4960 Views (as of 05/2023)
  1. Diana Franklin
  2. http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~dmfranklin/
  3. Associate Professor
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. University of Chicago
  1. Danielle Harlow
  2. Professor
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. University of California Santa Barbara

EPiQC QIS Education for All

NSF Awards: 1730449

2021 (see original presentation & discussion)

Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Undergraduate

As Quantum Computing becomes close to reality, it's important that diverse populations are not shut out of this technological revolution. Unfortunately, instruction is typically based on complex mathematics and physics and confined to advanced undergraduate or graduate courses. We strive to identify the intuitive concepts of quantum computing and illuminate those through engaging activities so that middle-school and high-school students can gain confidence and knowledge in this important future field. Come on a journey with us to learn the basics of quantum computing!

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Discussion from the 2021 STEM For All Video Showcase (19 posts)
  • Icon for: Diana Franklin

    Diana Franklin

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 10, 2021 | 09:55 a.m.

    Thanks for watching our video! If you want to look at some of our resources, check out https://www.epiqc.cs.uchicago.edu/resources. We will also be offering an edX self-paced online quantum computing course in July for broad audiences without prior quantum experience.

  • Icon for: Andres Colubri

    Andres Colubri

    Facilitator
    Assistant Professor
    May 11, 2021 | 11:20 a.m.

    Hi Diana, thanks for introducing EPIQC! I think that's really commendable (and challenging) to create accessible learning materials for a topic that often times feel quite far from everyday experience such as quantum physics! Beyond making materials that are targeting the middle and high-school students and producing EdX courses that would be open to all, do you have any specific strategies to ensure that students from underrepresented groups in STEM are part of this program?

  • Icon for: Diana Franklin

    Diana Franklin

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 11, 2021 | 11:26 a.m.

    Great question. Until quantum computing is a large enough field to justify inclusion in required courses, this is a huge challenge. We have three tactics. First, make teacher educational resources accessible so that teachers are not intimidated about learning it. Second, make resources so that are fun and accessible with good teacher-facing materials so that students enjoy it and it makes it easy for teachers or facilitators can do it in their programs. These need to be careful about the level of mathematics involved with students who haven't taken linear algebra. Finally, we need to create programs in places were URMs already are - libraries and existing programs targeting URMs. But we acknowledge that this is an uphill battle. We're just hoping to work hard on it from the beginning rather than retrofitting after 20 years when we see the inequities.

  • Icon for: Andres Colubri

    Andres Colubri

    Facilitator
    Assistant Professor
    May 12, 2021 | 10:32 a.m.

    I see, yes makes sense. I also wonder if finding active quantum computing researchers originally from underrepresented groups in STEM, and asking them to provide intros about themselves and their work could be a way to engage with students from URM…

  • Icon for: Diana Franklin

    Diana Franklin

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 12, 2021 | 11:13 a.m.

    As part of a separate grant, Q2Work, we are working with industry partners (Q12 Partnership) to identify diverse QIS professionals (diverse in ethnicity, gender, and area) for career highlights. We're making very short videos (~1-3 min) and are going to post them. So, yes, what a wonderful idea!! They will be featured on our website (https://q12education.org/).

  • Icon for: Randall Landsberg

    Randall Landsberg

    May 13, 2021 | 02:26 p.m.

    Circling back to Andres's earlier question about specific strategies to ensure that students from underrepresented groups in STEM are part of this program. In conjunction with the UChicago departmental BPC effort, we have partnered with two college readiness programs which reach over 250 underserved students, more than three-quarters of whom are low income, first generation, and Black or Latinx; two-thirds of whom are female. This partnership made possible a month-long "Demystifying Quantum Computing" class last summer, provides authentic student feedback, and creates future QIS engagement opportunities (e.g., we will offer the course again in the future- hopefully in person).

  • Icon for: Michael Chang

    Michael Chang

    Facilitator
    Postdoctoral Research
    May 11, 2021 | 12:05 p.m.

    Thank you for this submission! When I think about teaching bias in AI, I often try to think of relatable phenomenon that demonstrate problems with AI. For instance, TikTok recommendation AI would block content from Black creators more commonly than other creators. Could you provide some ideas that have emerged in your work about phenomenon in quantum computing that might serve as a starting point for students to think about issues of quantum computing down the road?

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Jeremy Roschelle
  • Icon for: Diana Franklin

    Diana Franklin

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 11, 2021 | 01:18 p.m.

    That's a very interesting question, and a reason why I think it's so important to encourage diversity early on - so the designers can imagine how it affects all communities. We're pretty far out from envisioning a lot of the ways QC would be used. The big application classes currently thought about are optimization and molecular simulation. I don't know a whole lot about the details of how the algorithms work, but I imagine there are similar issues in the optimization area with using poorly-understood algorithms on historically-biased data. For molecular simulation, especially for drug design, we would want to make sure that the information being used to inform the system is drawn from all populations. The medical community has a poor historical track record with obtaining data on all populations, not just white males.

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Jeremy Roschelle
  • Icon for: Anita Crowder

    Anita Crowder

    Researcher
    May 13, 2021 | 09:15 a.m.

    What an interesting project!  I would love to see how your materials could be implemented in informal learning spaces.  I also appreciate the nontraditional approaches you are taking to reach students, particularly the Zines and games.  I see that you have activities for elementary age children and I am curious what sort of feedback you may have received from teachers/facilitators working with young children.  Thank you so much for sharing this work!

  • Icon for: Danielle Harlow

    Danielle Harlow

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 13, 2021 | 11:14 a.m.

    Hi Anita - We have implemented some of the interactive activities in informal spaces. Some we've tested out as facilitated program cart activities at interactive science centers. We have also implemented activities at after school programs and during a school Maker Faire. Across all the informal learning spaces, the activities have been tested with all ages from pre-school children through adults. 

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Anita Crowder
  • Icon for: Jeremy Roschelle

    Jeremy Roschelle

    Facilitator
    Executive Director, Learning Sciences
    May 13, 2021 | 12:47 p.m.

    Hi Diana -- and maybe this would explain Quantum Computing to me -- a side benefit :) As I watched your presentation, it made me think of a design framework called Evidence Centered Design (ECD). You seem close to intuitively doing it (or perhaps your project is using ECD, already, and if so, great). ECD evolved for building assessments, but people using it for designing learning materials too. Here's one resource. The ECD community has quite a few nice resources, so you could find others by searching the web. Mislevy and Haertel were two key originators of ECD. I thought your video was going across the definition of concept/competencies, designing tasks, and how we would know that students are learning. 

  • Icon for: Diana Franklin

    Diana Franklin

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 13, 2021 | 01:00 p.m.

    Having read the ECD resource, I agree that we are definitely using that process at some level. The biggest difference is that the resource implies that the designer is trying to determine whether or not a student reaches a desired level of competency, whereas we're using these activities to elicit student thoughts in order to better understand how students conceptualize them and integrate them into their own knowledge; in some sense, we're assessing the learning trajectories and activities, not the students, because we have no confidence that what we "expect" them to know is reasonable.

  • Icon for: Jeremy Roschelle

    Jeremy Roschelle

    Facilitator
    Executive Director, Learning Sciences
    May 17, 2021 | 12:48 a.m.

    It's all good, Diana! I agree with the design-based research emphasis that you describe. 

  • Icon for: Zach Mbasu

    Zach Mbasu

    Informal Educator
    May 14, 2021 | 02:10 a.m.

    Thanks to the development team, you are doing amazing work to inspire kids and adults into quantum computing and making practical computing a reality. This is such an interesting and much needed project in Africa! The EPiQC activities present conceptually clear introduction to the basics and foundation building blocks of Quantum computing at a level suitable for kids. I would be interested in expanding this to Kenya and would love to use your resources in our high school Math camps.

  • Icon for: Diana Franklin

    Diana Franklin

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 14, 2021 | 12:00 p.m.

    That would be wonderful! You are welcome to all of our resources! We'd love to hear your feedback - we haven't been able to run many pilots due to the pandemic. At the high school level, some of my videos might be appropriate - they introduce quantum concepts as they apply to quantum computing, but they delay the linear algebra a bit (and then introduce it very explicitly). I'd be happy to correspond over email.

  • Icon for: Eric Hamilton

    Eric Hamilton

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 16, 2021 | 09:52 a.m.

    Diana, that is great.  I get to work with Mr Mbasu  and will do anything I can to him him experiment and try out some of your approach. @Zach, this could be a great project area for several students or for Arica Maths Initiative, no?

  • Icon for: Eric Hamilton

    Eric Hamilton

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 16, 2021 | 09:53 a.m.

    Plus a little bit of affinity living south of UCSB and having two Maroon degrees :)

  • Icon for: Danielle Harlow

    Danielle Harlow

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 17, 2021 | 01:53 p.m.

    I love the idea of testing our materials in Africa. I taught physics in Tanzania for two years and so I have a personal connection and interest in East Africa.

  • Icon for: Diana Franklin

    Diana Franklin

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 18, 2021 | 11:37 a.m.

    Small world!

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.