Amanda Dykes

1. Erin Chute 2. Kingsley-Pierson CSD 3. Iowa 4. How others schools have successfully implemented CS in their classrooms.

Jenna from Nextech in Indiana :-)

Pat Yongpradit, Code.org, MD - I can’t wait to hear the advice these panelists have to give other states!

Jenn Michalek from the CT Dept. of Education. I am interested in how to implement the requirement for all of our schools to offer computer science.

Hi, Lori from CodeHS. I’m based in South Dakota.

Hi! I'm Julie Erickson, from Technology and Innovation in Education in South Dakota. We are the code.org regional partner.

Jennifer Albert, The Citadel, SC, look forward to hearing the experiences of other states!

Erika Klose, WV Department of Ed - Excited to learn from my fellow panelists!

Hello everyone! Clark Merkley from BootUp Professional Development

Carol Fletcher, University of Texas at Austin, I’ll be interested to hear about any unintended consequences of requiring all students to take CS.

Joe Kmoch from Milwaukee WI

Good afternoon folks! Make sure you select “All panelists and attendees” before you send your message so that everyone can see it!

Hi! Kristen Tanner from Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance. Interested to learn how these states approached professional development for teachers so that they had a qualified/prepared teacher in every HS.

Ashley Scheideman, FlagshipKansas.Tech - the trade organization in KS promoting educational programs (CS) relevant to bolster our tech sector.

Luis De Mendoza, Regional Manager of North Florida, Microsoft TEALS, I want to learn how I can best help schools implement CS programs and what questions or issues may arise.

Amanda Dykes, Alabama State Dept of Education, Alabama, and I want to hear what is happening in other states is similar to what we are experiencing here. (I also learned already that enter doesn't take you to next line but submits comment.)

Hi Everyone! My name is Fran Bromley-Norwood. I am representing CSTA Silver State Nevada. I am looking forward to see what other states are doing regarding the topic!

Cheryl Bobo, Alaska Staff Development Network,Alaska, I want to learn what happened!

Brett Tanaka - Hawaii State Department of Education. Learning about how other states/districts implemented the CS requirement for all schools.

Hey all - Stephanie from Nextech in Indiana here!

Jake Koressel - Indiana Department of Education. Excited to be here with everyone!

Hello! Wren Hoffman here from the Iowa Department of Education, Computer Science Consultant.

Leen-Kiat Soh, University of Nebraska, NE

Norm Sondheimer, CSforCT

Jeff Gray, University of Alabama, Alabama. I would like to learn what other states are doing that have legislative requirements, but schools facing implementation issues due to training issues over the summer due to COVID (and other COVID issues, like student recruitment into the classes). Have any states that had legislative requirements pulled back in the wake of COVID and offered flexibility?

Corey Rogers, Grant Wood Area Education Agency, Iowa, Hoping to learn what other states have done to move CS forward

Jason Lillebo, Southern Nevada RPDP, Nevada - Always great to know what other states are doing.

Hello! Wren Hoffman here from the Iowa Department of Education, Computer Science Consultant.

Monique Rice from AdvanceKentucky. Very interested to learn about the effect of requiring CS for graduation.

Erin Bell from OPSRC in Oklahoma. I am here to learn from the experiences of other states.

10/10 title. Would click

Tabitha Teel, North Dakota, North Dakota Information Technology I want to know who is how did you get this to the point where you could require this?

HI all! Finia Dinh, Computer Science Program Manager from the Idaho STEM Action Center

@Sean hahaha agree

Renee Fall from Nat’l Center for CS Education in Minnesota. Want to learn strategies the states used to address equity when enacting the “all schools must offer CS” policy, and whether those are having a positive impact on representative enrollment and achievement.

Dan Stormont, Arizona Regional Manager for the Microsoft Philanthropies TEALS Program. I'd like to learn how requiring CS in HS has worked for the states that have done it. (AZ doesn't require any CS classes to graduate.)

Why not K-12?

Hey Everyone! Alex Dexheimer Twin Cities PBS Minnesota. Looking forward to hearing about the success and struggles of these initiatives

Jackie Corricelli, West Hartford Public schools, Connecticut, excited to learn about implications of requiring CS!

Hi Jake!!

Tonya Davis, Houston TEALS Regional Manager, interested in learning of pros and cons associated to share with districts and schools that I interact with.

Hey! This is Shaina Glass, Rice University School Mathematics Project/ Aldine ISD- TX, Looking to learn more about implementing in all schools with requirements...

Stephanie Wortel-London, Director of Research at CSforALL. Really interested in this topic in light of Schoo, district work we are doing

Love that choice, Jake!

Greetings all, I'm Angel Pineiro, VP, Strategic Academic Relationships for CompTIA

Tracey Wilson, Georgia TEALS Regional Manager I am interested in learning more as GA just passed a law requiring CS to be offered at every middle and high school. I also have a Geology degree oddly enough

This is Carol Yarbrough from A+ College Ready in Alabama. We are requiring all high schools to offer CS this year. Curious is anyone has gone to the next step: requiring it as a graduation credit.

i already line the positioning of offer vs require. Crawling before we walk and building interest

Completely agree with Erica’s point

Hi, Karen North from Houston, TX. CS grandmother volunteering to help scale Education and Houston NCWIT Aspirations.org co-coordinator.

Yes to starting early in elementary - building interest and enthusiasm in young, inquiring minds!

Laurel Ballard - Wyoming Department of Education leading CS implementation throughout Wyoming.

Climbing on my soapbox for a minute...I've felt that CS should be integrated with all academic topics, rather than an elective or a separate class. How about integrating it into math, science, history, language, art, music, PE, etc.

Some of the difficulty in starting early K-8 is that pre-certification programs for teachers do not train teachers well enough to teach CS.

Jake-for Indiana in HS “one course per year” does that mean 4 different semester classes or four 1-year cs classes?

Does any state actually track how CS is taught when it is embedded in elementary classes.

That's awesome, Diane!

Lets go Montgomery County, MD!!!!

Crosswalk documents to see relationships with CS standards and other state standards seems helpful. With so many "national" standards, does this information already exist?

Please describe what a “meaningful” experience in CT thinking means - examples?

@Joe I put your question in the Q & A so the moderators can see it and answer it

Yay for integration and for viewing CS/coding as a literacy and not a separate subject or preparatory job skill

Yes @Dan integrate with all. Just finished https://www.half-earthproject.org/ and said they need data scientists to scale their work. Encouraged them to join the CSforAll network.

@ Luis Mendoza, there is available PD for K-8 teachers on integrating computational thinking into the general co tent instructional delivery process

Tracey Wilson, Georgia TEALS Regional Manager I am interested in learning more as GA just passed a law requiring CS to be offered at every middle and high school. I also have a Geology degree oddly enough

@Dan In states, implementation is generally left up to the schools/districts to determine if they want to integrate it into other subjects. It’s most often integrated in K-8 vs high school

But yes integration is a great strategy in K-8

@Tony...can you share that PD opportunity

Heads up - lots of questions from audience! We will go a little off script

@Karen North - Very cool link. Thanks for sharing that. Data science could definitely play a much bigger role in education and engage students in exploration. GIS can also be very engaging and provide a larger understanding of history, culture, etc.

@Erika bringing up a good point

@Joe The requirement in Indiana is “each public high school, including each charter school, shall offer at least one (1) computer science course as a one (1) semester elective in the public high school’s curriculum at least once each school year for high school students”

This is a great question.

can it be by standards? if standards based grading is used?

Exactly ! It is hard to “prove” or track.

Integration will be the path for many states for CS in elementary school.

I have ideas...

so many ideas...

@ Julie - that is an interesting idea about standards based grading..

Use a dashboard

Teachers report to their school administrators what daily standards they teach (i.e. lesson plans, goals, etc.) We would have to have some reporting system to gather that data. At the state level, district superintendents just check a box that the standards are being taught generally.

I would track by looking test scores in schools where PBL and CS were integrated - such as school gardens. Working on this idea in Texas.

I do not think I can put it in writing easily... a conversation for another day!

Erika really identified the problem - it’s all about the data - having teachers identify when they’ve dealt with a specific CS/CT topic - of course that says nothing about the teacher learning these concepts and actually integrating into various subject domains

If a state requires schools to affirm that they are teaching standards, even if those computational thinking/CS standards are integrated into other subjects in K-8, there might be ways to require that verification as part of the school district to state reporting system

ahahahaha. Maryland loving Maryland....

classic.

When mistakes are made it is not a point at which we stop, we learn and pivot, some times it results in re-doing a lesson - - which is okay.

I am appreciating all the Maryland love today. Y'all are making me miss home.

Yes Carol!!!

@Carol - getting reporting on a district/school report card is key

Crabs and football, right?

I’m with you, Luis. Sometimes, I miss the DMV

And I am a crab snob!

The difficulty of getting the message out is underestimated - and undervalued!

Great point @Cindi. Systematizing the reporting is the key.

That is so important. I feel like guidance counselors need PD on the benefits of CS.

Counselors are gate keepers. Great point.

@Erin check out counselors 4 computing. We had training this summer and over 60 counselors attended and had such good feedback

Invite your counselors to your state CS Summits so they get the vision

NCWIT’s Counselors for Computing (C4C) is PD for counselors.

Having CS advocates is so important and it helps so much when those advocates look like you

It is free isn't it?

Master schedules are also important for equity and diversity. Trying to avoid scheduling a CS class against a other classes like girls athletics is important to make sure CS is a real option for girls. And yes, Texas actually has athletics as part of the master schedule

Counselors for computing: https://www.ncwit.org/project/counselors-computing-c4c

https://csteachers.org/page/guidance-for-leaders

@Joe the K-12 CS framework has some great examples of CT! https://k12cs.org/

Bellaire HS in Houston ISD has a future problem solving course. In that students used their computer science skills to build apps to solve local problems. One of our aspirations winners Annie Zhu won a hero award doing this: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/bellaire/news/article/Bellaire-senior-named-a-young-hero-after-apps-15651236.php - True integration.

100% Jake! Say it!

what if any pushback did you hear from policy makers when pushing for the legislation?

@Karen I love that course idea!

The CAPE framework is a way to look at the entire CS ecosystem and examine issues of equity at all levels (Capacity for equitable CS, Access to equitable CS, Participation in equitable CS, and Experiences of equitable CS

Fletcher, C.L. and Warner, J. R., (2019). Summary of the CAPE Framework for Assessing Equity in Computer Science Education. Retrieved from https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/epic/research.

Awesome, @Karen!

Jake-what is your exact requirement for compliance? One semester course?

Wyoming has a 5 year required implementation which requires all K-12 schools to offer CS by the 2022-23 school year.

https://advocacy.code.org/stateofcs

Save a tree use the PDF!

https://advocacy.code.org/stateofcs

You can download the full report and also your state handout!

@Joe offer at least one 1-semester course each year as an elective (for high schools)

Pat is blurry!

No pores pat

You’re like Barbara Walters Pat!

hahahaha

Soft focus like the starlets of hollywood

(love the MN people here today!)

Pat is the CS Starlet of Code.org.

Yah MN!

Funding and plan are indispensable!!!

MD

@Renee that was in reference to all the MN people being here :)

@Tonya Agree! Iowa is requiring every district and accredited non-public school to have a K12 plan by July 1, 2022

@Jake - is that one course (eg apcs-principles) or are 4 different courses required? Sorry for being picky but I know we’re going to hear that schools have a course on the books and they offer it each year

getting those correlations would be HUGE in elementary - does introduction to coding improve performance on standardized reading and math scores!

@Wren yay for Iowa!! Let the work begin!!

@Clark Agreed!

Here is research I did when I was in the classroom: http://teachertech.rice.edu/Participants/knorth/algebra/index.htm

I have heard from elementary teachers that student persistence has grown since they started teaching CS

Great points @Karen about building persistence and growth mindset. Question is, does that cross disciplines. i.e. one could have a growth mindset about CS but not about math.

Anecdotally, as an elementary teacher teaching CS, lots of gains and lessons in growth mindset while learning about CS.

@Karen thanks

@Carol The elementary teachers we spoke to saw persistence increase with their students in reading.

@Erin - we have similarly seen tremendous growth in elementary students, and have even done the internationally normed CTT test to measure grade-level gains

I think those of us who promote CS/computational thinking in elementary school hope that the habits of mind and process skills learned in CS cross over to other disciplines. We need to test that empirically, and it’s not easy to do.

@Clark CTT Test?

@Carol, I did see some crossover with other subjects. Language introduced during CS lessons ex., “I haven’t figured it out yet,” carried over to other subjects.

Great point, @Carol. All of the feedback I've received about computational thinking leading to improved performance in math, science, language, etc., has been anecdotal.

CTT - Computational Thinking Test. See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563216306185

@Erin - great to hear.

We did the CTT with a large district with 67 elementary schools and saw statistically significant gains when the coding/CS instruction was implemented

I started teaching CS in 2003 in GA through their CTAE offerings …

Good news is that the anecdotal experiences help researchers to figure out what to look for as outcomes when designing a study.

That Pat doesn’t use a filter.

need more data

@clark - can you share a link to that research?

Do your homework! Check with other states that have done this work.

Policy change to implementation is messy and takes time.

Every state is growing and learning - no one size fits all

Elementary is one of the keys to CS participation and success of our students.

You need to plan ahead, provide supports to districts, and it won't happen in just one year.

Focus on integration into other subjects, especially at K-5.

Need more information on course taking

Data collection resources

Messaging for the admin and counselor to encourage interest as well as insuring the course is offered.

That we have a lot of work to do to get CS opportunities to all of the students in our state and we don't really know the impact of CS education in other fields.

A successful program at the high school starts in the elementary. And the need for data

The importance of supporting teachers - with building CS confidence, PD, and funding

Partners are key in assisting supporting school districts in the implementation

Top things learned (or relearned) - A plan and funding are essential. If the state has a strategy that it is funding and the focus is on teacher capacity (professional development), things go MUCH better

Defining cs

Plenty of trained teachers and course pathways in all schools

Printed 2020 report will be available on Amazon...and Pat needs a new webcam :)

Top thing - we need funding to hire retired computer science teachers to be CS policy advocates. Quality Control specialists.

The importance of educating teachers and building leaders.

Importance of sustainability and having a fluid plan.

HS CS policy must also include plans for K-8.

@Karen, great idea!!!

Developing a clear data collection system for CS in K-12 is necessary to establish that CS is actually being taught with fidelity

Teacher capacity is significant

We need to build the case that comp thinking skills carry over beyond computing — its hard to measure.

HS CS policy must also include plans for K-8 and teacher capacity is key.

We need data collection in integrated areas and as much teacher support as possible.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution: adapt, implement, and evaluate —> an iterative process that requires patience/will power + insightful analysis in order to improve

This requires funding, legislation, and grass roots movement; need all 3...

Less than 100 pre-service CS graduates per year I believe...nationally

At the high school level - if a school has a teacher who teaches one section of a cs course each semester is that enough to say that the school complies with the requirement that each HS offers CS?

Pre-service would be great, but the only way to get the in-service teacher force to be confident and self-efficacious is through long-term, sustainable PD that is not only expected by a district, but also rewarded

Much of that teacher capacity is CS certification for established teachers

Example on district called and it is largest. They have 1300 elementary teachers to intro and provide PD for CS. i think they need a 3 year plan instead of now wear ingot do this…

Florida has one pre-service CS program at UF and a few more on the way

@Clark yes! We need long-term sustainable PD and it has to be ongoing because technology and the tools are changing so quickly. CS teachers are required to learn much of it on their own on their own time.

Two-time WVU computer science alum here - Go Mountaineers!

Only way to implement CS in an equitable way at the elementary level is during the school day, not after school, clubs or carveouts

Arkansas is now looking at now moving the CS initiative into higher education and workforce. The CS pathway goes K-5 and further into Industry needs. Its a two way highway.

Unfortunately, not many “college in high school” programs offer CS.

I’ve got a report too!!

The sheer number of teachers needed to make sure every school in Texas would have a certified teacher (and we aren’t there yet), let us to create online courses that any teacher could access to help them learn the CS content they need. This was so successful we created a version for other states called Foundations of CS for Teachers: Praxis Prep https://utakeit.tacc.utexas.edu/foundations-cs-praxis/. It really helps us to scale PD equitably.

@Carol that is wonderful

As more dual enrollment courses for CS develop, that will be another metric in addition to AP that will be interesting to view, particularly related to gender and race

Agreed, Jennifer;

The diversity of the Code.org videos with people of color and a lot of women helped my middle school students feel more comfortable that computer science was for them. Thank you for those videos!

Not all students feel welcomed in an AP course, or not all would be placed there by the counselor.

+1 Jennifer

Agreed!

If your teachers are seeking support, see if Microsoft.com/teals has a volunteer support program in your area!

@Renee, that’s why we train counselors and administrators!

Even if Code was a concelation prize, we were glad to jump out and offer our services to help where we could.

Follow up is crucial…

Thanks, Pat, and Panelists!

Great panel!

Thanks Pat! And thank you to our esteemed guests. I appreciate all that you do.

Thanks everyone. Super helpful!

Thank you!

This was great! Thanks everyone!!

Thank you all!

Thanks, Pat! Thanks Everybody! Insights have been great!

Thank you very much!

What a great panel of outstanding folks! Great to see you all. Thanks everyone!

thanks, everyone!

Thanks !

Thank you!!!!