be able to
- Understand topics (e.g., cybersecurity, machine learning) in Computer Science and relay that knowledge to middle and high school students.
- Understand how to integrate different Computer Science topics into a single hands-on project.
- Understand how to mentor students conducting a Computer Science related project.
A stipend of approximately $500 will be available for K-12 teachers completing the CS Buzz course along with an additional scholarship to cover the full tuition of the 2-credit graduate course. On-campus housing will be provided on a first come first serve basis.
The first week of CS Buzz in 2022 Summer is from June 13 to June 17. The K-12 teachers arrive on campus to learn topics in Computer Science with different guest instructors. The K-12 teachers work on the assignment they will present during the summer camps for middle and high school students. For the assignment, K-12 teachers will design a hands-on project which integrates at least two of the topics introduced during Week 1.
The K-12 teachers choose one of the three weeks available for the summer camps as the second week course of CS Buzz. They will:
- teach one part of the environment setup and the programming language used in the course;
- implement their integrated hands-on project during the summer to one group of summer camp students;
- instruct summer camp students on their designed hands-on, interactive project during one of the five-day summer camps;
- aid summer camp students in the completion of their designed hands-on, interactive project during one of the five-day summer camps.
III. CS Buzz Summer Camps
The sections in the three, one-week long summer camps in 2022 Summer are:
- July 11 – July 15 (11th & 12th grade students)
- July 18 – July 22 (9th & 10th grade students)
- July 25 – July 29 (7th & 8th grade students)
The K-12 teachers in the CS Buzz will teach the students the same topics they learnt previously and demonstrate how to integrate different computer science topics into an interesting project in the first two days. On the morning of the third day, the students and the K-12 teachers will brainstorm ideas to design a project that the students are interested in and start working on the project in the next two days with support from college students. On the last day of the summer camps, the students will demonstrate their work with the K-12 teachers. The college professor will give comments and feedback.
III. Websites
We encourage K-12 teachers to join the CS Buzz during the summer and encourage them to recruit their students to join the summer camps. The related websites are:
- CS Buzz for K-12 teachers:
https://sites.google.com/view/cs-buzz/ - CS Buzz Summer Camps for middle and high school students:
https://sites.google.com/view/csbuzz-summer-camp/