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Addressing 21st century skills by embedding computer science in K-12 classes

Published: 06 March 2013 Publication History

Abstract

School districts across the country are embracing 21st century skills, and grappling with how to teach these to their K-12 students. At the same time, computer science educators are grappling with how to broaden participation. These two dilemmas are related, in that computer science can be used to teach many of the 21st century skills, and bringing computer science to all K-12 students can help broaden participation.
For computer scientists, key 21st century skills [4] include creativity & innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication & collaboration, information literacy, media literacy and information, communications and technology (ICT) literacy -- these skills go beyond traditional "computational thinking" skills because they include reflections on how computation affects social processes (such as the role of computational media in society).
Since 2009, K-12 educators and computer science graduate students in the Engaging Computer Science in Traditional Education (ECSITE, pronounced "excite") project have developed curricular units that are embedded into non-computing K-12 classes [3]. These units collectively address many 21st century skills, and have been introduced into arts, geography, government, health, music, and science classes. In this special session, we will interactively share some of our successful curricular units that address different 21st century skills, initiate a broader discussion on embedding computer science into K-12 curriculum and discuss methods we are exploring to enhance the sustainability of such efforts.

References

[1]
Ambrose, M and Edbrooke, O. 2012. Social Education. to appear.
[2]
Gallagher, S.R., et al. 2011. A First Attempt to Bring Computational Biology into Advanced High School Biology Classrooms. PLoS Computational Biology 7(10): e1002244, doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002244
[3]
Goldberg, D. et al. 2012. Engaging Computer Science in Traditional Education: the ECSITE project. In ITiCSE 2012: The 17th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, Haifa, Israel.
[4]
Trilling, B., Fadel, C. 21st century skills: learning for life in our times. (2009). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

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cover image ACM Conferences
SIGCSE '13: Proceeding of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
March 2013
818 pages
ISBN:9781450318686
DOI:10.1145/2445196
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Published: 06 March 2013

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SIGCSE '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 111 of 293 submissions, 38%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 991 of 2,850 submissions, 35%

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View all
  • (2023)In critical need of research-based instructional strategies and assessment: an investigation of ePCR math lesson plans for middle school studentsJournal of Research on Technology in Education10.1080/15391523.2023.2232900(1-24)Online publication date: 24-Jul-2023
  • (2016)Digital Badges to Enhance Skills and Preparation for a Career in Cyber Security2016 IEEE 40th Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC)10.1109/COMPSAC.2016.97(622-623)Online publication date: Jun-2016
  • (2015)Learner-Centered Design of Computing Education: Research on Computing for EveryoneSynthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics10.2200/S00684ED1V01Y201511HCI0338:6(1-165)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2015
  • (2013)Expectations of computing and other STEM students: A comparison for different Class Levels, or (CSE ≠ STEM - CSE)|course level2013 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2013.6685120(1657-1663)Online publication date: Oct-2013

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