Building a talent pool: the CS 10K project

Both innovations in computing and innovations using computing are fundamental to national competitiveness and societal progress, but the talent pool needed to sustain that innovation is uncertain. The building of a talent pool should start with K-12 education, but our schools are not providing broad access to quality computer science courses. While enrollment in high school STEM courses have increased substantially, the percentage of high school students who take CS is lower now than it was 20years ago. The CS 10K Project aims to address this fundamental challenge by developing effective and engaging new high school curricula in computing and getting that curricula into courses taught by 10,000well-prepared teachers in 10,000 high schools. While much has been accomplished in terms of developing curricula and providing professional development for teachers, we still need to more research on the effective teaching and learning computing skills and concepts. This talk will be an update on the CS 10K project and our related efforts t build an evidence base for computer science education.