Designing a Pre-Service CS Teacher Education
Program with a Focus on Diversity
This is a pre-publication draft. Please don't use any part of it outside the context of this
workshop without the blessing of the author. Phil
Philip Sweany
Associate Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
University of North Texas
NOTE: This is a pre-publication draft. Please do not use any part of this text without getting permission from me. Phil
Abstract—This paper describes the foundation of
1) increased diversity among students in CS courses and
diversity built into our pre-service teacher education
2) principles that encompass the breadth of computer
program to prepare Computer Science teachers for
science as contrasted to the almost total focus on
certification in Texas. This foundation is based upon
programming inherent in the CS A AP exam. In the
combining diversity-based curricula for high school CS
2016-2017 academic year, CSP will become the focus of
and a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math)
a new CS advanced placement (AP) exam to join the
teacher education model that has shown remarkable
current CS A AP exam.
diversity among the STEM teachers it graduates.
Keywords—diversity, pre-service education, Exploring
Computer Science, Computer Science Principles, UTeach.
 INTRODUCTION
Since July 2013, the Teach North Texas program
(TNT) of The University of North Texas has, through its
Computer Science and Engineering department,
included Computer Science[1]. TNT, a pre-serviceteacher preparation program for STEM disciplines,
allows students to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in their
STEM area of choice in four years’ time and, also, to
receive Texas teaching credentials to teach their STEM
subject in high school. In this paper we outline how
TNT-CS incorporates diversity both within the CS
curriculum that our students are preparing to teach and
among the teachers prepared by TNT.
In 2009, Jan Cuny, an NSF Program Director in
CISE, announced a new initiative, CS 10K [2]. This
program’s goal is to establish “rigorous academic
computing courses taught in 10,000 high schools by
10,000 well-prepared teachers by 2016”. Part of the CS
10k project is introduction of two exciting new curricula,
Exploring Computer Science (ECS) and Computer
Science Principles (CSP). Both ECS and CSP focus on
A major focus of the CS10K program and TNT-CS is
to promote diversity in the Computer Science classroom.
Both Exploring Computer Science and Computer Science
Principles have used diversity as a goal from their
beginnings. And the UTeach program, as discussed
below, has shown remarkable diversity as well. By
building the pre-service program on a UTeach model,
TNT-CS inherently increases the diversity among preservice teachers graduated. In addition, by providing CSP
and ECS professional development experiences for preservice teachers, TNT-CS reinforces teaching techniques
which promote diversity in their future classrooms.
In the remainder of this paper we briefly describe
Exploring Computer Science, Computer Science
Principles, and the UTeach model of pre-service STEM
education upon which TNT is based.
 EXPLORING COMPUTER SCIENCE (ECS)
Exploring Computer Science, based upon the three
pillars of CS content, inquiry and equity [5], combines a
high-school computer science curriculum with a welldeveloped professional development model. This
combination provides a program that has broadened
student participation in high school computing classes.
ECS grew out of research that studied why so few
African-Americans, Latinos engage in high schools’
computer science courses. That research (described in
Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race and
Computing [3]) led to a pilot program in the Los
Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that evolved
into the ECS program, which currently serves over 2,000
students every year. Current data from LAUSD (May 1,
2014) show that in ECS classes , 43% of the students are
female, 77% are Latino and 9% are African-American
which compares well to overall LAUSD demographics
of 50%, 73%, and 10%, respectively [4]. Based largely
on its success in LAUSD, ECS has now spread to
Chicago, Washington D.C., Santa Clara and to schools
in Oregon, Utah and Maine.
The ECS curriculum, a year-long course, consists of
six units: 1) Human-Computer interaction, 2) Problem
Solving, 3) Web Design, 4) Programming, 5) Computing
and Data Analysis and 6) Robotics. Instruction is
inquiry-based, with social issues included throughout all
units, and each unit includes a final project. However as
Goode, et al. emphasize,
10K project. An early goal of CS 10K was to build
curricula to support a new Advanced Placement (AP)
exam for computer science that would focus less on Java
programming and more on central principles of
computer science. The first step in that process was the
development of six “computational practices” and seven
“big ideas” [6]. The 6 Computational Practices are
1)
Connecting Computing,
2)
Developing Computational Artifacts,
3)
Abstracting,
4)
Analyzing Problems and Artifacts,
5)
Communicating, and
6)
Collaborating.
CPS’s 7 Big Ideas are
1)
Computing is a creative activity,
2) Abstraction reduces information and detail to
facilitate focus on relevant concepts,
“ECS is a program that includes the ECS curriculum
in combination with ECS teacher professional
development. Our experiences with observations in
classrooms and interviews with teachers show the
complexities of teaching for broadening participation in
computing, and that simply adopting the curriculum
without sustained professional preparation is insufficient
to develop the particular pedagogical strategies and
classroom norms that must accompany the ECS
curriculum.” [5]
3) Data and information facilitate the creation of
knowledge,
To address this, ECS has cultivated a strong program
to prepare teachers. ECS’ professional development
includes four phases:
In the 2010–2011 academic year, five universities
received funding to develop and implement curricula
based upon the 7 Big Ideas and 6 Computational
Practices [7]. Those five pilot projects produced the first
examples of CSP curricula. Working with those
curricula, CSP developers recruited additional
universities and high schools as pilot schools, including
The University of North Texas. In addition to the
original pilots, now more than 50 high schools and
universities function in this capacity and provide
information to the College Board. In turn, the College
Board has used this information in preparing their new
CSP AP exam, which they plan to offer in the 20162017 school year.
1. a week-long summer workshop for teachers
before they first teach ECS,
2. quarterly Saturday workshops focused on the
three pillars and upcoming curriculum units,
3. classroom visits by ECS coaches that provide
individualized support and
4. deepening of content and pedagogy in years 2
and beyond.
In short, Exploring Computer Science requires
significant resources in professional development but the
results have proven well worth the cost.
 COMPUTER SCIENCE PRINCIPLES (CSP)
Computer Science Principles is a curriculum
framework developed and implemented as part of the CS
4) Algorithms are used to develop and express
solutions to computational problems,
5) Programming enables problem solving, human
expression and creation of knowledge,
6)
The Internet pervades modern computing, and
7)
Computing has global impacts.
Much as CSPs curricula have greater diversity than
that of ECS, the CSP professional development for inservice teachers takes many flavors, from blended 6week courses where the first and sixth week are face to
face with four weeks of online instruction in between to
a six-week face to face experience. There is also a
MOOC available so that in-service teachers can do the
entire professional development experience online. [8]
 THE UTEACH MODEL
UTeach, established at University of Texas provides
a teacher preparation program for secondary teachers of
STEM subjects [9]. UTeach, developed and maintained
as a collaborative project of the UT Education College
and the College of Natural Sciences, allows UTeach
students complete a Bachelor’s degree in their chosen
STEM field and, also, to take education courses that
allow them to become certified secondary-school
teachers in their chosen field.
The UTeach model includes several key components
described in [9, 10]. Students visit local school
classrooms both as observers and as teachers throughout
their pedagogy courses. Pedagogy focuses on inquirybased learning with a strong component of project-based
instruction. That the first two UTeach courses both
contain several experiences in the local school
classrooms leads to an interesting phenomenon. UTeach
students quickly discern whether teaching interests them.
So, while retention in the first two courses remains low,
once students have completed those courses, they tend to
complete the program. Given the large number of
experiences in local classrooms, the logistics of these
visits, and the breadth of subject matter (math,
chemistry, biology, physics), a main tenant of the
program is the use of “Master Teachers.” These faculty
teach courses in the professional development of preservice teachers in individual STEM areas, coordinate
field and clinical experiences to include orientation of
mentor teachers, supervise UTeach students in the field,
and build community between UTeach students and
faculty as well as with local school-district personnel.
Ideally, a UTeach program includes sufficient master
teachers to have at least one with expertise in each field
of study included in the STEM curricula. A major focus
of UTeach requires building a strong sense of
community among the students, no doubt also leading to
high completion rates once the first two courses have
been completed. Another key piece in the UTeach model
is a strong induction program to encourage the graduates
to remain in teaching once they take a job.
UTeach’s early success led to funding from the
National Math and Science Institute (NMSI) and others
to fund other universities to replicate the UTeach
program. In 2008, the first cohort of 17 replication sites,
including The University of North Texas, began their
programs [11]. Currently 44 universities across the US
are implementing the UTeach model, including 8 in
Texas [12]. The President’s Council on Science and
Technology, in a 2010 report, recommend UTeach
programs as exemplary in addressing the need for
improved STEM education [13]. That report points out
that UTeach model programs attract students with SAT
and ACT scores higher than that university’s
undergraduate population as a whole. They further note
that 82% of UTeach graduates are still teaching which
compares favorably to national retention rates of less
than 60%. The report also lauds the UTeach program for
the fact that 45% of the graduates have chosen to teach in
high-need schools, a fact that the report claims is related
to UTeach’s strong emphasis on public service. Finally,
the report suggests that when the UTeach model reaches
200 schools, it will sustain a pipeline of 10,000 STEM
teacher graduates per year. As the President’s Council
report suggests, UTeach, much like ECS and CSP, fits
well within CS 10K’s focus on increasing both numbers
and diversity of students engaged in high school STEM
courses, in this case by producing high-quality and
diverse teachers of STEM subjects. As of spring 2014,
UTeach and UTeach-model programs had graduated
2,153 STEM teachers [11]. That same report indicates
that 67% of those graduates are women and 17% of
graduates come from underrepresented American Indian,
Hispanic or African American populations. This increase
in the diversity of teachers of computer science in our
high schools will provide students of underrepresented
groups to visualize computer science as a viable career
choice—a major goal in STEM. Finally, the UTeach
Institute 2014 report [12] indicates that 64% of the
UTeach-model graduates are teaching in high-needs
schools, a significant improvement over the results from
the 2010 President’s council. And, again, the higher
visibility of these teachers will encourage high school
students to pursue careers related to computer science.
And, finally, [12] projects that by 2020, with current
trends, there will be a cumulative count of 8300 UTeachmodel graduates. This is all very impressive.
 WHERE TO GO FROM HERE
By combining ECS and CSP preparation in TNT-CS
we have a comprehensive plan for preparing a diverse
group of teachers who have a bachelor’s degree in their
chosen field and a strong pedagogical background. This
is ensured by the UTeach (and thus TNT) emphasis on
both a 4-year STEM degree and a well-tested model of
pedagogy that has shown excellent results. In addition,
by introducing the TNT-CS students to ECS and CSP
professional development, our pre-service teachers are
given a strong foundation in the motivation and praxis of
enhancing the diversity within computer science.
But work remains to be done. It is impressive that
there have been over 2000 UTeach-model graduates to
date. But only 12 of those graduates are prepared as CS
teachers, primarily because CS has not been included as a
STEM field. As of now, of the 44 UTeach model
universities, only UNT includes CS in its UTeach
program. This is due in part to the fact that, to get more
CS teachers in the high school classrooms as soon as
possible, CS 10k has focused more on professional [5]
development of in-service teachers than pre-service
programs. Unfortunately, these in-service teachers,
drawn from related fields, typically lack a solid
foundation in computing principles and pedagogy.
Mark Guzdial in [14] argues that, to have a reliable
stream of well-trained CS teachers in high schools,
computer scientists need to focus much more on preservice programs rather than in-service professional
development. Not only would pre-service programs lead
to teachers with more substantial Computer Science
background, but once the pre-service pipeline is
established with significant programs and numbers of
students, the production of future CS teachers, like those
of other STEM subjects, would be endemic in the
“normal” teacher preparation methods rather than
focused on expensive professional development of
current in-service teachers who lack significant
academic Computer Science credentials. Guzdial goes
on to say that pre-service education in STEM subjects
must be based in schools and programs of education, not
in the STEM disciplines of choice. This enables preservice students to focus on appropriate teaching
pedagogies. However, as you might expect given UNT’s
TNT-CS program, we feel that a cooperative approach
seems better equipped to handle pre-service needs then
either a solely CS or a solely education program
approach. And other UTeach sites are beginning to move
in that direction. At least six UTeach sites submitted
proposals to NSF this year for funding for in-service
programs. Let’s hope (and work) for continued growth
in this realm.

[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
REFERENCES
[14]
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
Teach North Texas. University of North Texas, 6 Apr.
2015. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.
Snodgrass, Richard. "Ubiquity Symposium: The Science
in Computer Science Broadening CS Enrollments:
An Interview with Jan Cuny." Ubiquity. ACM, Feb.
2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2015.
Margolis, Jane, Rachel Estrella, Joanna Goode, Jennifer
Jellison-Holme, and Kimeberly Nao. Stuck in the
Shallow End: Education, Race, & Computing. MIT
Press: Cambridge, MA. 2008. Print.
"Summary of Student Indicators for ECS-LAUSD." ECS:
Exploring Computer Science. Exploring Computer
Science, 1 May 2014. Web. 6 Apr. 2015.
Goode, Joanna, Jane Margolis, and Gail Chapman.
(2014). “Curriculum is not enough: The educational
theory and research foundation of the exploring
computer science professional development model.”
In Proceedings of the 45th ACM Technical
Symposium on Computer Science Education. 2014:
493-98. Print.
Astrachan, Owen, and Amy Briggs. “The CS Principles
Project.” ACM Inroads, 3.2: 38-42. June 2012. Print.
Snyder, Lawrence, Tiffany Barnes, Dan Garcia, Jody Paul,
and Beth Simon. “The First Five Computer Science
Principles Pilots: Summary and Comparisons”. ACM
Inroads, 3.2:54-57. June 2012. Print.
Gray, Jeff. "CS Principles for High School." CS
Principles -- CS4H2 (MOOC). University of
Alabama, May 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
"UTeach Programs Nationwide." The UTeach
Institute. University of Texas at Austin, Jan.
2014. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.
"UTeach Curriculum Snapshot." The UTeach
Institute. University of Texas at Austin, March.
2013. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.
"UTeach and UTeach Expansion." The UTeach
Institute. University of Texas at Austin, Oct.
2014. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.
"UTeach Programs Nationwide." The UTeach
Institute. University of Texas at Austin, Jan.
2015. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.
President’s Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology. Report to the President: Prepare
and Inspire—K-12 Education in Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) for
America’s Future. Executive Office of the
President. The White House. Sept. 2010 (PDF)
23 March 2015.
Guzdial, Mark. "A Stable Future for Computing
Education Requires Collaboration Beyond CS."
Weblog post. Communications of the ACM.
ACM, 22 Aug. 2003. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.