Competency based IT experienes

This paper introduces an ongoing National Science Foundation funded project that prepares high school students for college readiness and fosters student interests in careers in Information Technology. The project targets a mixed student population from urban, low-income settings. Based on the project's first-year results, the paper proposes significant changes that will be implemented in the project's second year. These changes include a competency-based education curriculum in which students' IT knowledge and skills can be assessed in a way that three college course credits can be awarded to students who are still in high schools, a 12-hour graduate certificate program that prepares both in- and pre-service teachers to teach college IT courses for University of Cincinnati at their high schools through an Ohio College Credit Plus program, and a more concentrated research in computational thinking, which has been brought up for national attention and recognized as one of the essential competencies among Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics disciplines.