Rising Above the Gathering Storm
Calvin Lin
July 10, 2009
The Golden Egg
• Technical innovation is changing the world
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Health care
Science
Business
Energy
Communication
Entertainment
...
2
Our Golden Egg
• Technical innovation
• Has been led by the US
• Has fueled the US economy for years
3
The Problem– Not Enough Eggs
• Dire need to strengthen K-12 teaching of
math and science
• “Rising Above the Gathering Storm”, National
Academy of Science, 2007
• CS presents particular challenges
4
Talk Outline
• National response: CS/10,000
• Feedback?
• UT response
• A few words about the Turing Scholars
Program?
5
The National Perspective
• CS/10,000
• NSF-led initiative to increase the # of high
school CS teachers by 10,000 by 2015
• Leverage the AP structure
• Pre-AP course
• Gold Standard AP course
• CS A course
6
Pre-AP Course
• Teach computer fluency
• Designed for broad audience
• Foundations of computing and
computational thinking
• Inquiry-based approach with exciting
modern applications
7
Gold Standard AP Course
• Explore computational concepts in more
detail
• Includes critical thinking, logic, algorithms
• Shows the magic of computing
8
CS A Course
• Similar to existing courses
• Students taking it should have greater
motivation for programming after taking the
first two courses
9
The UT Perspective
• Enhance the UTeach Program to produce
more CS high school teachers
• Use the UTeach Institute to replicate our
success to colleges throughout the country
• Recruit more women and under-represented
minorities into CS
10
What is UTeach?
• A collaboration between College of Natural
Sciences and College of Education to
increase the number of K-12 math and
science teachers
• Sister program exists in the College of
Liberal Arts
• Sister program recently formed by the
College of Engineering
11
UTeach Degree Programs
• Serves three populations
• UT undergrads majoring in math or science
• Degree holders in math or science
• Certified math or science teachers
12
Undergraduate CNS Majors
• Compact 4 year degree program
• Students receive degrees from their home
department
• Students earn teaching certificate from UTeach
• Mastery of subject matter + teaching skills
• 18 hours of courses from UTeach
• Hands-on experience in local schools
• Mentoring
13
Success
• Has more than doubled the number of math
and science teachers graduating from UT
14
Success
• Higher retention for UTeach teachers
UTeach
National
Average
15
UTeach Institute
• Replicates UTeach to other colleges
• 54 pre-proposals from 26 states in 2007
• 13 grants awarded:
• Berkeley, Colorado,
Florida, Florida St,
Houston, Kansas,
LSU, N. Arizona, Temple, UC Irvine,
UT-Dallas, Univ. of North Texas, W. Kentucky
16
Current Status
• No UTeach certificate in Computer Science
17
Our Plan
• Develop curriculum for UTeach CS certificate
• Two populations
• CS majors: How to squeeze in 18 hours?
• Non-CS majors: How much CS should they know?
• Target over-subscribed majors (Biology,
Pharmacy)
• Convey excitement of CS as it applies to other
fields
18
What Can You Do?
• Inspire students to study CS
• Make students aware of teaching
opportunities and programs such as UTeach
19
Questions?
20
The Turing Scholars Program
Calvin Lin
July 10, 2009
Goals of the Program
•
•
•
•
Attract top students
Give them a special environment
Offer them great opportunities
Produce the high tech leaders of tomorrow
22
Benefits of the Program
• Challenging honors CS courses
• Emphasis on undergraduate research
• Small class sizes:
• 40 freshmen join per year
• A small community within UT
23
Our Program is Unique
• UTCS is top ten CS department
•
•
•
•
Rice is #20
A&M is tied for 46th
UT-Dallas is tied for 72nd
No other Texas schools in the top 75
24
Questions?
www.cs.utexas.edu/honors
25
Why is a Top Ten Department
Important?
• Research opportunities
• Breadth and depth of research opportunities
• Reputation
• Important for post-graduate success
26
External Success
Summer jobs:
• Amazon, Apple, ArenaNet, Cisco, Dell,
Deutsche Bank, Freescale, Google, IBM, Intel,
Lockheed-Martin, Microsoft, National
Instruments, Schlumberger, Sony, Sun, Texas
Instruments . . .
Summer internships:
• Arecibo Observatory, Goddard Space Flight
Center, NSF internships at Univ. of Colorado,
Univ. of Minnesota, UT-Austin
27
Fall ’02: Khoa Tran ’06
• Hometown:
• Research:
Vietnam
Spent junior year in
Stockholm, Sweden
• Double major in Math and CS
• Post-Grad:
Computational and Applied
Math PhD Program,
UT-Austin
28
Fall 03: Shan Wang ’06
• Hometown:
• Research:
Austin, TX
Automatic Knowledge
Integration
• Commencement speaker
• Post-Grad:
Computer Science PhD
Program, Stanford
29
Mickey Ristroph ’08
Fall ’04: Tarun Nimmagadda ‘08
• Research:
Autonomous Vehicle Grand
Challenge
• Winner: $50,000 RGK Social
Innovation competition
30
Fall ’05: Franzi Roesner ‘08
•
•
•
•
Hometown: Round Rock, TX
Research:
TRIPS project
Entered as Plan II major
Has already published at top CS
conference–
twice!
31
Fall ’06: Chris Wiley ‘10
• Hometown: San Antonio, TX
• Double major in Engineering and CS
• Currently:
Summer job at Google
32
Help Us Recruit Your Best
• Average SAT 1440
• Roughly 50% of admitted students rank 1st 10th in their high school class
• But, we look beyond the numbers
• Looking for strong math and science
backgrounds
• Looking for leadership, motivation,
involvement, diversity
33