Rising Above the Gathering Storm

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Rising Above the Gathering Storm

• Calvin Lin
• July 10, 2009

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The Golden Egg

• Technical innovation is changing the world
• Health care
• Science
• Business
• Energy
• Communication
• Entertainment
• . . .

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Our Golden Egg

• Technical innovation
• Has been led by the US
• Has fueled the US economy for years

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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

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Talk Outline

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

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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

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Pre-AP Course

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

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Gold Standard AP Course

• Explore computational concepts in more detail
• Includes critical thinking, logic, algorithms
• Shows the magic of computing

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CS A Course

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

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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

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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

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UTeach Degree Programs

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

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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

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Success

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

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Success

• Higher retention for UTeach teachers

UTeach
National Average
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UTeach Institute

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

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Current Status

• No UTeach certificate in Computer Science

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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

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What Can You Do?

• Inspire students to study CS
• Make students aware of teaching opportunities and
  programs such as UTeach

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Questions?
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The Turing Scholars Program

• Calvin Lin
• July 10, 2009

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Goals of the Program

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

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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

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Our Program is Unique

• UTCS is top ten CS department
• Rice is 20
• AM is tied for 46th
• UT-Dallas is tied for 72nd
• No other Texas schools in the top 75

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Questions?
www.cs.utexas.edu/honors
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Why is a Top Ten Department Important?

• Research opportunities
• Breadth and depth of research opportunities
• Reputation
• Important for post-graduate success

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External Success

• Summer jobs
• Amazon, Apple, ArenaNet, 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

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Fall 02 Khoa Tran 06

• Hometown Vietnam
• Research Spent junior year in Stockholm,
  Sweden
• Double major in Math and CS
• Post-Grad Computational and Applied Math PhD
  Program, UT-Austin

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Fall 03 Shan Wang 06

• Hometown Austin, TX
• Research Automatic Knowledge Integration
• Commencement speaker
• Post-Grad Computer Science PhD Program,
  Stanford

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Mickey Ristroph 08Fall 04 Tarun Nimmagadda
08

• Research Autonomous Vehicle Grand Challenge

• Winner 50,000 RGK Social Innovation competition

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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!
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Fall 06 Chris Wiley 10

• Hometown San Antonio, TX
• Double major in Engineering and CS
• Currently Summer job at Google

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Help Us Recruit Your Best

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