CS4HS at Harvey Mudd College

July 11-15, 2011

A summer workshop for middle school educators organized by Harvey Mudd College and supported by Google's CS4HS initiative.

Resources

Photos

Our Picasa album!

Goals

• To increase the computer science available to middle-years (middle-school and early high-school) students
• Provide professional development for local and remote teachers to empower them to use the ECS curriculum, either as a stand-alone class or as part of existing classes.
• Emphasize the importance of computational thinking and skills, beyond specific technical material such as typing or technology.
• To deepen teachers' understanding of CS and computer scientists' understanding of teaching to the benefit of each group.
• Engage hands-on with the computer science that the MyCS curriculum investigates
• Incorporate feedback and suitable pedagogy in order to improve the materials' reach
• Support teachers, local and remote, in delivering MyCS/ECS courses and materials

Contact

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to email us at Garrett_Wong@hmc.edu

Logistics

Directions

A Google map with the Olin Center and available parking marked: We are here!

MyCS-specific map

This campus map shows the available parking, the Olin Science Center, and the Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons in detail.

Parking

There is parking available south of Olin Center, along Platt Boulevard south of campus, and along Dartmouth Avenue south of twelfth street.

Where do I show up?

Enter the Franklin W. Olin Science Center. The CS office is Olin 1258, just south of the main foyer. We will be present to direct you to the workshop and labs from 8:45-9:00am. Also, the workshop will provide breakfast at the dining commons from 8:15-8:55am (see the above MyCS-specific map). Join us!

Schedule

Monday

• Morning session (9:00—12:00)
• Welcome
• MyCS and its curriculum: What is computing? What is a computer?
• Coffee break
• Morning lab: Computer deconstruction
• Break-out and report back session
• Lunch (12:00—12:45)
• Afternoon session (12:45—3:45)
• Data visualization: representing data beautifully
• What is programming?: PBJ, Lightbot, Scratch
• Computer intelligence: The Turing test
• Summary, brainstorm, and feedback

Tuesday

• Morning session (9:00—12:00)
• Algorithms and problem solving strategies
• Binary numbers (and other encodings) activity
• Coffee break
• Morning lab: Encoding legos and finite state machines (with pirates)
• Break-out and report back session
• Lunch (12:00—12:45)
• Afternoon session (12:45—3:45)
• Linear and binary search
• Sorting and efficiency
• Graphs and minimal spanning trees: The Muddy City
• Summary, brainstorm, and feedback

Wednesday

• Morning session (9:00—12:00)
• Web and society: Internet privacy and security, and responsible web use
• Introduction to web design, and sketching our own webpages
• Coffee break
• Morning lab: Forming our websites in HTML
• Break-out and report back session
• Lunch (12:00—12:45)
• Afternoon session (12:45—3:45)
• Afternoon lab: Making our websites beautiful using CSS
• Preview of Javascript and Flash: Doing more on the internet
• Summary, brainstorm, and feedback

Thursday

• Morning session (9:00—12:00)
• Introduction to Scratch
• Event-driven programming
• Coffee break
• More scratch programming: variables, conditionals, and randomness
• Break-out and report back session
• Lunch (12:00—12:45)
• Afternoon session (12:45—3:45)
• Create a timing game
• Explore game creation, finish games, and gallery walk
• Summary, brainstorm, and feedback

Friday: Super-secret extra-umptious fun-tivity extrava-palooza!

Acknowledgments

The organizers and Harvey Mudd College thank Google and the National Science Foundation for their generous support of this workshop and the broader MyCS (and ECS) efforts.