Twenty-five teachers from Redlands Unified School District in southern California recently completed training in integrating computer science into math education through a joint program offered by the University of California, Davis, and UC Riverside Extension. The Joint Computer Science Supplementary Teaching Credential Authorization Program has helped Redlands address gaps in student opportunity and achievement, and teachers skills.

Improving math instruction for student success is the most challenging task in education. Redlands partnered with UC Davis to make math instruction with computer science a reality for many of our students who have historically disconnected from learning math, said Ken Wagner, assistant superintendent of Redlands Unified School District. More students are demonstrating resilience and persistence in their math progression than ever before, which to us, is an immeasurable outcome.

Redlands is the first school district in the nation that has 25 teachers who have gone through four college-level courses needed to earn their credential. This innovative practice is transforming public K-12 math and computer science education.

C-STEM training and use of the robotics and programming skills that are taught has been the best professional development training of my 28-year career, said teacher Roland Hosch. I am very grateful to be a part of it and my classroom is a more efficient and more effective place to learn because of it.

The UC Davis Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education, or C-STEM, program aims to transform K-12 math, computer science and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) education through integrated learning. Students learn to solve math and algebra problems through coding and by programming small, modular robots. The C-STEM Math-ICT curriculum provides up to 13 years of integrated math and computer science teaching from kindergarten through high school. C-STEM courses have UC A-G status, satisfying admissions requirements for the University of California and California State Universities.

Redlands USD implemented the C-STEM program in 2018 to narrow the achievement gap in math and address the opportunity gap in computing. The district has expanded from two middle school teachers initially to 35 teachers, including all the districts middle and high schools as well as six elementary schools, in 2022-23.

Redlands has seen results with the program. From the 2018-19 school year to 2021-22, average scores on the mathematics diagnostic testing project (MDTP) rose by more than 13% in C-STEM classes compared to peers in traditional math classes in the same schools. (Redlands students can choose either a C-STEM math track, plus a computer science class, or a traditional math class.)

C-STEM brings joy into the classroom, said Deepika Srivastava, STEAM coordinator for the Redlands school district. If you give a student a worksheet of math problems and they get 20 or 30% right, it tells the student Youre bad at this, she said.

But if they are trying to solve a problem by writing a program, they can get it 20 or 30% right, get some feedback, and improve. When youre solving a math problem by coding, its an iterative process, theres constant feedback, she said. It encourages students to keep trying and develops skills in critical thinking, problem solving and perseverance.

Further, she said that the C-STEM math classes have become more diverse, with more representation of girls, Black and Latinx students, and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Perhaps most significantly, surveys of students entering and completing the program show a big swing from I hate math to I enjoy math.

Redlands is a good example of a school district working with C-STEM to address the opportunity gap in math education, said Harry Cheng, director of the C-STEM center and professor in the UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Schools are working to get students back on track after the pandemic. The students are doing better, closing the achievement gap and teachers are learning new skills, closing the skills gap.

Srivastava, who visits all the district classrooms using the C-STEM program, said that the program also has positive effects on student behavior.

When a kid fails at math, they get the message that theyre not good at math and then they dont give 100%. But when theyre building a robot, their entire attitude changes. I truly believe this is where the future is.

The UC Davis Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education is a comprehensive program that includes the annual RoboPlay competition in which students compete with other schools to solve challenges with coding and robotics. In addition to K-12 curricula and professional development for teachers, the center also supports schools and districts to organize their afterschool and summer programs, including robotics camps, robotics-math camps, the Girls In Robotics Leadership (GIRL/GIRL+) camps, and Ujima GIRL Project for African American middle and high school girls.

Ever since the pandemic, we have been challenged to find new ways to engage our students, said teacher Noah Rosen. The investment that Redlands Unified has made in my continued training in C-STEM has provided me with a whole new treasure chest of tools that I can use to elevate the effectiveness of my classroom instruction through computer science.

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UC Davis C-STEM Trains Redlands Teachers on Bringing Computer ... - University of California, Davis

A professor of learning technologies discusses the major hurdles to teaching computer science education in K-12 schools

The following article, written by Lauren Margulieux, Georgia State Universityoriginally appeared on The Conversation and is published here with permission:

Despite growing demand for computer science skills in professional careers and many areas of life, K-12 schools struggle to teach computer science to the next generation.

However, a new approach to computer science education called integrated computing addresses the main barriers that schools face when adding computer science education. These barriers include a lack of qualified computer science teachers, a lack of funds and a focus on courses tied to standardized tests.

Integrated computing teaches computer science skills like programming and computer literacy within traditional courses. For example, students can use integrated computing activities to create geometric patterns in math, simulate electromagnetic waves in science and create chatbots for literary characters in language arts.

As a professor of learning technologies, I have been designing integrated computing activities for K-12 students for the past five years. I work with faculty and students in teacher training programs to create and test integrated computing activities across all academic subjects.

In my research, I have found that integrated computing solves three major hurdles to teaching computer science education in K-12 schools.

Fitting a new academic discipline into an already crowded curriculum can be a challenge. Integrated computing allows computer science education to become part of learning in other classes, the way reading skills are also used in science, math and language arts classes.

Teacher knowledge is another difficulty when it comes to teaching computer science in K-12 schools. While people who specialize in computer science are often recruited to more lucrative careers than teaching, integrated computing develops all teachers computer science knowledge. Teachers do not need to become computer science experts to teach computer literacy and programming skills to their students.

In fact, the most surprising result of my research is how quickly teachers learn to teach integrated computing activities. In about two hours, teachers can use a pre-made computer science lesson in their classrooms. In the future, I will teach them to use artificial intelligence to create their own lessons for their students. For example, a science teacher recently asked me how she could create a data analysis activity for her class. AI tools would allow her to quickly design the technical aspects of this activity.

And finally, integrated computing also addresses students reluctance to take elective computer science classes when they have little knowledge of computer science. In 2022, over half of U.S. public high schools offered computer science, but just 6% of students took these classes. Students who do take computer science in high school typically have had early exposure to computer science. Integrated computing can give all students early exposure to computer science, which I believe will increase the number of students who take computer science courses later in school.

Early exposure to computer science in school is especially important for students from groups underrepresented in computer science. A 2022 report from Code.org, a nonprofit that advocates for more computer science education in K-12 schools, found that students who are Latino, female or from low-income or rural areas are less likely to be enrolled in foundational computer science courses.

Teachers who want to build their computer science knowledge and apply it to their classroom can try these free self-paced, online integrated computing courses that I developed, and which are tied to micro-credentials. Also, this sortable list of integrated computing activities provides free lesson plans. The activities require only a computer no prior knowledge is needed, and young learners can complete them outside of class, too.

Integrated computing provides a path to increase computer literacy for all K-12 students. As technology advances at an increasing rate, I believe schools must take care that our young people do not fall behind.

Lauren Margulieux, Associate Professor of Learning Technologies, Georgia State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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OPINION: Teaching computer science requires a new approach - The Longmont Leader

For years, but especially recently, the accelerated pace of development for new machine learning technology has caught the eye of researchers who also value security and privacy.

Vulnerabilities to these advancements and their AI applications do, of course, leave users open to attacks.

In response, Illinois Computer Science professor Bo Li has positioned her research career at the intersection of trustworthy machine learning, with an emphasis on robustness, privacy, generalization, and the underlying interconnections of these items.

As we have become increasingly aware, machine learning currently has been ubiquitous in the technology world through different domains ranging from autonomous driving, large language models, ChatGPT, etc., Li said. It is also a benefit found in many different applications, like face recognition technology.

The troubling aspect is that we have also learned threat these advancements are vulnerable to attack.

Earlier this month,Bo Li logged on to her computer and noticed several emails from colleagues and students congratulating her.

However, what exactly for, she wasnt sure.

I found out, eventually, the way we find out so much information these days on Twitter, Li said with a laugh.

There she saw several notifications stemming from IEEEs announcement of the AI 10 to Watch List for 2022 which included her name.

I was so pleased to hear from current and past students and collaborators, who said such nice things to me. Im also delighted to be a part of this meaningful list from IEEE, Li said.

The Illinois CS professors early-career in academia has become quite decorated already, with awards like the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, NSF CAREER Award, AI's 10 to Watch List from IEEE, MIT Technology Review TR-35 Award, etc.

Lis work also includes research awards from tech companies such as Amazon, Meta, Google, Intel, MSR, eBay, and IBM, and best paper awards at several top machine learning and security conferences.

Each recognition and award signify a tremendous amount support for my research, and each have provided me confidence in the direction that Im working on, Li said. Im very glad and grateful to all the nominators and communities. Every recognition, including the IEEE AI 10 to Watch List, provide a very interesting and important signal to me that my work is valuable in different ways to different people.

Calling it a golden age in AI, San Murugesan, IEEE Intelligent Systems Editor in Chief, stressed the importance of this years recipients who are rising stars in a field that offers an incredible amount of opportunity.

Li thanked her mentor here at Illinois CS, professor David Forsyth, as well as influences from her time at the University of California, Berkely like Dawn Song and Stuart Russell.

Through their steady guidance, she has prepared her early academic career for success. And Li is ready to return the favor for the next generation of influential AI academicians.

The first piece of advice I would give is to read a lot of good literature and talk with senior people you admire. Therefore, develop your own deep and unique research taste, Li said. Great researchers provide insights that are both unique and profound. Its rare, and it takes hard work. But the work is worth it.

In an already successful start to her career focused on this problem, Li also earned $1 million to align her Secure learning Lab to DARPAs Guaranteeing AI Robustness Against Deception (GARD) program.

The project, she said, is purely research motivated. It will separate those involved into different teams; the red team presents the vulnerability or attack while the blue team attempts to defend against it.

Organizers believe the vulnerability to be too complex to solve during the duration of this project, but the value of the work goes well beyond simply solving the vulnerability.

For the students participating from my lab, this presents an opportunity to work on an ambitious project without the pressure of a leaderboard or competitive end result, Li said. Its ultimately an evaluation that can help us understand the algorithm involved. Its open source and structured with consistent meetings, so we can all work together to uncover advancements and understand them best.

The ultimate goal, for both her and her students, is to define this threat model in a more precise way.

We cannot say our system or machine learning system is trustworthy against any arbitrary attack that's almost impossible. So, we have to characterize our threat model in a precise way, Li said. And we must define trustworthy requirements. For instance, given a task, given a data set to provide a model, we have this different specific requirement.

And then we can optimize an end-to-end system, which can give you guarantees for the metrics you care about. At the same time, hopefully, we can provide tighter guarantees by optimizing the algorithm, optimizing the data, optimizing other components in this process.

This continues work Li has conducted with her students for years into the concept of Trustworthy AI.

For example, a previous breakthrough considered the consistent give-and-take between components that create Trustworthy AI.

Researchers felt that there were certain tradeoffs that had to occur between accuracy and robustness in their systems combating machine learning vulnerabilities.

But Li said that she and her group proposed a framework called Learning-Reasoning, which integrated human reasoning into the equation to help mitigate such tradeoffs.

What were striving for is a scenario in which the people responsible for developments in AI understand that both robustness and accuracy or safety are important to prioritize at the same time, Li said. Often times, processes simply prioritize performance first. Then organizers worry about safeguarding it later. I think both concepts can go together, and that will help the proper development of new AI and ML based technologies.

Additional work from her students has led to progress in related areas.

For example, Ph.D. student Linyi Li has built a unified toolbox to provide certified robustness for Deep Neural Networks.

Also, Ph.D. student Chejian Xu and masters student Jiawei Zhang have generated different safety-critical scenarios for autonomous vehicles. They will host a CVPR workshop on it in June.

Finally, Zhang and Ph.D. student Mintong Kang built the scalable learning-reasoning framework together.

These sorts of developments have also led to Lis involvement in the newly formed NSF AI Institute for Agent-based Cyber Threat Intelligence and OperatioN (ACTION).

Led by the University of California, Santa Barbara, the NSF ACTION Institute also aims to revolutionize protection for mission-critical systems against sophisticated cyber threats.

The most impactful potential outcomes from the ACTION Institute include a range of fundamental algorithms for AI and cybersecurity, and large-scale AI-enabled systems for cybersecurity tasks with formal security guarantees, which are realized by not only purely data-driven models, but also logic reasoning based on domain knowledge, weak human supervision, and instructions. Such security protection and guarantees will hold against unforeseen attacks, as well, Li said.

Its clear that, despite the speed with which AI and machine learning developments occur, Li and her students are providing a presence dedicated to stabilizing and securing this process moving forward.

Read more here:

Taking the Time to Implement Trust in AI - Illinois Computer Science News

His advice: Definitely consider multiple majors.

For those wondering about declaring more than one major, Opheim says: Definitely consider it! It comes with challenges, but Opheim offers his advice:

You need to be on top of your schedule. Professors are a huge help, and he meets with all four of his advisors every advising day. But overall planning requires some independence. You have to make sure, on your own, that you are scheduling things in ways that they work with all our other majors, he says.

Time management is also crucial. If youre doing multiple majors that are in very different fields, your brain is going to be pulled in two different directions, he says. You need to know when you work best. And you need to know how you can, I guess, work to make things fit in your personal schedule.

Opheims course load has come with some sacrifices. He was the president of the Neuroscience Club but stepped down. Though it can be hard to get involved with organizations on campus, he still has free time and time for extracurriculars he enjoys.

Though Opheim admits his workload can be a little hectic, Opheim has no regrets. Hes talked with many people who changed careersor wanted toat least once. He loves each subject, and each could also serve well in years to come. The thing that keeps me going is just I really am just interested in all these areas, he says. I like to have a vast wealth of knowledge that I can, I guess, take from in any different case. Because the future is so uncertain. You never know whats going to be useful in 15-20 years. While Opheim knows he could get a job with any oneor twoof his degrees, he has no regrets. Im enjoying it. Its definitely worth it, he says.

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The Story of Quadruplemaybe QuintupleMajor Michael Opheim ... - Bethel University News

Ohio Wesleyan Joins Statewide Higher Education Initiative to Increase Numbers of Computing Graduates

By Cole Hatcher

DELAWARE, Ohio Ohio Wesleyan University is part of a new National Science Foundation-funded consortium of 15 Ohio colleges and universities created to support students seeking to study computer science, especially women and minorities historically underrepresented in the field.

The $2-million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant is being used to create the five-year Ohio Pathways to Undergraduate Computing Success project, which includes six public community colleges and nine of Ohios independent colleges and universities, including Ohio Wesleyan.

Ohio Wesleyan is excited to help educate more computer scientists, said Karlyn Crowley, Ph.D., provost. Ohio employers are seeking out this expertise, and we are committed to helping them fill this vital need. Over the past few years, OWU computer science graduates have begun careers immediately after graduation at local and national companies, including Facebook, Instagram, and Nike. We look forward to the possibilities ahead.

This new consortium, led by Baldwin Wallace University, will collaborate to recruit and graduate more computer science students through work that includes establishing a shared set of requirements and coursework that makes it easy for students to move from earning two-year associates degrees to four-year bachelors degrees without losing transfer credits or adding classroom time.

Each school also is recruiting industrial partners to take part in an advisory board that will give input on the skills and abilities needed most and provide access to job shadowing and internship experiences. Ohio Wesleyans first industrial partner is necoTECH, which develops eco-friendly building materials to create environmentally sustainable infrastructure. necoTECH is headquartered in the Delaware Entrepreneurial Center at OWU.

Ohio Wesleyan and the other consortium members also will work to develop and offer support for women and minority students pursuing degrees in computing fields and to provide faculty development, advisor workshops, and training and recruitment materials for admission counselors.

In addition to Ohio Wesleyan and Baldwin Wallace, the four-year Ohio institutions taking part in the initial consortium are Ashland University, Capital University, Defiance College, Hiram University, Lourdes University, Tiffin University, and Ursuline College.

The two-year institutions involved are Columbus State Community College, Cuyahoga Community College, Lakeland Community College, Lorain County Community College, Sinclair Community College, and Terra State Community College.

Learn more about transferring to Ohio Wesleyan at owu.edu/transfer and more about studying computer science at OWU at owu.edu/ComputerScience.

Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nations premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers more than 70 undergraduate majors and competes in 24 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Through its signature experience, the OWU Connection, Ohio Wesleyan teaches students to understand issues from multiple academic perspectives, volunteer in service to others, build a diverse and global perspective, and translate classroom knowledge into real-world experience through internships, research, and other hands-on learning. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book Colleges That Change Lives and included on the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review Best Colleges lists. Connect with OWU expert interview sources at owu.edu/experts or learn more at owu.edu.

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