Merging MyCS: Lessons from a District-wide Middle-school CS pilot (Abstract Only)
Authors: 
Sam Andow, Kaitlyn Eng, Julia McCarthy, Olivia Palenscar, Thomas Schneider, Adam Schulze, Zachary Dodds, 
Bryan TwarekAuthors Info & Claims
Sam Andow, Kaitlyn Eng, Julia McCarthy, Olivia Palenscar, Thomas Schneider, Adam Schulze, Zachary Dodds, Bryan TwarekAuthors Info & ClaimsPage 703
Abstract
In 2015-16, San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) piloted MyCS, a Middle-years CS curriculum, in half of its middle schools. This unexpected launch led naturally to diverging curricular branches: one that evolved within the district, another used by schools with the program already in place. The summer after the pilot, SFUSD's and MyCS's stewards convened for a week of feedback, PD, and planning. This poster highlights the curricular refinements, preliminary assessment results, and institutional changes that came from this curricular divergence and subsequent reconciliation. The data analyzed include teacher- and district-feedback, along with an analysis of student responses from SF's pilot implementation. Though accidental, this experiment suggests that substantial benefit can come from independently co-evolving (branching) and then reconciling (merging) curricula. When merged, those otherwise independent branches create a community both stronger and more invested for all of its stakeholders.
References
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Bell, T., Witten, I., and Fellows, M. 2010. Computer Science Unplugged. www.csunplugged.org
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Lauwers, T. Designing the Finch: Creating a Robot Aligned to Computer Science Concepts, Proc., First Symp. on Ed. Applications of AI, July 2010.
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Lee, I., et al. Project GUTS URL: www.projectguts.org
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Schanzer, E., Fisler, K., Krishnamurthi, S., and Felleisen, M. Transferring Skills at Solving Word Problems from Computing to Algebra Through Bootstrap, SIGCSE '15, Kansas City, MO, USA, pp. 616--621.
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Schofield, E., Erlinger, M., and Dodds, Z., MyCS: CS for Middle-years Students and Their Teachers SIGCSE '14, Atlanta, GA, USA, pp. 337--342. www.cs.hmc.edu/MyCS
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- Merging MyCS: Lessons from a District-wide Middle-school CS pilot (Abstract Only)
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Information
Published In
March 2017
838 pages
ISBN:9781450346986
DOI:10.1145/3017680
- General Chairs:
- Michael E. Caspersen,
- Stephen H. Edwards,
- Program Chairs:
- Tiffany Barnes,
- Daniel D. Garcia
Copyright © 2017 Owner/Author.
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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Published: 08 March 2017
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SIGCSE '17: The 48th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
March 8 - 11, 2017
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SIGCSE '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 105 of 348 submissions, 30%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%
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