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Student engaged in learning to write code during Hour of Code |
One of the most popular presentations was a fun demonstration of robotics |
UCLA Community School: Paving the Way to Success Through Computer Science Education
by Kate Ingram, High School Computer Science Teacher
Introduction
The energy in the air was digitally charged as excited high school computer science students presented their projects to middle and elementary students at UCLA Community School’s Computer Science Technology Fair on December 3-4, 2015. UCLA Community Schools serves students in grades K-12 and has a social justice focus. The purpose of this interactive event was to showcase projects created by the high school students and to get younger students really excited about computer science. The exhibits included 3D printers, robotics, Photoshop, and coding.
The Program
The event was organized by high school computer science teacher Kate Ingram who is on detached service from UCLA. This is the first year that this program has been set up here at the UCLA Community School. The overarching purpose is to get computer science education into all schools and to get kids interested and engaged in computer science in a way that hopefully allows them to be successful with it. Historically, “we’ve found that the computer science AP exam is really unattainable for kids who haven’t had a background in technology, and in low income communities like this the kids don’t grow up with the technology, so trying to get them more integrated with it and to give them more exposure to all sorts of technology is really the focus of this program.”
The School offers two courses, Exploring Computer Science, an introduction to computer science and Computer Science Principles written by Code.org. Computer Science Principles is a pilot program this year and will be an AP course next year at UCLA Community School. There are approximately 20 schools throughout the District participating in the pilot.
Making a Difference
Katie Ingram: The kids are really interested in computer science, but I don’t think that a lot of them understand what that looks like - We think Mark Zuckerberg, and we think Bill Gates, but the truth is that there are so many other careers that involve computer science at this point that that’s a real eye-opener for them. That people can be in the medical field and know computer science or could be in the music industry and are using computer science there. The level of enthusiasm that the kids have shown has been phenomenal.- I didn’t expect it!
Once the kids realized that they were going to be the creators of technology and not consumers of it necessarily, that really got their attention. For example, looking at kids building web pages - they are just drawn to it, and the product is this visual thing that they have built for scratch. A lot of those kids never thought they could program anything - it never crossed their minds. When they build something on their own and make it do something they told it to do, the level of enthusiasm just skyrockets!
I think the biggest eye-opener for me was today. I had a group of boys working with the Lego Mindstorms. the kids self-selected, and suddenly there were 10 little girls standing around them who wanted to be part of the robotics stuff. They wanted to touch it and take it apart and these were 2nd and 3rd graders - somehow, we chase that out of the kids at some point. I don’t know it that has to do with the fact that the former computer teacher was a female, so they’re surrounded by more role models, but to see them sit down and work with the technology has been really cool!
I had the students draw a picture of what a computer scientist looks like and they all drew the nerdy, bald, white guy with glasses. We started talking about that and looking at different computer scientists of color and of different genders and of different classes, from different places in the country, and they were like, “Oh, they all don’t look like Bill Gates - You just don’t hear about them.” Because this is a social justice focused school, the kids are aware of these things and their ability to change them - that’s a really powerful thing for them here. They feel that they have the ability to make changes within society. That has made them very open to the whole computer science thing.