ANNUAL REPORT 1997-98

COMPUTER SCIENCE/INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY COURSE DESIGN TEAM

VIRGINIA COLLABORATIVE FOR EXCELLENCE IN THE PREPARATION OF TEACHERS

Team activities The entire team met three times, once at Longwood College, once at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, and once at Mary Washington College. In these meetings we discussed the general education CS/IT course we have been developing, and we heard reports from committee members at Longwood and VCU who have piloted the course. We held preliminary discussions about the second course to be developed. At the Mary Washington meeting we hosted several technological coordinators from elementary and middle schools, who gave us advice about what technological competencies are needed by K-8 teachers and what resources are available.

Five team members team-taught the general education course at VCU during the summer, and two members taught it at Longwood in the fall. The course is being offered on a regular basis at these two institutions, and we are involving second tier faculty in it.

Course information The general education CS/IT course is being offered each semester and in the summer at Longwod and at VCU. The course and its description at each school are as follows.

VCU: Computer Science 128: Computer Concepts. A general introduction to computer technology, PC hardware, and state of the art software. This course is intended to serve the needs of many disciplines as a general education course, including teacher education. The course provides technical skills in using a word processor, spreadsheet, database package, electronic mail, remote library access, and Internet access. It also covers the basic concepts of computer hardware and how a computer functions, and it includes ethical issues and the impact of computers on society.

VCU's course is offered as a general education course. Under recent revisions to the College General Education requirements, Computer Science 128 is not specifically required, but serves as one way in which students may meet the "computer literacy" requirement of the College of Humanities and Sciences. Many departments strongly suggest that their students take this course.

Longwood: Computer Science 121: Introduction to Computer Science. A general introduction to computer science intended to develop an overall understanding of the discipline, including its scope, major results and consequences, and the current status of the field. Topics include basic computer architecture and storage representations, operating systems and networks, the Internet, ethical issues, and contemporary software packages.

Longwood's course may be taken to fulfill one of the general education requirements. In addition, all Liberal Studies majors (which include practically all students certifying to teach K-8) will be required to take it beginning this fall.

The course is scheduled to be taught this summer at Norfolk State as part of the Collaborative's summer Institute.

Dissemination activities The committee has a Web page at

web.lwc.edu/staff/bwebber/CS_IT.htm

We are looking at appropriate professional meetings at which to present papers about the course, and a committee member has agreed to write a paper for submission for publication.

Attracting second tier faculty A Longwood professor who is not a committee member is currently teaching the course. Since the course will be required of Liberal Studies majors beginning this fall, we anticipate large numbers of students taking it, and several additional faculty will be involved in teaching it.

At VCU all sections are currently being taught by non-Collaborative personnel. Regular faculty and adjuncts teach the lectures, while most recitation sections are taught by graduate teaching assistants.

Thoughts on reconstituting the team We are beginning work on developing a second CS/IT course, this one intended for people who want to become lead teachers or computer resource people in the K-8 grades. We believe the core of the committee should remain intact for that effort.

We continue to be concerned about the lack of involvement of K-8 teachers in the work on the committee. To this end, we invited area K-8 technology coordinators to our Mary Washington meeting, and several attended. We intend to continue to reach out to teachers in the field, for we value their input.