Survey on Scaling K-12 Computer Science Education: Please Complete!

NSF has reached out to the education side (yay — we really need that!) to start to get a handle on what it will take to scale CS education across the US in schools.  Cameron Wilson wrote a blog post on the effort (quoted and linked below).  The University of Chicago “landscape survey” that they’re asking everyone involved in K-12 CS Education to take is here.  Please do fill it out and help U. Chicago get a picture of what’s going on now.

It’s a comprehensive survey — be sure to leave enough time for it.  The goal is to get a handle on our overall capacity to offer professional development.  So, the survey is asking for details on every offering of every professional development session across the country, including uploaded agendas (i.e., you can’t provide a URL to a webpage).  We’re still trying to understand some of the terms in the survey, e.g., an on-line component seems to imply a webinar or using a tool like Piazza outside of the face-to-face time.

Ensuring wide-spread access to rigorous and engaging K-12 computer science education is a grand challenge, and this challenge revolves around key questions: How much professional development around new curricular approaches do we need and what models are out there? How are we going to directly engage with states, school districts and teachers on these issues? What will campaigns of sustained advocacy and awareness look like that will ensure the policy environment supports reform? If we are successful in scaling, how do we sustain reform?

The University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute (UEI) and the University of Chicago’s Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education (CEMSE) are carrying out an 18-month study for ACM’s partnership to better understand the answers to these questions and the availability and nature of computer science professional development for K-12 teachers.

via All Hands on Deck! Scaling K-12 Computer Science Education | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM.