UCLA Engineering: UCLA Engineer Fall 2004

UCLA Institute Aims to Train High School Computer Science Teachers and Promote the Subject to Underrepresented Students

By Christopher Sutton

In an effort to increase enrollment in high school computer science classes, 25 teachers from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) participated in a weeklong exchange with UCLA professors and researchers to find ways to better engage the interest of these students.

The exchange is part of the UCLA/LAUSD Advanced Placement Computer Science Institute, a partnership among the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, and LAUSD. Grants from the UCLA Center for Community Partnerships, Microsoft, LAUSD's Los Angeles Urban Systemic Program and Northrop Grumman helped fund the Institute.

“In most Los Angeles communities, few African American, Latino and female youth are learning or even being introduced to computer science in a way that is meaningful to them,” said Jane Margolis, an associate researcher at UCLA and co-founder of the Institute. “Many of these youth are not exposed to any learning beyond the most basic ‘point and click’ user skills in the schools.”

The exchange provided teachers with professional training in the Java computer language to prepare them for next year’s advanced placement computer science classes, which will switch from focusing on the C++ language to Java.

The Institute also aimed to develop engaging, effective approaches to classroom teaching of computer science. University professors from UCLA and UC Irvine presented approaches for making computer science more exciting by showing their own research on computer graphics, brain mapping, network sensors and theatrical applications.

Vijay K. Dhir, dean of the School of Engineering and co-founder of the Institute, sees the partnership between UCLA and LAUSD as an essential way to increase student achievement in the sciences.

“We are committed to increasing the pool of qualified high school students who can enter an engineering program at a top-tier university like UCLA,” Dhir said. “By increasing the capability of teachers to offer AP courses at their schools, we hope to provide more opportunities for students to take advanced courses in computer-related fields.”

The Institute grew from a series of conversations between Margolis and Dhir about how to improve the numbers of traditionally underrepresented students in engineering and the sciences.

Dhir saw the Institute as a potentially effective way of expanding educational opportunities for urban high school students within the engineering school and broadening the diversity of its student body. Since being named dean in 2002, he has been a vocal supporter of greater diversity in engineering and the applied sciences through the School’s Center for Excellence in Engineering and Diversity. The Institute, Dhir said, is another means of raising interest in the world of advanced technology.

“We want young people to experience the exciting possibilities of creating technology,” Dhir said. “As a public university we have an obligation to help ensure that this knowledge is distributed equitably, and our support of this computer science Institute is helping to achieve that.”

Margolis is the co-author of “Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing,” a book that summarizes her research concerning the recruitment and retention of women in computer science. She also leads a research project, funded by the National Science Foundation, investigating why so few African American, Latino and female students are studying computer science at the high school level.

In the course of her study, Margolis found that unlike many white and Asian male students in AP computer science classes who are introduced to computer science at home and further engaged with their community of friends, more students of color depend on school for their computing education. Yet, despite their enthusiasm for technology, these students are rarely shown the connection between their interests and computer science.

Only 15 of the 57 high schools in LAUSD offered computer science in 2003-04. LAUSD has pledged to introduce computer science at all of the schools that sent a teacher to the Institute. With 25 teachers participating, the district will nearly double the number of schools offering the curriculum this fall.

Two instructors provided Java training: Joanna Goode, a researcher from the Graduate School of Education and a former computer science teacher at Santa Monica High School, and David Smallberg, a computer science lecturer in the School of Engineering. Guest lecturers included: Petros Faloutsos, an assistant professor of computer science from the UCLA School of Engineering; Jeffrey Burke, an assistant professor from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film & Television; and Sandra Irani, an associate professor of computer science at the University of California, Irvine.

“We wanted to encourage the teachers to experiment in their classes,” Smallberg said. “Unlike other areas, like chemistry, where a mistake could blow up the lab, the worst that can happen in computer science is that you have to reboot.”