Schedule (Fall 2011)
The workshop will take place at Virginia Tech NVC, Room 100, 7054 Haycock Road, Falls Church, VA. We will provide breaks and lunch food.
Click the session title to see a description of the session and links to resources for the session.
| Saturday October 22nd, 2011 | |
|---|---|
| 8:30 AM | Coffee |
| 9:00 AM | Welcome Message, Dr. Barbara Ryder,
Professor and Department Head, DCS@VT Logistics for the workshop |
| 9:30 AM | Session I:
Computational Thinking,
Dr. Dennis Kafura, Dr. Deborah Tatar
An experimental course in "computational thinking for computer science" (CT4CS) was offered in Spring 2010. The purposes of this session are: (1) to illustrate the philosophy of the course by engaging the participating teachers in one of the hands-on physical simulations used in the class, and (2) to obtain feedback and critical commentary on the potential appropriateness of the course topics and materials for use in high schools or middle schools. The CT4CS course had as its goal the development of knowledge, intuition, and vocabulary related to fundamental computing concepts that students majoring in computer science would encounter at several points in the BS curriuculum. While using a varieity of physical or role-playing simulations and focused computer-based tools the course neither required experience with nor taught a programming language. The course engaged students in such topics as state and behavior, abstraction, relationships, concurrency, data structures, testing, and debugging. This session is organized by Dennis Kafura, whose teaching interests are in systems and software and who taught the first course in CT4CS.
|
| 11:00 AM | Morning Break |
| 11:15 AM | Session II:
Recruitment in Computing,
Dr. Barbara Ryder
Our recruiting session will concentrate discussion on the following topics: a) how to relate computing to girls and their interests, b) what messages 'work' for girls, their parents and their counselors, c) how were CS majors attracted to the field, d) the current landscape for women in computing - facts and figures, e) and why should students study CS? |
| 12:15 PM | Working Lunch: Discussion about morning sessions |
| 1:15 PM | Session III: Media Computation,
Dr. Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones
This session will provide a very brief introduction to Media Computation (MC) and Python. The instructor will present several of the examples used in MC. The discussion will focus on the assignments given to the students and how they can engage them into computing.
Sofia : brief (and early) demo |
| 2:45 PM | Afternoon Break |
| 3:00 PM | Session IV: CS Principles,
Dr. Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones
Computer Science: Principles is a new course under development that seeks to broaden participation in computing and computer science. Development is being led by a team of computer science educators organized by the College Board and the National Science Foundation (http://csprinciples.org/). In this presentation, we will describe the efforts underway at Virginia Tech as part of a Phase II Pilot site 2011-2012. Our collaborator is Rebecca Dovi (Patrick Henry High School).
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| 4:00 PM | Wrap-up, discussion for future workshops, and evaluation. |