Google's Pilot Program Ignites a Spark in the Classrooms

There's an old saying, "those who can, do; those who can't, teach." But in the case of Google's CS First program, those who can understand computer science are being asked to both do and teach -- at least in a volunteer capacity for some school kids in the tri-county area.

CS First -- a pilot program Google launched in the Charleston area -- is focused on increasing student access and exposure to computer science education through after-school and summer programs. The program will ultimately be offered throughout the country.

According to JamieSue Goodman, technical program manager for Google's Computer Science Teaching Fellows, the goal of the program is to increase the capacity for computer science education in regional South Carolina K-12 schools.

"We're specifically aiming to help underrepresented minorities and girls -- people who don't usually end up in computer science," Goodman said. "We want to make the field more diverse."

Achieving that goal is well in sight. The program is in its first year and so far, CS First has run 31 after-school programs for 4th-12th grades, with more than 450 students participating. Goodman notes that of those participating, 53 percent are girls and 66 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch.

The program kicked off in July. Google hired 14 teaching fellows, half with a computer science background and half with a teaching background. Two of the fellows are dedicated to research, helping with observations and surveys.

"Back in August when school started, we tried different approaches and different tools," Goodman said. "We used a lot of open source and free tools. We ran things and saw what the students enjoyed and what they learned from the most. After a few months we settled on the best tools."

The tools the students use include App Inventor, Scratch, Blockly, Python in Codecademy, Scheme in Bootstrap, as well as various physical gadgets like Finch Robots, Little Bits, Sphero and Raspberry Pi.

In November, CS First began working with non-teacher technologists, Goodman said. When school resumed in January, the program continued with 10 community members leading the clubs in partnership with the school districts.

Kate Berrio, program manager for Google's Computer Science Teaching Fellows, explained that CS First is facilitated by community volunteers -- called "gurus" in the program -- with the support of teacher "hosts" from the school where the club is being run. "CS First is an opportunity for anyone who has availability and interest in volunteering with the program," Berrio said. "There is no requirement to have a CS or education background."

In fact, Berrio pointed out that Google specifically created the program with those requirements -- or, more to the point, non-requirements -- in mind. Any interested party (e.g., troop leader, college student, industry professional, etc.) will be able to simply pick up the program, prepare for it and run the club with students.

"CS First will provide all information needed to successfully run the club," said Berrio. "Of course, all volunteers will need to register as volunteers with the appropriate school district and pass a standard background check." Each after-school program lasts four weeks and consists of eight sessions that run 60-90 minutes. It incorporates programming into various subjects, such as art, storytelling, games and fashion -- rotating the lessons.

"We'll run art for a session, then sports, then fashion and so forth," Goodman said.

Goodman said Google works collaboratively with Lowcountry school systems and teachers to achieve the following specific goals for students:

• Have a positive attitude toward computer science, have no fear of computers, and have the confidence and curiosity to jump into a new computing experience
• Understand that coding is used in a diverse set of jobs/hobbies
• Are willing to persevere and have a debugging mindset
• Collaborate -- coding is social!
• Learn and use basic coding concepts such as object creation, conditionals, variables, loops and input/output

The teaching fellows are writing the curriculum, which will be used nationwide after the program has completed its pilot phase. The program is designed for the sessions to be run by volunteers, and part of the curriculum kit for the schools will include information on marketing the program, signing up students and soliciting volunteers.

"The kit will provide all the teaching materials, screencasts and curricula for the after-school programs in hopes that it'll ignite the interest and confidence of the students," Goodman said.

Although not even a full year in, the program is already showing some promising results. Studying student engagement and preferences, the program produced several major findings, which Goodman said will help shape the program going forward:

• Students were most engaged when they had a creative outlet or where there was a big "wow-factor." They were less engaged with tools that were strongly scaffolded for learning and did not result in a creative result. In this initial set of pilots, students were most engaged with Scratch and App Inventor.
• Club culture is as important as the tool choice for engagement levels; therefore, the program continues to intentionally create a social club environment.
• Scaffolding and forward momentum are especially important in creative design-oriented tools. Students sometimes became distracted by the design aspects of Scratch and would often not code unless club structure included accountability.

**If You Want to Help - **Things to keep in mind:

• The club runs twice a week, for a total of eight sessions, per curriculum theme.
• The club is usually 1 hour and 15 minutes long, with some classroom preparation time beforehand and cleanup at the end.
• There is also some preparation before each club to understand the materials and project for that day.

"We estimate that this is about a half-hour commitment, but it depends on the volunteer," Berrio said. "We would love to hear from folks who are interested. The best way to reach us is at csfirst-info@google.com."

For more information about CS First or to volunteer online, visit https://sites.google.com/site/carolinacsfirst/.