Restart: The Resurgence of Computer Science in UK Schools

Computer science in UK schools is undergoing a remarkable transformation. While the changes are not consistent across each of the four devolved nations of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), there are developments in each that are moving the subject to become mandatory for all pupils from age 5 onwards. In this article, we detail how computer science declined in the UK, and the developments that led to its revitalisation: a mixture of industry and interest group lobbying, with a particular focus on the value of the subject to all school pupils, not just those who would study it at degree level. This rapid growth in the subject is not without issues, however: there remain significant forthcoming challenges with its delivery, especially surrounding the issue of training sufficient numbers of teachers. We describe a national network of teaching excellence which is being set up to combat this problem, and look at the other challenges that lie ahead

Student engagement is key to broadening participation in CS

© 2019 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. The Mobile CS Principles (Mobile CSP) course is one of the NSF-supported, College Board-endorsed curricula for the new Computer Science Principles AP course. Since 2013, the Mobile CSP project has trained more than 700 teachers, and the course has been offered to more than 20,000 students throughout the United States. The organizing philosophy behind the Mobile CSP course is that student engagement in the classroom is the key to getting students, especially those traditionally underrepresented in CS, interested in pursuing further study and careers in CS. The main strategies used to engage Mobile CSP students are: (1) a focus on mobile computing throughout the course, taking advantage of current student interest in smartphones; (2) an emphasis on getting students building mobile apps from day one, by utilizing the highly accessible App Inventor programming language; and (3) an emphasis on building creative,\u27socially useful\u27 apps to get students thinking about ways that computing can help their communities. In this paper we present and summarize two years of data of various types (i.e., student surveys, teacher surveys, objective assessments, and anecdotal reports from students and teachers) to support the hypothesis that engagement of the sort practiced in the Mobile CSP course not only helps broaden participation in CS among hard-to-reach demographics, but also provides them with a solid grounding in computer science principles and practices

Education Reform for the Digital Era

Will the digital-learning movement repeat the mistakes of the charter-school movement? How much more successful might today's charter universe look if yesterday's proponents had focused on the policies and practices needed to ensure its quality, freedom, and resources over the long term? What mistakes might have been avoided? Damaging scandals forestalled? Missed opportunities seized