{"id":1245,"date":"2019-10-03T22:38:57","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T22:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/?p=1245"},"modified":"2019-10-25T23:51:13","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T23:51:13","slug":"teaching-computer-science-concepts-with-connect-four-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/2019\/10\/03\/teaching-computer-science-concepts-with-connect-four-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching computer science concepts with Connect Four and more"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Photo
Jennifer Parham-Mocello (left), assistant professor of computer science, specializes in computer science education. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Researchers at Oregon State University are taking an\ninnovative approach to teaching computer science concepts to middle school\nstudents using tabletop games such as Connect Four and Battleship. Working in\npartnership with teachers and administrators at Linus Pauling Middle School in\nCorvallis, Oregon, the team will develop and investigate a new curriculum to\nteach algorithmic thinking to sixth and seventh graders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project is part of a national movement called CSforALL\nand funded by a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. This is\nthe second grant impacting K-12 education that Jennifer Parham-Mocello,\nassistant professor of computer science, has received this year; the first was funded\nby Google<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The co-principal investigators on the National Science\nFoundation grant are Martin Erwig, Stretch Professor of Computer Science, and\nMargaret Niess, emeritus professor of education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, the team is working on curriculum development,\nwhich will be completed by the summer of 2020 when the middle school teachers\nwill conduct classes for an Oregon State University STEM Academy summer camp.\nIn the fall of 2020, the teachers will deliver the new curriculum in their\nsixth and seventh grade classes. The third year, the team will be refining the\ncurriculum and adding more games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of the grant is to make computer science more\naccessible and interesting to a broad range of young people. As a dual language\nimmersion school, Linus Pauling Middle School offers an opportunity for the\nresearchers and teachers to impact students from diverse backgrounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the regular curriculum, the group will be\nhosting family game nights twice a year at the school so that students can show\ntheir families and friends what they have been learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the reasons we picked games for teaching\ncomputational thinking is because they involve social interactions,\u201d\nParham-Mocello said. \u201cSo, we thought the game nights would be a fun way for the\nstudents to practice and get the families involved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers at Oregon State University are taking an innovative approach to teaching computer science concepts to middle school students using tabletop games such as Connect Four and Battleship. Working in partnership with teachers and administrators at Linus Pauling Middle School in Corvallis, Oregon, the team will develop and investigate a new curriculum to teach algorithmic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5907,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1231,1370967,6506,102661,155,101813],"class_list":["post-1245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-computer-science","tag-csforall","tag-k-12","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-oregon-state-university","tag-school-of-electrical-engineering-and-computer-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5907"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1248,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions\/1248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eecsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}