Chicago’s Inaugural CS Education Unconference bit.ly/cs4hs2018
See https://csedcamp.wixsite.com/csedcamp for the 2018 web site, put together by Shandor Simon and others.
The conference proposal document is below.
The original planning document is at bit.ly/cs4hs2018plan, in response to the 2018 Google CS Educator Grants. A draft of our proposal is at bit.ly/csedcamp18
Contents
1 Motivation and Structure
2 Educator Audience and Partnerships
3 Promotion Plan
4 Content, Format and Schedule
4.1 Content:
4.2 Format
4.3 Schedule
5 Plans for Community of Practice
6 Ongoing Commitment
The Chicago CSTA is hosting the inaugural CS Ed Camp, a CS Education “Unconference” where CS teachers can learn from each others’ best practices, lessons, and curriculum. CS Ed Camp will be held on the University of Illinois (UIC) campus on Friday June 29 5pm-9pm and Saturday June 30 9am-9pm in the CS Lounge (SEL 2260) and adjoining meeting rooms. As an “unconference” teachers will be invited to post topics, ideas and questions about which they are passionate, thus following the best-practice recommendation of customizing PD to teachers’ needs. The planning structure of the camp and the topics used will be integrated into the planning for subsequent academic year Chicago CSTA meetings.
We anticipate attendance by 50 Chicago-area CS teachers. Funding by Google would provide parking passes (an essential attendance-getter in a large city), meals (dinner Friday, Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner on Saturday), snacks, t-shirts, and honoraria for “anchor session” planners and conference organizers. Continuing education credits will be provided by Chicago Public Schools through Andy Rasmussen.
Logistics / Publicity:
Steven Svetlik, (ssvetlik@d125.org) Stevenson High School
Dale Reed (reed@uic.edu) University of Illinois. Director of Undergraduate Recruitment.
Jake Baskin (jake.baskin@gmail.com) CSTA
Andy Rasmussen (andyras@gmail.com) CS Group, Chicago Public Schools; DePaul University
Anchor Sessions Organization:
Baker Franke: (baker.franke@gmail.com) (also will help on the eval plan) Code.org
Dan Law (drlaw@cps.edu) Lane Tech High School (CPS)
Shandor Simon (ssimon@latinschool.org) Latin School
K-8 Sessions and Community Outreach:
Katie Lechowski (kllechowski@cps.edu) Mark Sheridan Math and Science Academy
Farrah Falco (flfalco1@cps.edu) K-8 Technology Specialist, STEM Magnet Academy (CPS)
JD Pirtle (jdpirtle@gmail.com) Director of Innovation and IDEA lab/program, Catherine Cook School
The idea for CS Ed Camp has been collaboratively developed by the Chicago CSTA community starting in December of 2017 through a planning document at bit.ly/cs4hs2018plan. Broadcast invitations were sent out to the 420-member strong Chicago CSTA group and members weighed in on preferred dates and topics. Some topics were subsequently adopted by members willing to put together anchor session activities/tutorials. Topics that were not adopted will form the first round of suggestions for the unconference slots.
Content:
Anchor Sessions
The unconference time will be anchored by four of the following anchor sessions. The selection of which sessions will run will be determined by member interest ahead of time through the online Chicago CSTA group. The CSTA members shown by each topic below are teachers who have developed and used this material in their classes, curriculum development materials, and in PD sessions delivered elsewhere.
Developing Web Apps [David Hayes] Demonstrates an example of building cross-platform web apps. This was presented as a tutorial session at SIGCSE in Baltimore in February.
Micro:bits in ECS [Dan Law] This was given as a tutorial at the 2017 CS PD week in Colorado, and as a CPS teacher PD experience November 2017.
Nifty Assignments: Warm up to the CSTA Nifty Assignment session which will be presented at the July Omaha CSTA conference. [Baker Franke]
Cybersecurity curriculum: Unplugged activities and hands-on widgets going through a progression about encryption, from Caesar cipher up through Public Key Cryptography. [Baker Franke] This is new tutorial curriculum developed for Code.org.
Equitable teaching practice scenarios: Using an MIT-developed app to reveal and handle unconscious bias scenarios in classrooms. [Baker Franke, with possible guest appearance by Kevin Robinson of the MIT Teaching Systems Lab]
First impressions and explanations on programming drones in Tynker and Swift, allowing folks to play with them. [Shandor Simon] Shandor will demonstrate how he has used programming drones in his classrooms at the Latin School, and will bring multiple drones for participants to play with.
Experiencing K-8 Developmentally appropriate CS Languages [Katie Lechowski, Farrah Falco, JD Pirtle] Comparisons, examples, and appropriateness for different grade levels will be discussed for Scratch Jr, Beebots/Bluebots, Hopscotch, Scratch, Processing/Python, Javascript, A-Frame (for VR), and SonicPi.
Tools and Best Practices for K-8 Maker Literacies at different grade levels: Robot choices, 3D printer alternatives, Vinyl Cutter, Drones, tablets. [Katie Lechowski, Farrah Falco, JD Pirtle]
Incorporating the project-based Google CS First learning platform into K-8 curriculum [Katie Lechowski, Farrah Falco, JD Pirtle] An overview and samples will be given of the themed projects with roughly 10 hours of content each in the areas of Storytelling, Fashion & Design, Art, and Music & Sound.
Unconference Sessions already Proposed
The sessions shown below were also already proposed by Chicago CSTA members, though they were not necessarily adopted by someone wanting to run them as an anchor session. These will be the starting point for the list of other unconference sessions though we will be welcoming and encouraging members to think of and post other topics ahead of time.
AP CS A assignment brainstorm session - Create a complete assignment to be used immediately in class.
Problem-solving strategies and understanding algorithms using the Rubik’s Cube [Jeffrey B. Solin]
Grade-appropriate uses of Arduino and Raspberry Pi
Comparison of different CSP curricula: BJC, Code.org, UTeach CSP, Mobile CSP
Developing high quality assessments for CS courses
Encouraging non-Educators to join the CS bandwagon: Pitching your program, involving stakeholders, and recruiting
Intro to Data Science
Chicago Apple coding initiative in high school classrooms.
Format
Anchor sessions will be 75 minutes long followed by a 15 minute break. All anchor sessions will be hands-on and interactive.
Unconference sessions will be 50 minutes long. At the end of Friday evening, before lunch and before dinner on Saturday each unconference group will give a summary to the group as a whole. Our goal is to have two unconference sessions running in parallel during each unconference slot, for a total of ten unconference sessions.
Friday 5pm-9pm
5:00 - 5:45 Dinner
5:45 - 6:15 Welcome. 3-word introductions. Explanation of unconference format
6:15 - 7:30 Anchor Session #1
7:30 - 8:00 Posting of unconference session topics; Voting based on interest.
8:00 - 8:45 Unconference Slot 1
8:45 - 9:00 Slot 1 groups report out; Meet-n-greet
Saturday 9am-9pm
9:00 - 9:30 Continental Breakfast
9:30 - 10:45 Anchor Session #2
10:45-11:00 Break
11:00-11:50 Unconference Slot 2
11:50-12:00 Slot 2 groups report out;
12:00- 1:00 Lunch
1:00- 1:50 Unconference Slot 3
2:00- 3:15 Anchor Session #3
3:30- 4:20 Unconference Slot 4
4:20- 5:00 Slot 3 & 4 groups report out
5:00- 6:00 Dinner
6:00- 7:15 Anchor Session #4
7:30- 8:20 Unconference slot 5
8:20- 8:30 Slot 5 groups report out
8:30- 9:00 Evaluation. Voting on interest for topics to move forward to CSTA academic calendar
Providing options for differentiated instruction through the teacher-selected unconference topics and session preferences follow the Google PD recommendations from the 2015 funding cycle, reported in the SIGCSE 2017 BOF 559 and the CS4HS Evaluation and Metrics Framework. Likewise the built-in time for teacher reporting out and reflection will help make the session experiences more meaningful.
The idea for a CS teacher unconference arose in part from the Chicago CSTA planning process for this year’s meetings. With a large critical mass of 420 members, this year we opened up a brainstorming document that was open to the whole group, available online at bit.ly/chicsta. We asked for suggested topics, and requested sponsors for those topics, to either present or moderate the discussion. We also asked for volunteers to host the meetings. We had a surplus of ideas and offers which made it easy to represent a wide variety of interests as well as encourage participation from teachers and schools that otherwise might not have been involved. This planning process led in part to the summer CS Ed Camp idea. Our intent is that the anchor sessions and unconference topics will themselves then become the first-pass ideas for our 2018-2019 wide-group planning document, building on the success of this structure in the 2017-2018 year. This will connect both the topics and people from the summer into the 4-5 school year CSTA sessions. Our hope is that this will lead to an on-going virtuous cycle between the academic year sessions and the summer CS Ed Camp.
Our process of “developing PD in partnership with the local community” is one of the recommendations of the 2017 SIGCSE BoF 559 session1. The online Chicago CSTA discussion group has a history of providing actionable and practical curriculum recommendations and instructional strategies.
Rather than proposing a new community of practice, CS Ed Camp will strengthen the existing community of practice in the 420-member Chicago CSTA.
The final day evaluation will use the survey measures in the 2017 CS4HS Evaluation and Metrics Framework2. The broad areas for the surveys are Concerns, Self-Efficacy, Readiness to teach CS, and Readiness to teach CSP. We will evaluate conference activities in light of these areas, asking for the impact in these areas for each session that was attended. We will pay particular attention to high-impact areas in planning our 4-5 academic year sessions.
Funds have not been requested for individual teacher stipends. This is a deliberate choice, as our goal is to create a community expectation of the benefits of participating in CS Ed Camp so that this event can become self-sustaining and be repeated from year to year. This is in the spirit of “Lesson Study”, where teachers gather together to hone their craft. The selected content areas will be closely connected to both ECS and CSP courses by virtue of the PD facilitators who are conference leaders as well as the strong connection to Chicago Public Schools.