PAUSD

Palo Alto Unified School District PK-12 Computer Science Curriculum Design

Advisory Committee PAUSD PK-12 CS CDAC, 2017-18

https://www.pausd.org/committees-task-forces/pk-12-computer-science-curriculum-design-advisory-committee

Meeting Info: Monday_Nov 13_; 4:15 pm –6:45 pm; Room SDC PAUSD District Office; 25 Churchill Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94306

Agenda and Notes Meeting Attendants:

NAME Level PRESENT

Antink, Suz (PAUSD Staff) 3/Float YES

Bramlett, Katie (Teacher) 1 YES

Bumbacher, Engin (Adjunct Community Representative) 2 NO

Chang, Eileen (Teacher) 2 YES

Chen, Janice (Assistant Principal) 3 YES

Ferrante, Marissa (Teacher) 2 NO

Friebel, Will (Teacher) 3 NO

Gantley, Amanda (Teacher) 1 NO

Garrison, Emily (PAUSD Staff) 1/Float YES

Gilbert, Teri (Teacher) 2 NO

Grover, Shuchi (Community Representative) 2 NO

Guibas, John (High School Student) 3 YES

Hexsel, Jess (Teacher) 3 YES

Hickey, Lisa (Principal) 2 YES

Jacoubowsky, Tom (Principal) 1 YES

Jou, Shirley (Teacher) 1 NO

PAUSD

PK-12

Computer Science

Curriculum Design

Advisory

Committee

Kandell, Jaqui (Teacher) 2 YES

Kellison, Tricia (Community Representative) 2/3 YES

Kolhatkar, Smita (Community Representative) 1 NO

Kuszmaul, Chris (Teacher) 3 YES

Li, Nina (Middle School Student) 2 YES

McManus-Coburn, Colleen (Teacher) 1 YES

Mobin, Arjan (High School Student) 3 NO

Narayan, Avanika (Adjunct Community Representative) 3 NO

Ng, Erica (Teacher) 2 NO

Ofek, Sharon (PAUSD Staff) 2/Float YES

Paley, Josh (Teacher) 3 NO

Parulekar, Mallika (High School Student) 3 YES

Pierce, Sarah (Teacher) 2 YES

Pound, Sue (Teacher) 2 YES

Proctor, Chris (Adjunct Community Representative) 3 NO

Rayner, Max (Parent) 2 NO

Rosenblatt, David (Teacher) 2 YES

Secor, Torin (Middle School Student) 2 YES

Selwyn, Robbie (High School Student) 3 YES

Stoneburner, Cara (Parent) 3 YES

Vroemen, Max (Middle School Student) 2 YES

Werbrouck, Paolo (Parent) 2 NO

Observers:

Emil Zink Tronche, Innovation & Research Associate (Denmark) NO

Jeppe Dørup Olsen, Science Attache´ (Denmark) NO

Invited Guests: (none were able to attend)

Maureen Willis, CTE @ JLS Elementary Tech Leads Elementary teachers who indicated interest in CS (in the May 2017 survey) PAUSD Elementary TOSAs (also integral in the elementary STEAM program) AAR representatives

Committee Norms

1. Begin and end on time. 2. Assume that all of us have the best interests of students at the center of our work.

Recognize that we are dealing with competing values: inclusion—transparency (show what we did and how we did it)—discretion—urgency & efficiency

3. Seek to understand. 4. Listen actively and participate in the meeting (inclusion); make room for others to

participate. [Watch your air time; hands are helpful—keep your remarks to 3 minutes.]

5. Disagree respectfully.

6. Avoid side conversations.

7. Maintain a healthy humor. Celebrate and laugh together.

**********************************************************************************

Light dinner is provided.

AGENDA

Item #

Timing Person Responsible Topic Notes

1 4:15-4:20

Suz Facilitator

Welcome Food Get Comfortable Introductions

2 4:20-4:25

Suz Facilitator

Review Agenda Focus on Small Group Work time

• Teachers on the committee are exploring a variety of CS options--@ Jordan, Sarah Pierce is trying a CS contest with 6th graders; @ Hoover, Colleen McManus-Coburn is investigating a variety of elementary options for CS exploration; @ Jordan, Sue Pound and Max Vroemen are investigating the use of GUTS in science.

3 4:25—4:35

Suz Reporter

Results Committee member poll regarding HS Graduation Requirement*

• Committee member poll was reviewed and discussed

• One idea that was floated was to treat CS like PE—where students are expected to enter at whatever level and grow as they take the required course.

• Data about units earned by the class of 2017 beyond the 220 req’t units was not discussed—key player was absent.

• Will revisit the question at the next meeting

3 4:35-6:25

Elementary • Work on Roll-out ideas—may have partners from

Elementary, STEAM, AAR

Middle • Work on Wheel

course—plan and refine

High • Work on 1-

semester CS for ALL course description

(Notes from 10/30/17 google docs below)

• Elementary STEAM Lending Library? https://sites.google.com/site/pausdsteamll/

• Partnering with SCCOE: nominate Elementary Teachers Teacher Leaders in #CSinSV We have been approached by [http://%20https://www.rand.org/education.html]RAND Corp through the National Science Foundation on a three-year study of our pilot districts (you all) - on the implementation of K12 CS and the collaboration that can take place across the county Through this partnership with RAND Corp and the National Science Foundation - we would like to add a teacher(s) to a #CSinSV advisory panel. At one point when we (very briefly) discussed this you all individually - we mentioned having some ideas about there being possible classroom teacher nominees from the seven districts to help guid our work in the research of CS in Santa Clara County. It would be ideal if the teacher taught K-5 and was (or will be) involved in the development of a district’s strategy for implementing the new CS standards and/or played in role in the development of the state’s CS standards. It could be one of you - but ideally a current classroom teacher would be great. The time commitment would be 2-3 days per year over the 3 years of the study and include a $1500 per day honorarium per teacher.

•

• Report on GUTS investigation

• Review requested course data from the 2017 graduates

• Work on second semester information night plan (District-wide)

4 6:25-6:45

Suz Facilitator

Round Robin Progress reports from each level :see below

*Note: We are in the process of collecting requested data for the ongoing Graduation Requirement discussion—if we receive and can compile

such data by our meeting time, we will share the data and have a 10-minute discussion regarding graduation requirements. As of Nov 13, we have received data regarding the courses that students at Paly and Gunn took beyond the 220 credits required. The HS Group will explore the data for trends and other information that will be useful in making the decision about the Grad Req’t question.

Elementary Progress Report:

• Special leader like Spectra Art—with a staff person to run the exploration—comes with a cart and leads the lessons so that the teacher can also be learning. (Uniform across classes and schools—equitable)—maybe someone like Carolyn Tuomy

o Materials are passed on in a consistent way o Science Resource Center o What are not adopted can be accessed via the “library”

• Get some tools for exploration—so we can try them at three schools in the Spring—we would the tools in the spring (Feb/March/April this year)

o Tools wanted are Jimu, Sphero, Lego drones, Dash & Dot, Scratch, Tynker, Osmo, and Ozobots. (Suz—check out prices (think that each is about $1k) and whether or not we can get classroom sets by January!!!)

• Roll-out idea: o explore in Feb-April 2018 at Briones, Hoover, and Palo Verde (with the above tools) o Pilot units in 2018-19 o Implement in 2019-20

MS Progress Report:

• New folder in the PAUSD PK-12 CS CDAC Team Drive—Middle School Docs

• Looked at all of the MS standards and prioritized what should go in the wheel class—see the 6s and 5s—created an activity list to go with that standard

• 0s through 4s—looking for other courses that incorporate those standards—these standards would not be covered in the wheel class at this time.

• The Wheel cycle—7 topics—12 hours… it’s a lot—but some of them are embedded—some of them depend on the others, so they can be linked.

• HS Progress Report:

• Design a CS4All course—CS Principals course—students got some ideas out about it

• Great to be able to have a class that engaged collaboration across a variety of subjects, in which CS tools would be useful

• More of a focus on long-term usability of skills that are taught

• Contests or games as well as curricular applications. It’s important that the course is seriously useful as well as fun.

• In order to address the differentiation needed in the course—well-defined roles in the course

• How do we manage the students who only take the course for an A?

• All three of the students in the group said that “Python is good.” So maybe the Python language is ideal for a beginning student.

• It was hard to look through the lens of the student we are trying to serve (from the members of the HS sub-committee).

• CSP at both schools is a year-long course—so it doesn’t fit the bill. We would need a different course that has many aspects of CSP in the course.

• The kids we would like to serve are not on the committee—focus group survey? …or bring them here? Could have them presenting their views? During CS week, Dec 4-9…. Reaching out to HUS—send them an invite to the hour of code. Might be an opportunity to ask them via an exit interview. (The current MS students are the ones who might be affected by a graduation req’t.) Be sure you have extra people to help out.

Background information for each team Elem (Team Drive Doc address) https://docs.google.com/document/ d/1U3NB-eI6RCH7FsnCpDbus0Z3JX3zvLLukY4o8NIMQY/edit Suggest a roll-out of CS in the Elementary Levels:

o Pre-Pilot Investigations for S2, 2017-18

Key ideas:

• Thinking about a “suggested roll out” not a pilot at this point o We have no curriculum at this point o Robots cost a lot of money

• Differentiation needs to happen in all classrooms - some teachers can jump in and do this, other teachers need the Art Spectra model

• Many of the CS standards are already being taught in other places o I.e. digital safety is taught by teacher librarians

• Robots are a great way to teach coding with teachers who are not comfortable with coding on a website (for example). The robots are very tangible, easy to see to results

• We might need 12 Dot and Dash per class. Ratio of 1:2 (robot:student) o Think of this as a cart model that moves between classes at one school site

• Do we have the original teacher survey with names of interested teachers that we can ask to pilot? • Teacher and/or Stanford student are the facilitator with students in the classroom

• Difficult balance: using a product without endorsing a specific product. How to do this? • What we need: names of interested teachers as well as “what people are signing up for”

o We need more direction on this o Do we choose a “curriculum” and ask people to use it or do we give people a menu of choices

for exploration? • We are struggling with the idea of implementation - How, who, when, what?

Change this to CS Standard, not focus on specific product?

Tools- There are many possibilities for column to meet the goal

Grade Level Target

School Associated teacher

Sequences loops and events

E.g.: Dash and Dot, code.org, Snap!, pencil code, Bitsbox, Tynker, Code Monkey

E.g: 5 E.g.: Addison

E.g.: Katie Bramlett

Unplugged CS K Addison Lee Mitchell

• SCCOE Partnership— • nominate Elementary Teachers

• Teacher Leaders in #CSinSV

• We have been approached by [http://%20https://www.rand.org/education.html]RAND Corp through the National Science Foundation on a three-year study of our pilot districts (you all) - on the implementation of K12 CS and the collaboration that can take place across the county

• Through this partnership with RAND Corp and the National Science Foundation - we would like to add a teacher(s) to a #CSinSV advisory panel. At one point when we (very briefly) discussed this you all individually - we mentioned having some ideas about there being possible classroom teacher nominees from the seven districts to help guid our work in the research of CS in Santa Clara County.

• It would be ideal if the teacher taught K-5 and was (or will be) involved in the development of a district’s strategy for implementing the new CS standards and/or played in role in the development of the state’s CS standards. It could be one of you - but ideally a current classroom teacher would be great. The time commitment would be 2-3 days per year over the 3 years of the study and include a $1500 per day honorarium per teacher.

o

MS (Team drive address) https://docs.google.com/document/ d/1ABJ5qZdAmT9LfS2LqxB8dKQdxV0 l-ZAMpYI4thNRjMI/edit

• Design the optimum 6th Grade CS Wheel Course o Terman has 7 weeks and JLS/Jordan have 5 weeks of wheel o JLS/Jordan -- do a survey of the 7/8th grade offered electives plus some skills o Terman does more programming, non-application specific

• Possible PIE idea o Getting Cue robot -- concern about the cost of iPads o Preferred 15 bots per class + iPads to pilot

• 6th Core o This would be an ideal place since non-essential content is taught o Not all students are reached in the current structure (Jordan: Read 180, Span Imm, Mandarin,

Imm, SPED)(JLS: Read 180, SPED)(Unsure what Terman has) o Could make agreements with other groups o Maybe have 20% once a week that is devoted to CS o At Terman/Jordan → students pulled out during wheel for Read 180 course

• After wheel

o Some opportunity in science/math classes that there are standards for students to work with data and models

o Revisit skills from wheel classes ▪ Teachers may not yet have the skills or hardware needs, yet, to integrate ▪

HS (Team Drive Doc address) https://docs.google.com/document/ d/1FSTp9MgOscjXJvugSG70lg5Y9xrYq TfrOc3lqTEL1G0/edit 2. Course Description of the Minimal HS CS Course

Course Name · Introduction to Computer Science Overview of Computer Science CS101

CS for All? (from Suz)

Number of Semesters · 1

Pre-requisites (math level?) · None

Course topics description · covers state standards—(from Suz: which ones are central to all students?)

Course experience description (I.e., what will the students experience?)

· Adapted (scaled down?) from Computer Science Principles*

Course outcomes · Block and text programming, ethics - concepts from state standards (see infographic), computational & algorithmic thinking,

HW expectations · none?

·

* Overall: accessible, project-based, problem-based, low math, graphical, fun,

Next Meeting: Monday, __Nov 27____, 4:15 pm to 6:45 pm; SDC (@ the District Office)

Light Dinner is provided Tentative Agenda:

• Revisit Graduation Requirement Question with the whole group

• Elementary: o Talk with C. Toumy to detail the ideas for exploration and piloting

• Middle: o Revisit the 3-week CS intensive for the Wheel o Explore GUTS for 6-8 Science

• High:

o Design a one-semester introductory CS course that includes tools, applications, and explorations—perhaps one that would be useful for every student to take.

Meeting Schedule:

Semester 1 Semester 2

Aug 28 Sept 18 Oct 2 Oct 9 Oct 30 Nov 13 Nov 27 Dec 4

Jan 29 Feb 12 Mar 26 Apr 9 Apr 16 Apr 30 May 14 Tentative BOE Meetings Informational: May 8 Approval: June 5