What universities can do to prepare more Computer Science teachers? Evidence from UTeach

UTeach has published a nice blog post that explains (with graphs!) the ideas that I alluded to in my Blog@CACM post from last month.  While currently CS teacher production is abysmal, UTeach prepared CS teachers tend to stay in their classrooms for more years than I might have expected.  More, there is evidence that suggests that there is significant slice of the CS undergraduate population that would consider becoming teachers if the conditions were right.  There is hope to imagine that we can making produce more CS teachers, if we work from the University side of the equation.  Working from the in-service side is too expensive and not sustainable.

Michael Marder, Professor of Physics and Executive Director of UTeach, and Kim Hughes, Director of the UTeach Institute, write…

The number of computer science and computer science education teachers prepared per year is smaller than for any other STEM subject — even engineering and physics — and while estimates vary, it is safe to say it is on the order of 100 to 200 per year, compared to the thousands of biology or general science teachers prepared. 

The U.S. has around 24,000 public and 10,000 private high schools. Only 10% to 25% have been offering computer science, so to provide all of them with at least one teacher at the current rate simply looks impossible.

Source: What universities can do to prepare more Computer Science teachers