Communications of the ACM
Let’s Program in Social Studies Classes
How do we help non-computer science teachers to see value in computing integrated into their classes?
Credit: Wisconsin Technology Council
If we want all students to learn computer science (CS for All), we have to go to where the students are. Unfortunately, that's not computer science class. In most U.S. states, less than 5% of high school students take a course in computer science.
Programming is applicable and useful in many domains today, so one answer is to use programming in science, mathematics, social studies, and other non-CS classes. We take programming to where the students are, and hope to increase their interest and knowledge about CS. I love that idea and have been working towards that goal for the last four years. But it's a hard sell. I told the story in 2018 (see post here) about how the mathematics teachers rejected our pre-calculus course that integrated computing. How do we help non-CS teachers to see value in computing integrated into their classes?
That's the question Tammy Shreiner at Grand Valley State and I get three years to explore, thanks to a new grant from the US National Science Foundation in the research strand of the "CS for All" Program. Tammy teaches a course on "Data Literacy for Social Studies Teachers" at GVSU, and she (with her colleague Bradford Dykes) have been building an open educational resource (OER) to support data literacy education in social studies classes. We have been working with her to build usable and useful data visualization tools for her curriculum. Through the grant, we're going to follow her students for three years: From taking her pre-service class, out into their field experiences, and then into their first classes. At each stage, we're going to offer mentoring and workshops to encourage teachers to use the things we've showed them. In addition, we'll work on assessments to see if students are really developing skills and positive attitudes about data literacy and programming.
From Mark Guzdial/Computing Education Research Blog
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