The Department of Computer Science (DCS) at the UofT is proud to present CS4HS in association with Google! This July, 32 high school teachers came to St. George campus for 3 days of technical workshops, panel discussions with DCS students and Google representatives, a mock programming competition using the Dwite system, and so much more!
- See the 2011 summer program agenda here, and the summer program website here.
Participants worked on new lessons and programs to incorporate into the high school CS curriculum. The summer program also included a Tuesday dinner out with a special talk by DCS research faculty member Daniel Wigdor, and a Wednesday pub event that featured a resources "show-and-tell" event.
This year's CS4HS attendees will return to the department for two days this coming school year, and will present their newly-created lesson plans and activities at this fall's ACSE Conference, which will be held in November.
What some CS4HS participants had to say about the 2011 summer program:
"It was a wonderful experience, and I look forward to the October session to wrap things up. I felt so lucky to be part of such and inquisitive and knowledgable group of people."
"This has far and away been the most productive PD I have attended."
"I think [coming up with a lesson for the CS curriculum] was a terrific idea - I found the collaborative aspect of it particularly appealing. It's one thing to come up with an assignment on your own. It's so much more valuable to germinate an assignment from an idea that is watered by the collective minds of a group. I loved it."
Our specific goals with CS4HS are to:
- Help teachers learn practical skills directly related to their September 2011 CS teaching assignments.
- Develop communities of teachers teaching similar ICS courses in the fall (course cohorts). These cohorts would continue to exist as support communities through to the spring of 2012, through the use of tools such as discussion boards, intentional communication, and monthly face-to-face collaboration sessions.
- Educate teachers about the breadth and quantity of CS career opportunities for university CS graduates and also about the relevance of CS to many other disciplines. We will provide this knowledge in a way that can be easily shared with students.
- Educate and inspire teachers about exciting research and development in CS. Focus on topics and approaches that will help them meet the specific Ontario curriculum expectations related to CS research.
*The application period for this year's program has passed; if you are interested in future offerings of CS4HS, please check back here for more information or contact us at the link below.
Please send any CS4HS inquiries here.
CS4HS is sponsored in part by:
