Rising Above the Gathering Storm Calvin Lin July

Rising Above the Gathering Storm Calvin Lin July 10, 2009

The Golden Egg • Technical innovation is changing the world • • Health care Science Business Energy Communication Entertainment. . . 2

Our Golden Egg • Technical innovation • Has been led by the US • Has fueled the US economy for years 3

The Problem– Not Enough Eggs • Dire need to strengthen K-12 teaching of math and science • “Rising Above the Gathering Storm”, National Academy of Science, 2007 • CS presents particular challenges 4

Talk Outline • National response: CS/10, 000 • Feedback? • UT response • A few words about the Turing Scholars Program? 5

The National Perspective • CS/10, 000 • NSF-led initiative to increase the # of high school CS teachers by 10, 000 by 2015 • Leverage the AP structure • Pre-AP course • Gold Standard AP course • CS A course 6

Pre-AP Course • Teach computer fluency • Designed for broad audience • Foundations of computing and computational thinking • Inquiry-based approach with exciting modern applications 7

Gold Standard AP Course • Explore computational concepts in more detail • Includes critical thinking, logic, algorithms • Shows the magic of computing 8

CS A Course • Similar to existing courses • Students taking it should have greater motivation for programming after taking the first two courses 9

The UT Perspective • Enhance the UTeach Program to produce more CS high school teachers • Use the UTeach Institute to replicate our success to colleges throughout the country • Recruit more women and under-represented minorities into CS 10

What is UTeach? • A collaboration between College of Natural Sciences and College of Education to increase the number of K-12 math and science teachers • Sister program exists in the College of Liberal Arts • Sister program recently formed by the College of Engineering 11

UTeach Degree Programs • Serves three populations • UT undergrads majoring in math or science • Degree holders in math or science • Certified math or science teachers 12

Undergraduate CNS Majors • Compact 4 year degree program • Students receive degrees from their home department • Students earn teaching certificate from UTeach • Mastery of subject matter + teaching skills • 18 hours of courses from UTeach • Hands-on experience in local schools • Mentoring 13

Success • Has more than doubled the number of math and science teachers graduating from UT 14

Success • Higher retention for UTeach teachers UTeach National Average 15

UTeach Institute • Replicates UTeach to other colleges • 54 pre-proposals from 26 states in 2007 • 13 grants awarded: • Berkeley, Colorado, Florida St, Houston, Kansas, LSU, N. Arizona, Temple, UC Irvine, UT-Dallas, Univ. of North Texas, W. Kentucky 16

Current Status • No UTeach certificate in Computer Science 17

Our Plan • Develop curriculum for UTeach CS certificate • Two populations • CS majors: How to squeeze in 18 hours? • Non-CS majors: How much CS should they know? • Target over-subscribed majors (Biology, Pharmacy) • Convey excitement of CS as it applies to other fields 18

What Can You Do? • Inspire students to study CS • Make students aware of teaching opportunities and programs such as UTeach 19

Questions? 20

The Turing Scholars Program Calvin Lin July 10, 2009

Goals of the Program • • Attract top students Give them a special environment Offer them great opportunities Produce the high tech leaders of tomorrow 22

Benefits of the Program • Challenging honors CS courses • Emphasis on undergraduate research • Small class sizes: • 40 freshmen join per year • A small community within UT 23

Our Program is Unique • UTCS is top ten CS department • • Rice is #20 A&M is tied for 46 th UT-Dallas is tied for 72 nd No other Texas schools in the top 75 24

Questions? www. cs. utexas. edu/honors 25

Why is a Top Ten Department Important? • Research opportunities • Breadth and depth of research opportunities • Reputation • Important for post-graduate success 26

External Success Summer jobs: • Amazon, Apple, Arena. Net, Cisco, Dell, Deutsche Bank, Freescale, Google, IBM, Intel, Lockheed-Martin, Microsoft, National Instruments, Schlumberger, Sony, Sun, Texas Instruments. . . Summer internships: • Arecibo Observatory, Goddard Space Flight Center, NSF internships at Univ. of Colorado, Univ. of Minnesota, UT-Austin 27

Fall ’ 02: Khoa Tran ’ 06 • Hometown: • Research: Vietnam Spent junior year in Stockholm, Sweden • Double major in Math and CS • Post-Grad: Computational and Applied Math Ph. D Program, UT-Austin 28

Fall 03: Shan Wang ’ 06 • Hometown: • Research: Austin, TX Automatic Knowledge Integration • Commencement speaker • Post-Grad: Computer Science Ph. D Program, Stanford 29

Mickey Ristroph ’ 08 Fall ’ 04: Tarun Nimmagadda ‘ 08 • Research: Autonomous Vehicle Grand Challenge • Winner: $50, 000 RGK Social Innovation competition 30

Fall ’ 05: Franzi Roesner ‘ 08 • • Hometown: Round Rock, TX Research: TRIPS project Entered as Plan II major Has already published at top CS conference – twice! 31

Fall ’ 06: Chris Wiley ‘ 10 • Hometown: San Antonio, TX • Double major in Engineering and CS • Currently: Summer job at Google 32

Help Us Recruit Your Best • Average SAT 1440 • Roughly 50% of admitted students rank 1 st 10 th in their high school class • But, we look beyond the numbers • Looking for strong math and science backgrounds • Looking for leadership, motivation, involvement, diversity 33