The College Board's AP-Computer Science Principles (AP-CSP) course is a recent development in advanced placement courses and is significant due to its explosive growth and widespread curriculum support in the United States. This paper discusses the AP-CSP course, describes the author's experience teaching the course to traditional college students in a university setting, and suggests some changes that may be worth noting should others wish to replicate the experience.

The U.S. talent shortage in computer science is a significant problem which negatively affects economic growth, fuels controversial H1-B visa policies, limits the ability to guard against industrial and defense-related cyber-attacks, and continues to exhibit a stubborn lack of inclusiveness for all Americans. The authors of this paper assert there is a triad of abilities identifiable as early as middle school which can identify a predisposition to success in computer science and related fields. Use of the triad by guidance counselors and others who influence career path decisions will help identify and encourage more K12 students to pursue computing-related educational experiences, ultimately addressing the talent shortage by increasing the supply of computing professionals.

Every high school should offer computer science, but a lack of qualified teachers is a barrier to this goal. Business departments are a fantastic place to tap into quality teachers to train to teach computer science.

Increasing numbers of high schools are offering programming courses, and like any other academic activity in high school, programming provides an opportunity to compete with other high schools. The proposed tutorial will enable attendees to organize programming team practices and contests using a free tool, and help attendees manage contests with success.

EarSketch is a free Python programming environment which combines the features and effects of an industry-quality Digital Audio Workbench (DAW) capable of producing commercial-quality sound and music with an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Python. EarSketch has been under development for several years, but in its current version, has been available for less than a year. EarSketch is an NSF-supported tool developed by Georgia Tech to support the teaching of the new AP Computer Science Principles course. The APCS Principles course is a precursor to the current APCS-A course and curriculum.

As Computer Science instructors, we are all faced with the challenge of preparing our students for careers through authentic learning experiences, yet we are often constrained by the structure of the class and the limitations imposed by balancing hands-on projects with required coverage of course content, student evaluations, a set 16-week semester, and similar administrative confines. The members of this panel will present a comparison of the ways in which each incorporates software engineering practices into a capstone course or experience with the goal of providing a practical experience for their students which simulates an industry experience as closely as possible.

In the fall of 2013 a professor of our acquaintance taught a software engineering course with 24 students. He divided them into three teams of eight, and required each team to complete a substantial project using the Scrum agile methodology. He spent instructional time on an overview of software engineering in general and on Scrum in particular. He spent class time on the Scrum process as needed: for example, he gave teams fifteen minutes at the end of each class period for their daily scrum. But the professor still had time to cover topics in software engineering not directly related to Scrum. He wondered which were the best to teach. Which topics were truly essential? Which would benefit his students regardless of what methodologies they might use in the future?

Academic computer science is challenging -- so much so that many times students do not persevere even when they possess the academic ability to be successful. Given the demand in the market for individuals who possess these skills, losing able students is a significant problem. Building experiences into the computing curriculum which address the affective domain can improve retention and perseverance in the major. This paper describes the positive results that occur when first-year computing majors complete a multi-phase project incorporating affective domain learning.

The relative lack of understanding between the K12 math community and the college computer science community hinders student learning in both communities. It is profoundly significant that a chasm of unawareness exists between the K12 mathematics community and the college computer science community with regard to the common content they share, and nowhere more so than in Missouri where there is no teacher certification for computer science. The roots of computing exist in powerful and evident ways within the Missouri K12 math curriculum, but this fact is relatively unknown to the K12 math community. Further, the collegiate computer science community laud most mathematics that exist at the K12 level, but generally do not understand how closely aligned some areas of Missouri's math curriculum are to computer science instruction at the college level. This paper is an effort to build a useful and ongoing dialogue for the benefit of the students who are or have been members in both communities.

A great deal of time and effort have been focused on answering the question of what approach is "best" for teaching Computer Science 1 (CS1). Clearly, the question has significance due to the consequences of teaching the course poorly-losing talented students, lowered levels of learning, less diversity among CS majors, even the possibility of losing faculty who dislike teaching a poorly designed course. This paper presents an innovative approach based in human learning theory which uses multiple languages (Java and Python) to teach fundamental concepts of writing algorithms to novices. An experiment was designed and conducted to judge the effectiveness of the approach, and the results are discussed.

Agile methodology as a relatively new approach to software engineering is becoming more popular in both industry and academia. Learning agile software development methodologies will unquestionably increase the marketability of our students as entry-level software engineers. But how agile methods should be taught at the undergraduate level in addition to traditional approaches is still being debated. The authors taught agile methods in their software engineering/senior project course for the first time in the fall of 2010. Students seemed stimulated by fresh perspectives and the lightweight processes offered by agile, but implementing agile methodology in an academic environment posed unique challenges. In this paper, the authors document their increased understanding of agile methodology through literature reviews, the challenges learned by teaching agile methods, and some potential areas for improvement.

Increasing retention of students in computer science-particularly in the first course-is a frequently studied and much discussed topic in the discipline. This paper presents a multi-faceted approach which is practical and which can be generalized to small college settings. In particular, the authors describe strategies for building a sense of community among the students, increasing opportunities for programming practice and success, adopting a high-quality supporting software set, and making use of motivating assignments. As a result, 95% of students (128 of 134) who began the course in the fall semester for the years 2005--2009 persisted to the point of receiving a final grade.

This paper explores the relationship between how computer science is taught as those methods relate to the use of context, and how the use of context affects learning with regard to gender, motivation, and the retention of undergraduate majors. The idea of contextual learning, called "situated cognition" by learning theorists, is defined and a taxonomy of computer science contexts is presented for the purpose of helping computer science educators increase the quality course instruction. One particular context in the taxonomy, titled "life context," is discussed as an innovative approach to computer science instruction.

Computer Science is not a certifiable area in Missouri, although twenty-five states currently certify computer science as a teaching area in the U.S. at some level. The Computer Science Teacher's Association (CSTA) has called for certification standards across the United States, and has produced a model curriculum for computer science. Accrediting bodies for schools of education currently accredit computer science programs for producing K-12 teachers. Many feel that one primary reason fewer students are choosing to major in computer science in college is because high school students are never exposed to computer science prior to entering college.

This tutorial/workshop will demonstrate three programmable robots used in educational settings to teach computer science concepts. The platforms include: • an older model LEGO robot kit using RoboLab software (price unavailable) • the Paralax Scribbler as modified by the Institute for Personal Robotics Education at Georgia Robotics (cost around $200) • the new LEGO Mindstorms NXT robot (cost is around $350) The LEGO robots have been used at Northwest Missouri State at the middle school level and at Drury University at the college level. The Scribbler was used in the fall of 2008 at Southwest Baptist University at both the high school and college level. The tutorial will consist of the presenters showing how the programming interface works for each of the robots. If time permits, the Scribblers will be used by up to 12 attendees (there will be 12 robots available) to gain hands-on experience.

In the United States, computer science as a topic in pre-college education has historically been less than successful. Some states certify computer science teachers, but others do not. Some states have rigorous standards, but others do not. Some school districts choose to spend money on computer science education while others do not. Some see computer science as a derivative of mathematics; others view computer science as an extension of business education. Neither Missouri or Kansas, for example, certify computer science as a content area in teacher education. Recently the Computer Science Teacher's Association (CSTA), a national organization for computer science teachers, produced a blueprint for a K-12 computer science curriculum which addresses many of the issues which have caused problems in the past. The curriculum is brief, but it is clear and paints a refreshing picture for the future of pre-college computer science.

Providing meaningful programming assignments for students who are just learning how to write software is an important task. Problematic issues that arise include programs which are too small or too well-defined to be relevant to real-world software development, assignments which do not relate implementation to design in any significant way, assignments which ignore the importance and motivational aspects of team programming, and assignments which are simply not challenging or fun to write. Perhaps the most egregious error is assigning programs which do not require students to synthesize and reflect on earlier learning. Capstone projects are frequently used in other computer science courses for the purpose, but are not often cited in connection with CS1 courses. This paper documents a project given to a CS1 class which took the second half of the semester to complete and addressed most, if not all of the issues cited. In essence, the project was a small capstone project for beginning software developers. A discussion of the motivation, design, problems and successes experienced during the project are presented.

article Object-orientation and the principles of learning theory: a new look at problems and benefits Share on Author: Tim DeClue Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Southwest Baptist University, Bolivar, Missouri Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Southwest Baptist University, Bolivar, MissouriView Profile Authors Info & Claims ACM SIGCSE BulletinVolume 28Issue 1March 1996 pp 232–236https://doi.org/10.1145/236462.236546Online:01 March 1996Publication History 2citation581DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations2Total Downloads581Last 12 Months3Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access