| Founded | 2004 |
|---|---|
| Focus | Computer Science Education |
Area served | International |
| Website | www |
Formerly called | www |
The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is a professional association. Started in 2004, CSTA is a membership organization. [1]
CSTA supports computer science teachers with educational information. [2]
CSTA has launched multiple programs in order to support computer science teachers.
CSTA Annual Conference - CSTA has hosted an annual conference every year since 2000. The conference was originally called the Computer Science & Information Technology Symposium (CS&IT). Now, the conference title is simply CSTA plus the current year (i.e., CSTA 2024). The conference brings thousands of computer science educators together for a week in July to learn from hundreds of educational sessions. [3]
Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) is an annual event designed to inspire K-12 students to learn computer science, advocate for equity, and celebrate the contributions of students, teachers, and partners to the field. The first CSEdWeek was launched by ACM on December 6–12, 2009. It was a joint effort led and funded by ACM with the cooperation and deep involvement of CSTA, NCWIT, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Anita Borg Institute (ABI), the Computing Research Association (CRA), Google, Inc., Intel, and Microsoft. ACM’s Education Policy Committee worked closely with Congressmen Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) and Jared Polis (D-CO) to introduce a Congressional Resolution recognizing the first CSEdWeek. Congressman Ehlers introduced the resolution after being alerted to declining enrollments in computer science studies by Professor Joel Adams of the Department of Computer Science at Calvin College. The intent is CSEdWeek will be celebrated each year during the week of Grace Hopper’s birthday (December 9, 1906), who invented the first compiler and coined the term “bug” (an error in a program) after removing an actual moth from a computer in 1947. CSTA became the lead organizer for CSEdWeek in 2020. [4]
Computer Science Honor Society(CSHS) - CSTA offers high school teachers across the United States the opportunity to create local Computer Science Honor Societies. The program originated at CodeVA, and was elevated to the national level by CSTA. There are currently more than 200 active local chapters. [5]
The CSTA Equity Fellowship is a selective, year-long program designed to develop leadership in equitable teaching practices and advocacy. The program provides leadership development opportunities to the fellows and identifies opportunities for the group to develop ongoing, peer-to-peer professional learning experiences focused on addressing issues of equity in the computer science classrooms for all CSTA members. [6]
CSTA Affinity Groups connect CSTA members who share a common identity or interest. CSTA Affinity Groups host events, connect year-round via the CSTA Virtual Community, and offer opportunities for members to meet with one another at CSTA’s in-person and virtual events. [7]
Together with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the CSTA offers the ACM/CSTA Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing. The award provides four $10,000 scholarships to each of four winners along with the opportunity for the students to present their projects at the CSTA Annual Conference and/or at one of CSTA’s virtual summits. The prize was established to honor outstanding high school seniors who want to pursue advanced studies in computer science or technology. This program aims to promote and encourage computer science. [8]
The CS Teaching Excellence Award honors K–12 computer science educators whose commitment and excellence have aided the development of CS education and technology the award grants $7,500 to national winners, and $2,500 to honorable mentions. [9]
The CSTA K–12 Computer Science Standards [10] delineate a core set of learning objectives designed to provide the foundation for a complete computer science curriculum and its implementation at the K–12 level.
CSTA also created and published Standards for CS Teachers [11] . These Standards are designed to provide clear guidance around effective and equitable CS instruction in support of rigorous CS education for all K–12 students.
CSTA partners with many other organizations to conduct research on the state of CS education in the United States. Recent publications include:
Reimagining CS Pathways is a community-wide project that explores how CS learning opportunities can be re-envisioned for high school students. CSTA and IACE co-led the project, in partnership with ACM, Code.org, College Board, CSforALL, and ECEP Alliance.
Annual State of Computer Science Education report
The annual report on K-12 computer science in the United States provides an update on national and state-level computer science education policy, including policy trends, maps, state summaries, and implementation data. [12]
Landscape Survey of PreK-12 Computer Science Teachers in the United States
The survey is sent out every two years in order to understand the current landscape of PreK-12 CS teachers, including their demographics, teaching background, school context, professional development, instructional practice, and knowledge of and use of culturally responsive teaching practices. [13] The 2022 report sought an understanding of teachers’ perceptions of how to move towards a vision of equitable CS. This report drew on a national sample of PreK-12 CS teachers to examine their views of both their professional development needs and institutional changes required to transform CS classrooms to be more identity-inclusive. [14]
CSTA’s Board of Directors consists of 14 voting representatives, with 11 of those elected directly by CSTA’s membership [15] .
Board Positions
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membership group, reporting nearly 110,000 student and professional members as of 2022. Its headquarters are in New York City.
A pedagogical pattern is the re-usable form of a solution to a problem or task in pedagogy, analogous to how a design pattern is the re-usable form of a solution to a design problem. Pedagogical patterns are used to document and share best practices of teaching. A network of interrelated pedagogical patterns is an example of a pattern language.
SIGCSE is the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Computer Science Education (CSE), which provides a forum for educators to discuss issues related to the development, implementation, and/or evaluation of computing programs, curricula, and courses, as well as syllabi, laboratories, and other elements of teaching and pedagogy. SIGCSE is also the colloquial name for the SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, which is the largest of the four conferences organized by SIGCSE.
Michael Kölling is a German computer scientist, currently working at King's College London, best known for the development of the BlueJ and Greenfoot educational development environments and as author of introductory programming textbooks. In 2013 he received the SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education for the development of the BlueJ.
IEEE Computer Society is a technical society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) dedicated to computing, namely the major areas of hardware, software, standards and people, "advancing the theory, practice, and application of computer and information processing science and technology." It was founded in 1946 and is the largest of 39 technical societies organized under the IEEE Technical Activities Board with over 375,000 members in 150 countries, more that 100,000 being based in the United States alone.
Mark Joseph Guzdial is a Professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. He was formerly a professor in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology affiliated with the College of Computing and the GVU Center. He has conducted research in the fields of computer science education and the learning sciences and internationally in the field of Information Technology. From 2001–2003, he was selected to be an ACM Distinguished Lecturer, and in 2007 he was appointed Vice-Chair of the ACM Education Board Council. He was the original developer of the CoWeb, one of the earliest wiki engines, which was implemented in Squeak and has been in use at institutions of higher education since 1998. He is the inventor of the Media Computation approach to learning introductory computing, which uses contextualized computing education to attract and retain students.
Computational thinking (CT) refers to the thought processes involved in formulating problems so their solutions can be represented as computational steps and algorithms. In education, CT is a set of problem-solving methods that involve expressing problems and their solutions in ways that a computer could also execute. It involves automation of processes, but also using computing to explore, analyze, and understand processes.
Scott Joel Aaronson is an American theoretical computer scientist and Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. His primary areas of research are computational complexity theory and quantum computing.
Computer science education or computing education is the field of teaching and learning the discipline of computer science, and computational thinking. The field of computer science education encompasses a wide range of topics, from basic programming skills to advanced algorithm design and data analysis. It is a rapidly growing field that is essential to preparing students for careers in the technology industry and other fields that require computational skills.
Owen Astrachan is an American computer scientist and professor of the practice of computer science at Duke University, where he is also the department's director of undergraduate studies. He is known for his work in curriculum development and methods of teaching computer science. He was one of the first National Science Foundation CISE Distinguished Education Fellows, and is a recipient of the ACM Outstanding Educator Award. He was the principal investigator on the multi-year NSF/College Board project that led to the release of the AP Computer Science Principles course and exam.
The Ken Kennedy Award, established in 2009 by the Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society in memory of Ken Kennedy, is awarded annually and recognizes substantial contributions to programmability and productivity in computing and substantial community service or mentoring contributions. The award includes a $5,000 honorarium and the award recipient will be announced at the ACM - IEEE Supercomputing Conference.
The American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) was an umbrella organization of professional societies established on May 10, 1961, and dissolved in 1990. Its mission was to advance knowledge in the field of information science, and to represent its member societies in international forums.
CSAB, Inc., formerly called the Computing Sciences Accreditation Board, Inc., is a non-profit professional organization in the United States, focused on the quality of education in computing disciplines. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS) are the member societies of CSAB. The Association for Information Systems (AIS) was a member society between 2002 and September 2009.
Ronald Eugene Anderson, also known as Ron Anderson, was an American sociologist. He was a Professor Emeritus at University of Minnesota in Twin Cities where he taught sociology from 1968 to 2005. His early work focused on social and institutional factors shaping the diffusion of technology-based teaching. Since 2007, his work has focused on web-based compassion and world suffering.
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David Jay Malan is an American computer scientist and professor. Malan is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University, and is best known for teaching the course CS50, which is the largest open-learning course at Harvard University and Yale University and the largest massive open online course at EdX, with lectures being viewed by over a million people on the edX platform up to 2017.
Gender disparity in computing concerns the disparity between the number of men in the field of computing in relation to the lack of women in the field. Originally, computing was seen as a female occupation. As the field evolved, so too did the demographics, and the gender gap shifted from female dominated to male dominated. The believed need for more diversity and an equal gender gap has led to public policy debates regarding gender equality. Many organizations have sought to create initiatives to bring more women into the field of computing.
Keshav K Pingali is an American computer scientist, currently the W.A."Tex" Moncrief Chair of Grid and Distributed Computing at the University of Texas at Austin, and also a published author. He previously also held the India Chair of Computer Science at Cornell University and also the N. Rama Rao Professorship at Indian Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Association for Computing Machinery and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. In 2020, he was elected a Foreign Member of the Academia Europeana.
Valerie Barr is an American computer scientist, and is the Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Bard College. She formerly held the Jean Sammet endowed chair in the department of Computer Science at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She is known for her work with women in computing.
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