539-getting-started

CMU 15-539: Computer Science Pedagogy, Fall 2017
Notes: Getting Started

Background
- The (unfortunate) state of high school CS education in the US
- The rising tide of change (parents, educators, companies, local schools, etc)

Some (expensive but encouraging) alternatives exist
- Project Lead the Way
- CodeHS
- code.org
- Khan Academy
- More coming all the time! And yet... The problems remain...

Our part of the solution
To design, build, deploy, and support a novel, fun, engaging, world-class, free (or nearly free), online, autograded high school computer science curriculum with its associated professional development for teachers.

Some specifics
- This course and the new curriculum are housed in the new CMU Computer Science Academy (academy.cs.cmu.edu)
- SCS Dean's Goal: 1 million students within 5 years.

Description of our 4 levels
- Level 0: pre-HS (Scratch, Alice, AppInventor, ....)
- Level 1: 1-semester 9th-grade Python course
  - Why 9th-grade? Algebra readiness!
  - Why Python? Clarity, ease-of-use. Most popular CS1 language.
  - Why for everyone? Digital literacy!
  - For everyone. This has deep implications. Cannot be too advanced!
- Level 2: 1-semester applied courses
  - Comp Math, Comp Science, Comp Art, Comp STEAM, Comp Music, Comp Security, Web Dev, and...
  - APCS-Principles (APCS-P) (greater among equals)
- Level 3: advanced courses
  - APCS-A
  - Advanced Topics / Advanced Projects
  Level 4: 15-112!

Timetable
- Fall17 (now):
  - design, build, test Level1 9th-grade Python course
- Spring18 (January):
  - Pilot that course (at about 15 participating high schools)
  - Design, build, test first Level2 course (APCS-P)
- Fall18:
  - Release (post-pilot) Level1 course
  - Pilot APCS-P course
  - Build second Level2 course

Legal/IP issue
Cannot open-source solutions, autograders, or professional development! Solution: students and faculty own our original work, but we license it back to CMU. We will discuss the details.

Reflections on Getting Started
- It takes time to build something amazing. There will be bumps.
- Building the plane while flying it: we really will have students in January. We have to get something (decent) working, and then refine as we go.
- 15-112 worked this way. The current version is much, much stronger than the first version.
- Parts of this will be uncomfortable because nothing is settled -- we need to invent all the rules (our design and dev practices, our UX, our autograder, etc, etc -- it all has to be invented this semester!)
- If you need a highly-structured course --> in the wrong room

15-539 Student experience
- Experiential learning (learn by doing!)
- Building lots of the content
- Study pedagogy
- Testing
- Fun!

Review 15-539 Syllabus
- Description
- Objectives
- Topic List and Schedule
- Resources
- Office Hours
- Staff
- Materials
- Requirements
- Grading
- Exams and Quizzes
- Late Policy
- Accommodations for Students with Disabilities
- Classroom
- Collaboration
- Acknowledgments and References
- IP Policy
- Outreach
- Statement of Support for Students' Health and Well-being

Teams
- Universal Teams (everyone is on these teams)
  - CS1: Content
  - Ideation (Fun + Engaging + Awesome Ideas)
- Initial Student/Staff/Faculty Teams
  - Graphics+Animation Framework
  - Autograder
  - Frontend
  - Backend
  - Graphic Design
  - Student + Teacher UX design (overall "look-and-feel", including IDE, maybe a visualizer)
  - Student + Teacher UX implementation (probably React components, as per Frontend team)
  - Accessibility
  - CS Pedagogy
  - Related Work / Competitive Analysis
  - Extended framework (API's (Google, Amazon, Facebook,...), open-source apps?,....)
  - Media: Video (production, distribution, viewing/tracking)
  - Media: Online Textbook/Notes (production, distribution, viewing/tracking)
  - Media: Free media (sounds, images) for students (on CDN? make our own?)
- Initial Staff/Faculty Teams
  - Source Mgmt (bug tracking, dev vs pilot vs release, versioning, contribution tracking, ...)
  - Outreach Mgmt (tutoring, relationship building, events, focus groups / testing,...)
  - Legal (IP, Clearances, IRB, FERPA, ...)
  - 539 Student Training (web dev, git, pedagogy, ...)
  - 539 Grading
  - Process (issue tracking (like bug tracking), team weekly reports,...) + QA + Code Reviews
  - Leadership / Project Mgmt
- Pending Teams
  - Media: Web (539, CS Academy, CS Academy dev, CS1-PD pilot, CS1 pilot) CS2-APCSP: Scope+Sequence, Content
  - Brython
  - Standards (eg, Blackboard + Canvas integration)
  - Localization (multi-language support)
  - Marketing (later...)

Demo/Discuss draft of Project Artwork
(Drafts will be displayed in lecture)
Demo/Discuss draft of Animation Framework
(Draft will be displayed in lecture, link sent via piazza)
Two Goals for 15-539:
- Be world-class!
- Have fun!