Expanding access to K-12 computer science education

Abstract

This session will present the research findings to date from an 18-month study commissioned by the ACM in partnership with the National Science Foundation, Google, Computer Science Teachers Association, Microsoft, and the National Center for Woman and Information Technology that started in July, 2012, and invite an open discussion about them. The study seeks to understand the national landscape of K-12 computer science (CS) professional development (PD) and the capacity to provide high quality CS PD on a large scale. The study is being conducted by The University of Chicago's Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education (CEMSE) who will present findings from the landscape study conducted in the Summer and Fall of 2012, as well as preliminary findings about the CS community's capacity for increasing the ranks of K-12 CS teachers in light NSF's stated goal of preparing 10,000 secondary education teachers to teach high-quality computer science[1].