by George Benainous
ITI Virtual Learning Complex Facilitator
After December’s Hour of Code local kickoff at North Hollywood High School, I had the opportunity to interview two Los Angeles educators whose collaboration has played a pivotal role in the development of computer science education locally and throughout the United States over the last dozen years.
Todd Ullah and Jane Margolis
Todd Ullah and Jane Margolis
Jane Margolis and Todd Ullah met in 2001, when Margolis was a researcher at UCLA and Ullah was LAUSD’s technology director. At the time, Margolis was conducting research funded by the National Science Foundation to investigate the fact that few African American, Latino, and female students were learning computer science. Her focus was on social inequality and education, and on how fields become segregated.
“Computer Science is one of the most segregated fields,” Margolis said in last month’s interview. “People that are computer scientists are mostly white and Asian males, often from privileged educational backgrounds.”
Ullah, meanwhile, managed a Digital High School Grant in which millions of dollars worth of computer equipment was being deployed throughout the district to lower the computer-to-student ratio from 24:1 to 8:1. This went hand in hand with what he regarded as his personal mission in education to create “emancipatory” experiences for underprivileged students -- or, as he puts it, experiences “freeing them from the types of pedagogy and work that is traditionally represented by the lower income folks in our city.”
Their shared interest in equity and access drew them together into a partnership that eventually led to the development of a bold new approach to computer science teaching.
As an initial strategy, Ullah, Margolis, and a team of educators and graduate students dedicated their efforts to expanding Advanced Placement Computer Science (APCS) course offerings in the district. In 2005-2006, they successfully recruited 20 teachers to attend professional development such as the AP Readiness program at UCLA’s Center X. By increasing the growth of Advanced Placement Computer Science classes, they hoped to not only increase the scope and quality of computer science education in the district, but also to dramatically increase the enrollment of girls and minority students. Though enrollment did grow significantly, APCS pass rates remained low.
Eventually, Margolis and her team shifted their attention to addressing the fact that there was a dearth of class offerings which adequately prepared students for APCS. At the same time, the computer science education community was beginning to challenge the narrow focus of traditional computer science teaching on programming and syntax. There was advocacy, instead, for an approach based on “computational thinking,” or problem-solving and critical thinking. Meanwhile, outdated computer science classes did not engage the needs of a culturally diverse population of students in a city such as Los Angeles.
By 2008, a new class called Exploring Computer Science -- designed by Margolis’ colleagues, Joanna Goode and Gail Chapman -- was the result of the project’s evolution. The class has as its underpinnings a more hands-on, inquiry-based approach that was a radical departure from traditional computer science teaching. The curriculum consists of six units:
- Human Computer Interaction
- Problem Solving
- Web Design
- Programming
- Computing And Data Analysis
- Robotics
The class has a broad scope and encourages a new pedagogy in which students tackle real-world questions, issues, and controversies as reflected in the first two units. Students also participate in project-based learning, and when appropriate, work collaboratively. LAUSD teachers were involved in the development of early drafts of the curriculum. I had the privilege of contributing to the Web Design unit.
The Programming unit uses a drag and drop language called Scratch, which -- at first glance -- looks like it might be more appropriate in a K-5 environment. In fact, it is used for a University of California-Berkeley course called “The Beauty and Joy of Computing.” Much like “Exploring Computer Science,” the class teaches algorithmic thinking through creative experiences such as game design and interactivity. The course also includes statistical concepts and incorporates the use of mobile devices for data gathering. In the final unit of the course, students program Lego Mindstorm robots by the UCLA Exploring Computer Science project. Students use their Macs or PCs to program the robots.
Initially taught in five LAUSD classrooms, Exploring Computer Science now is offered in several cities in the U.S., making it available to thousands of students. More recently, Code.org has teamed up with the ECS team to design an online computer science curriculum based in part on the ECS curriculum. At an LAUSD principal’s meeting kicking off Computer Science Education Week, Gerardo Loera of the Office of Curriculum and Instruction, announced a sweeping expansion of the district’s computer science program. Thirty new computer science teachers will be hired by the district and training will be provided by Code.org.
The success of the Exploring Computer Science program is mirrored in a campaign by private industry and government sponsors to promote the need for new young computer scientists in the U.S. President Barack Obama became the first president to write a line of computer code, and encouraged young Americans to learn computer science during the recent Hour of Code event.
Margolis was present at the White House during Computer Science Education Week and had a chance to discuss the success of the Exploring Computer Science program and the UCLA/LAUSD partnership.
“I was honored to be invited by the National Science Foundation to attend an event at the White House to celebrate CS Ed Week,” she said. Margolis spoke on a panel -- along with representatives of Google, Black Girls Code, and other organizations -- about reaching underrepresented students with computer science.
“They wanted us to talk about our whole ECS program -- the curriculum along with the teacher professional development and all that we have with the LAUSD partnership -- and how it has grown to be a national program,” Margolis said. “There were people in the audience there from industry, teachers, government officials. The Chief Technology Officer of the United States was there as well as the Science Advisor to President Obama.