Increasing Computing in High School
through STEM Teacher Workshops
Dr. Thomas J. Cortina
Associate Teaching Professor
Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
tcortina@cs.cmu.edu
Dr. Keith Trahan
Assistant Director
Collaborative for Evaluation and Assessment
Capacity
School of Education
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
kwt2@pitt.edu
Keywords
Computational thinking, programming, computer science, STEM, professional development
Abstract
After the dot-com bust in the early 2000s, interest in computing at universities and colleges plummeted
even though available computing-related jobs continued to increase in the United States. The number of
computing courses in high schools dropped off, exposing fewer students to the possibilities of computer
science as a field of study and potential career path, especially in the Northern Appalachian region of the
United States in and around Pittsburgh, PA. Additionally, it is difficult to add new computer science
courses to high school requirements due to existing requirements, administrative hurdles and a lack of
teaching preparation and time. At Carnegie Mellon University, we addressed these problems by running a
series of three summer workshop for four years aimed at existing STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics) classes in the Northern Appalachian region. These workshops taught the
teachers of these classes how to program and think computationally, with the goal of having them use
these ideas in their existing classes to expose students to the potential of computing as a college major and
future career. This paper describes the format and recruiting for the workshop along with a summary of
results from numerous surveys (pre-, post- and follow-up) to measure the effectiveness of these workshop
on changing teaching strategies and increasing the awareness of computing in their students, especially
for students with few resources to study computing in the Northern Appalachian region.
Additional Researchers
Dr. Wanda P. Dann, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Dr. Carol Frieze, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Dr. Cynthia Tananis, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Ms. Cara Ciminillo, Pennsylvania Association for the Education of Young Children,
Pittsburgh , PA, USA (formerly at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
1. Purpose & Objectives
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth in the computing industry from 2010
through 2020 is expected to increase at a much faster rate than many other disciplines, with an expected
746,500 additional jobs during this decade [1]. Despite these large increases, interest in computing as a
field of study and career path hit a low in 2007 [2]. According to the Computing Research Association's
Policy Blog, students enrolling in computer science programs has rebounded in the last four years [3].
However, many students who pursue computer science were never exposed to it in high school and
representation by women and some minority groups is still very low. In the Northern Appalachian region
defined by the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and West Virginia, participation in computer
science courses at the high school level is even further behind other regions of the country. Figures 1 and
2 illustrate that very few students take the Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science exams and that
participation in the Northern Appalachian states is lower than most of its neighbors. (Note that although
the entire state of Maryland has higher participation, the participation in rural Western Maryland is still
very low.)
Figure 1: Number of schools offering AP courses related to STEM, 1998-2007.
Figure 2: Number of students taking AP Computer Science A exam in Pennsylvania
and surrounding states in 2007.
In reaction to the decline in interest in computing in the middle of the last decade, the elimination of one
of the two computer science AP exams in 2009, and the low number of high schools in the Northern
Appalachian region that offered computer science courses, we embarked on a program to offer teacher
training workshops to high school teachers in this region to increase awareness of computer science as a
potential field of study and career path. Unlike other teacher training workshops that were aimed at
computer science teachers like CS4HS [4], our workshops were aimed at teachers in STEM (Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Based on our experience, the likelihood that teachers would
start new computing courses is very low due to already heavy workloads, administrative hurdles and lack
of experience in computing. Our approach was to present material that STEM teachers could incorporate
into their existing courses. For example, a math teacher that teaches a geometric principle could illustrate
this with a short computer animation. After the teacher discusses the principle, the teacher can show the
students how the program works briefly, giving students a glimpse of how easy it is to create software
artifacts of their own.
2. Perspective/Theoretical Framework
One of our goals is to educate teachers so they can teach some basic computing or programming
principles in a few of their classroom topics and then gauge the change in student interest and
participation in the class. Another goal of our project is to educate STEM teachers about computer
science so they can talk about the importance of computing in nearly all disciplines to their
administrators, guidance counselors and community. Finally, our third goal is to prepare a set of materials
that could be used by other colleges to train local teachers in their own regions.
We believe the long-term result of our project will be an increase in the number of students enrolling in
computing and other STEM disciplines in college. In time this increase will impact the number of
graduating students in STEM disciplines and help to fill the many jobs available due to the growing
demand for a computing-savvy workforce. Early results from this study have been published and
presented at FIE 2012 [5].
Our workshops consisted of three topics: Computing with Alice, Computational Thinking (CT) using
Python, and Java for Math and Science. All three workshops introduced elementary programming
concepts such as looping, conditionals, arrays/lists and functions. The Alice workshop included principles
of animation, 3D visualization and object-oriented programming. The Computational Thinking workshop
included elements of computer science theory such as complexity, computability and cryptography. The
Java workshop included lessons in problem decomposition using a virtual robot world similar to Karel the
Robot.
In each five-day workshop, teachers were introduced to programming concepts for the first four days. On
the fifth day, teachers created a small computer application that illustrated a topic that they teach in their
own classrooms (e.g. Pythagorean theorem, projectile motion, Periodic table, etc.). Teachers demoed their
application for the rest of the group, explaining how they would use it in their class to introduce
computing to their students.
The outline/syllabus for each workshop is given below.
ACTIVATE: Computing with Alice
Day 1 Surveys, Welcome/Introduction
Problem Solving & Introduction to Alice
Motion During Setup
Storyboard Design
Lab: Create a Design for a World
Day 2 Sharing Designs
Implementation with Procedures/Methods
Built-in Functions and Parameters
Interactivity and Events
Camera Control
Lab: Build a World for your own Design
Day 3 Conditions and Repetitions
Writing Functions
Advanced Rotational Motion
Working with Sound
Lab: Build a STEM-themed Project (for the Animation Fair on Day 5)
Day 4 Mutable Variables
Lists
Recursion
Curriculum Resources & Teaching with Alice
Lab: Build a STEM-themed Project (cont’d)
Day 5 Computation and STEM: College Majors and Careers
Lab: Build a STEM-themed Project (cont’d)
Animation Fair (Project Demos)
Final Discussion, Surveys
ACTIVATE: Computational Thinking using Python
Day 1 Surveys, Welcome/Introduction
Computational Thinking and Computer Science Unplugged
Algorithmic Thinking: Iteration and Conditions
Lab: Programming Basics with Python
Lab: Loops and Conditionals
Day 2 Sorting Data and Computational Efficiency
Recursive Thinking
Lab: Lists
Lab: Subroutines
Day 3 Randomness in Computation
Computability: Can Computers Solve Any Problem?
Lab: Graphics Part I
Lab: Graphics Part II
Day 4 Cryptography
Computer Science Roadshows: Illustrate CS to Schools and Communities
Lab: Files and Graphics Part III
Lab: Create a STEM-related Program for the Final Showcase
Day 5 Computation and STEM: College Majors and Careers
Lab: Create a STEM-related Program for the Final Showcase (cont’d)
Final Showcase (Project Demos)
Final Discussion, Surveys
ACTIVATE: Java for Math and Science
Day 1 Surveys, Welcome/Introduction
Problem Solving and Programming: Getting Started with Java
Lab: Drawing in Java
Writing Methods to Solve Problems
Lab: Virtual Robots!
Day 2 Conditionals
Lab: Smarter Virtual Robots!
Loops/Iteration
Lab: Robots, Robots, Robots, …
Day 3 Animation
Lab: Motion and Math
Image Manipulation
Lab: Your Very Own Photoshop
Day 4 Arrays: Lots of Data
Lab: Visualizing Data
Lab: Building a Simple Computer Game
Lab: Create a STEM-related Program for the Final Showcase
Day 5 Computation and STEM: College Majors and Careers
Lab: Create a STEM-related Program for the Final Showcase (cont’d)
Final Showcase (Project Demos)
Final Discussion, Surveys
More details about the workshops along with workshop materials and additional resources to promote the
importance of computing in K-12 can be found at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/activate .
Figure 3 on the following page shows a sample of the types of activities presented at the workshop and
the types of projects that teachers created in a single week of the workshop. Each workshop was a mixture
of lectures to teach fundamental concepts and laboratories in the computer lab where teachers applied
these concepts to learn programming principles that they could use in the class. In each workshop, we
asked the teachers to think about a topic that they teach in their classes and create a project using the
language or tool of the workshop (Alice, Python or Java) that illustrates that topic. The goal is to show
them that they can both teach the topic to their students and also show their students some of the logic
used in their programs to illustrate the topic. This would allow teachers to teach the same curriculum that
they are currently teaching while also exposing their students to some computational principles and
programming ideas to see if the students express interest in learning more about computing. We also
provided teachers resources to find more information and activities relating to computing that they can
give to their students if their students showed increased interest.
Figure 3: Images from the ACTIVATE workshops illustrating some of the activities and projects.
3. Research Methods
Our broad goals were to evaluate participants learning of workshop knowledge and skills and their
transfer into classrooms. We conducted a mixed-method evaluation in each year of the program. Data
generated were both quantitative and qualitative, and collected during the ACTIVATE summer
workshops and the following school years.
Teachers were recruited in numerous ways. Workshop announcements were posted to various education
lists in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and West Virginia. Additionally, personal emails were
sent to administrators at major high schools in the Northern Appalachian region of the four states
indicated, requesting that they forward the invitation to teachers who were prepared to attend. We also
asked prior participants to advertise the workshops to their colleagues in their own and neighboring
districts. Teachers received a stipend for completing each workshop and were provided meals, lodging,
workshop materials and transportation costs through a grant sponsored by the National Science
Foundation.
Despite the stipend and the numerous methods we used for recruiting teachers, getting teachers to sign up
for the workshops was still difficult. A number of school districts in the Northern Appalachian region,
especially in West Virginia and western Maryland, had limited (or no) websites with few, if any, contacts
or information about academic programs or teachers in those programs. Additionally, due to frequent
teacher turnover at high schools, a number of emails bounced back as undeliverable despite the fact that
they were listed on high school websites. A technique that we eventually used that proved to be more
effective was to contact school administrators (superintendents and principals) who could forward the
request for participation to their most qualified teachers. By doing this, it was more likely that the teacher
would actually read the email since it came from one of their administrators rather than from someone
they did not know from Carnegie Mellon University.
Summer workshops included pre and post surveys and a skills assessment. A baseline survey was
designed to collect characteristic and context data, while the pre-post survey focused on participant
perception of their ability to perform and teach workshop skills. Post-Workshop surveys also included
additional items related to respondents projected use of workshop skills and activities in their classrooms.
The post-workshop skills assessment covered workshop specific skills and knowledge.
To document the impact of ACTIVATE in classrooms, we contacted participants at the end of the
following school year to complete a follow-up survey and selected a sample for phone interviews. The
on-line survey gathered data on teacher utilization of and student reaction to workshop materials and
activities. The interviews gathered more qualitative data on utilization, perceptions of impact on student
learning and interest in computing, and sharing materials and activities with colleagues.
4. Results/Expectations
The evaluation yielded substantial quantitative and qualitative data set. Across 4 years, ACTIVATE
workshop survey data included 327 respondents. Workshop skills assessments included 322 respondents.
Follow-up survey data included 176 respondents. We also conducted some 18 follow-up phone
interviews.
4a. Characteristic Data of ACTIVATE Workshop Participants
In year 1, a majority of respondents (n=60) taught at public high schools and nearly as many held Master's
degrees (n=48). The majority had 6 or more years of high school teaching experience (n=51). Most taught
multiple subjects, with the highest number teaching computer science (n=33), closely followed by
mathematics (n=32), and then science (n=22). However, the highest number of respondents held teaching
certification in mathematics and science, (n=37) respectively, followed by areas of business and
technology (n=33).
In year 2, a majority of respondents (n=44) taught at public schools and held Master's degrees (n=40).
The majority cited having more than 6 years of high school teaching experience (n=36). Most cited
teaching multiple subjects, with the greatest number teaching computer science (n= 32), followed by
mathematics (n=19), and science (n=8).
In year 3, the majority of respondents (n= 42) taught at public high schools and held Master's degrees
(n=33). A smaller number cited having more than 6 years of high school teaching experience (n=19).
Most respondents cited teaching mathematics (n=27), followed by computer science (n=20), and science
(n=11). The highest number of respondents held teaching certificates in mathematics (n=25).
In year 4, the majority of respondents (n= 56) taught at public high schools and held Master's degrees
(n=41). A majority also cited having more than 6 years of high school teaching experience (n=46). Most
respondents cited computer science (n=24), followed by teaching mathematics (n=23), science (n=17),
and engineering (n=8). The highest number of respondents held teaching certification in business and
technology (n=29), followed closely by mathematics (n=27), and then science (n=27).
4b. ACTIVATE Workshop Pre-Post Surveys
Pre- and post-workshop surveys included a series of fourteen to sixteen scaled items, focusing on selfperception of ability to perform and teach workshop skills. Across all three workshops, there were
increases in percentages of respondents who answered "I can perform this skill pretty well and could
teach it to someone if I had time to review" or "I can perform this skill very well and could teach it to
someone else right now" for all questions in the surveys.




In year 1, for 44 items, increases ranged from 5.7% to 96.9% and were greater than 50% for 29 items.
In year 2, for 42 items, increases ranged from 15.7% to 89.4% and were greater than 50% for 22 items.
In year 3, for 41 items, increases ranged from 28.6% to 84.2% and were greater than 50% for 34 items.
In year 4, for 41 items, increases ranged from 33.3% to 92.6% and were greater than 50% for 30 items.
4c. ACTIVATE Workshop Skills Assessments
At the end of each workshop, participants were given a skills assessment containing three tasks.
Instructors scored the answers as proficient, basic, or not proficient. Notably, more than half of the
participants' scored 78% or higher each year of the program. In year 1, 58 participants (50.9%) scored
78% (7 of 9 total points) or higher. In year 2, the percentage rose to 62.1% (n=41), was the highest in year
3 at 80.6% (n=54), and was 68.0% (n=51) in year 4.
Comparatively, each year a different workshop had the highest percentage of respondents score 78% or
higher: Alice in year 1 (69%, n=29), Java in year 2 (72.7%, n=16), computational thinking in year 3
(85.0%, n=17), and Alice again in year 4 (85.2%, n=23).
4d. ACTIVATE Follow-Up Survey
Findings showed impact on teacher practice. Across the years, large majorities of follow-up survey
respondents indicated planning to continue to use material they learned from workshops in a new or
existing course in the future. Many respondents noted that they incorporated Alice, CT, or Java material
into math, science, and business courses. Respondents also cited the use of sample programs, the
textbook, and other materials to supplement current courses and to introduce basic concepts into courses.
In each year, majorities "strongly agreed" or "agreed" that they gained a better understanding of the
practical use of programming (Y1, 88.7%, n=47; Y2, 94.7%, n=36; and Y3, 96.9%, n=31). Majorities also
"strongly agreed" or "agreed" that they had a better sense of how to prepare their students for future
computer-related study and training (Y1, 83.0%, n=44; Y2, 89.5%, n=34; and Y3, 84.4%, n=27).
4e. ACTIVATE Follow-Up Interviews
Finally, findings from follow-up interviews supported findings from previous surveys. For example,
respondents commonly expressed appreciation for their "valuable learning experience" with ACTIVATE
workshops and indicated "sharing workshop materials/activities with colleagues was important." Also
notably, many respondents recognized the important role of the workshop materials/activities in refining
their knowledge and skills, which could benefit student learning in their school. Respondents also
consistently revealed students' positive reaction to the materials/activities, as well as their interest in
pursuing additional study and computing-related careers.
5. Educational/Scientific Importance
In order to support job growth in the computing and technology industry in the Northern Appalachian
region, it is important to increase the number of students in this region who study computer science (and
its related disciplines) so they are prepared to fill the jobs that are expected in the next decade. Currently,
many high schools in this region do not have any computing courses that introduce students to what they
need to know to make an informed decision about choosing computing as a field of study in college. This
set of workshops addresses this need by casting a wider net and aiming at teachers in all of the STEM
disciplines, not just computing. By showing these teachers how to program and how to teach
computational principles in their existing classes, we aim to increase student awareness of computing as a
viable field of study and career path. We also use the workshops to arm the teachers with a better
understanding of computing so they can educate their administrators, guidance counselors and community
about the need for more computing professionals in this region in the next decade. We also plan to
package our materials so colleges in other areas can use the materials and target local high schools to get
a similar effect in their own regions.
6. References
[1] US Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Occupational Outlook Handbook: Computer and Information
Technology Occupations", http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/, March 2012.
[2] Computing Research Association, 2010-2011 Taulbee Report, http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/blog/wpcontent/uploads/2012/04/CS_Degree_and_Enrollment_Trends_2010-11.pdf.
[3] Harsha, P., "Undergrad Computer Science Enrollments Rise for Fourth Straight Year", April 2012.
[4] Blum, L. and Cortina, T., "CS4HS: An Outreach Program for High School CS Teachers", Proceedings
of the ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2007), Covington, KY,
March 2007.
[5] Cortina, T., Dann, W.P. Frieze, C., Ciminillo, C., Tananis, C., and Trahan, K., “Work in Progress:
ACTIVATE: Advancing Computing and Technology Interest and innoVAtion through Teacher
Education”, Proceedings of the Frontier In Education Conference, Seattle, WA, October 2012.
7. Acknowledgements
The workshops and evaluation work described in this paper was supported through a generous grant from
the National Science Foundation through the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and
Teachers (ITEST) program, DRL- 0833496.