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Icon for: Alan Peterfreund

ALAN PETERFREUND

SageFox Consulting Group

CSEdGrad

NSF Awards: 1939265

2021 (see original presentation & discussion)

Graduate

To see translations, be sure to turn on captions for this video.

The CSEdGrad project was created to help define the world-wide needs of Computer Science Education Graduate Students. These current graduate students are the future leaders that will support the study of the rapidly growing field of CS education, create pre-service programs, and help develop and implement new curricula.  

Our initial research was to first establish if there is a need for a more robust system of networking and resources for computer science education (CSEd) graduate students. The rapid growth of this community suggests that there certainly is. In just over a year, this community has grown to 293 members - across 23 different countries - and continues to grow with each outreach implemented by our team as well as word of mouth through various advisors and fellow CSEd-focused PhD students. We are now asking what supports are most needed for these students that are not readily available at their institution and for their assistance in gathering opportunities and support mechanisms to share.  

This video will highlight the personal and institutional circumstances we’ve discovered that impact the growth of effective pathways. 

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Discussion from the 2021 STEM For All Video Showcase (15 posts)
  • Icon for: Alan Peterfreund

    Alan Peterfreund

    Lead Presenter
    Executive Director
    May 10, 2021 | 03:23 p.m.

    Thanks for viewing our video.  Working with this global community of CSEd PhD students has been one of the most interesting and rewarding experiences of my professional career.   In our effort to understand CS Ed grad student pathways, we have had the privilege of not only hearing their stories and passion behind wanting to be future leaders but also have been able to partner with many of these folks in doing the work of this project.  Over the course of the week, please share in our discussion about this community of future leaders and how they can best be supported.  Share with us your own experiences, observations and ideas and challenge us with your questions.  For more information visit our website at www.csedgrad.org.

  • Icon for: PATRICK HONNER

    PATRICK HONNER

    Facilitator
    Teacher
    May 11, 2021 | 09:06 a.m.

    Hi-

    It’s wonderful to see projects that connect different people from all around the world like this. I don't know a lot about the CS Ed space: How many CS Education programs are there worldwide? And how many CS Ed grad students are there? And are the career paths for these students mostly academic, or are there opportunities in industry as well?

     
  • Icon for: Alan Peterfreund

    Alan Peterfreund

    Lead Presenter
    Executive Director
    May 11, 2021 | 09:18 a.m.

    Patrick:  Thanks for joining the conversation. Those are three of the critical question our project is attempting to understand.

    How many CSEd programs are there -- very very few.  CSEd-related PhDs are awarded primarily from CS and Education departments and schools.  Students and their advisors are often challenged to navigate a pathway made difficult due to the lack of dedicated programs.  

    We have over 200 graduate students that have joined our CSEdGrad community.  What percent of graduate students that are focused on CS education research we don't know.

    A current effort underway, as represented by the mind map that is being developed by an CSEdGrad international team of graduate students, is recognizing and documenting the breadth of opportunities and career pathways both within academics and beyond.

    We would love to hear from others as they join this discussion as to their observations associated with this growing field.

     
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    patrick honner
  • Icon for: PATRICK HONNER

    PATRICK HONNER

    Facilitator
    Teacher
    May 11, 2021 | 09:21 a.m.

    Thanks for the reply. I've been following the work of Mark Guzdial at UMich (formerly Georgia Tech, I believe) for a few years and I'm interested in seeing how this space evolves. It sounds like this project can help the community shape itself as that happens. 

     
  • Icon for: Alan Peterfreund

    Alan Peterfreund

    Lead Presenter
    Executive Director
    May 11, 2021 | 09:31 a.m.

    Mark has been a strong supporter of our work.  Check out his current work here.  https://videohall.com/p/2058

     
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    patrick honner
  • Icon for: Marion Usselman

    Marion Usselman

    Facilitator
    Associate Director, and Principal Research Scientist
    May 11, 2021 | 03:36 p.m.

    Thanks for this inspiring work.  In what ways does your network connect with the crucial need to develop more K-12 CS teachers?  It is clearly a different problem than developing more computer scientists.  How many pre-service programs are there that specialize in developing K-12 CS educators?  In Georgia, large numbers of CS teachers are recruited from industry and enter the classroom with very little pedagogical knowledge.  Mark Guzdial was instrumental in working to increase the numbers of AP CS teachers in GA.  However, with the push to implement CS education in all schools, from elementary up, we need to find creative solutions to developing teachers at all levels who can effectively tackle the content, teach effectively and inspire the students.

  • Icon for: Alan Peterfreund

    Alan Peterfreund

    Lead Presenter
    Executive Director
    May 11, 2021 | 03:55 p.m.

    Marion:  Thanks for your kind words.  A motivation for this project was an appreciation for future leaders that would lead pre- and in-service teacher training programs, do the research on efficacious and equitable computing curricula,  and generally support the scaling of computing education.  Mark Guzdial was influential in our recognition of this issue as we had the chance to work together for many years as part of ECEP.  As to the number of pre-service programs - I am not sure an exact number is known but it is limited and insufficient to support the growth of computing education.

  • Icon for: Marion Usselman

    Marion Usselman

    Facilitator
    Associate Director, and Principal Research Scientist
    May 12, 2021 | 09:49 a.m.

    In our STEM+C project, Culturally Authentic Practice to Advance Computational Thinking in Youth (CAPACiTY), we have developed project-based curricula for the introductory high school and middle school CS courses in Georgia's Career and Technical Education pathway.  Students within CAPACiTY courses develop their CS knowledge by engaging in authentic and culturally relevant PBL projects, learning CS skills while exploring and tackling authentic problems of their own choice. The courses promote collaboration, teamwork, and student-centered learning, and incorporate Culturally Authentic Practices (CAPs) that attend to the cultural and social needs of students by nurturing students’ choice, voice and identity in the classroom.

    We have found that at these introductory levels, where the computer science skills are fairly basic, we are better off recruiting strong teachers, regardless of field, and teaching them the necessary CS skills rather than recruiting non-teachers from industry who know how to code, and trying to teach them the pedagogical skills necessary to effectively facilitate PBL lessons and group work.  

    We are at the scale-up stage with CAPACiTY, and would love to connect with anyone interested in promoting PBL-based CS, and exploring possible partnerships.

     

  • Icon for: Alan Peterfreund

    Alan Peterfreund

    Lead Presenter
    Executive Director
    May 12, 2021 | 01:18 p.m.

    QUESTION OF THE DAY - Does your university have a focused graduate program for Computing Education? If so what school is it in? If not, are there any plans for the future?

  • Icon for: Renee Fall

    Renee Fall

    Researcher
    May 13, 2021 | 05:24 p.m.

    Hi Alan

    To my knowledge, the University of Massachusetts Amherst does not have a focused graduate program in Computing Education. However, there are graduate students in the College of Computer and Information Sciences, as well as the College of Education (and its various departments), and Social and Behavioral Sciences (and likely others) as well as faculty/advisors who focus in this area. The CSEdGrad project you're leading is a great way to help bring them together, but I think there could be opportunity to support cross-disciplinary connections at large universities or in regions with multiple campuses. Symposia, works-in-progress series, or guest speakers could bring people together in person or virtually to benefit from various disciplinary perspectives. Perhaps CSEdGrad could seed-fund/sponsor these sorts of offerings in the future? I appreciate the opportunities your project is giving current doctoral students to study the development of their own field and support their agency to shape it.

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Stacey Sexton
  • Icon for: Alan Peterfreund

    Alan Peterfreund

    Lead Presenter
    Executive Director
    May 13, 2021 | 08:05 p.m.

    Thanks Renee.  We are planning one more event as part of this grant for Jul 14th to discuss the future of CSEdGrad and present our research findings 

  • Icon for: Khyati Sanjana

    Khyati Sanjana

    Facilitator
    Senior Manager
    May 12, 2021 | 11:47 p.m.

    Love the global collaboration. I am curious to know the similarities and differences in CS education and how do teacher pathways differ in various countries. 

  • Icon for: Alan Peterfreund

    Alan Peterfreund

    Lead Presenter
    Executive Director
    May 13, 2021 | 11:49 a.m.

    Khyati:  Thanks for the interesting question. We are beginning to see what is different and the same for CS education graduate programs but are not investigating how CS education and teacher pathways differ globally. Through our ECEP project   https://ecepalliance.org/   we are exploring the enormous variations among US states. I can only imagine that it gets more varied internationally.

  • Icon for: Israel Ramirez

    Israel Ramirez

    K-12 Teacher
    May 14, 2021 | 05:30 p.m.

    Global collaboration is priceless throughout all levels of education. When global collaboration takes place, great learning also takes place. Powerful! Thank you for sharing!

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Alan Peterfreund
  • Icon for: Alan Peterfreund

    Alan Peterfreund

    Lead Presenter
    Executive Director
    May 17, 2021 | 08:54 a.m.

    Final Question:  CSEdGrad is a two year research project.  One of our findings is the value and interest in a sustained community.  What ideas do you have for the future of CSEdGrad?  This conversation will continue at a virtual meeting on July 14th.  For more information register on our website csedgrad.org    Thanks to everyone for viewing our video and joining the discussion.

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.