Author’s note: During the spring of 2022, I took ENG-104 Honors Composition II at Berkshire Community College with professor Nell McCabe. The course was a semester long research project on any topic of our choosing. I choose to discuss the state of computer science education at Taconic High School, which I am a student at. This is the final product at the end of the course.

Here is the PDF version of the research paper in APA 7th edition student formatting.

Abstract

Taconic High School, an academic and vocational high school in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, will be transitioning to a fully vocational school within the next two school years, and their information technology (IT) and computer science teacher will be retiring after this school year. This has caused the number of computer science elective course offerings to be limited to one, Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles (AP CSP). Even with the retirement of Taconic’s IT teacher, Taconic should offer AP CSP and Advanced Placement Computer Science A (AP CSA) to students interested in computer science, a demographic increasing due to the popularity of video games. Offering AP CSP would get these interested students comfortable with computer science, while offering AP CSA would allow these students to build upon the skills learned in AP CSP in this more advanced course. Implications are discussed on how these two courses should be offered at Taconic, including how the courses should be aligned to allow for all students to succeed in both courses. 

Introduction

Taconic High School, an academic and vocational high school in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is starting to undergo major changes. In communications with Taconic principal Matthew Bishop, Superintendent Joseph Curtis, and Assistant Superintendent for College and Career Readiness Tammy Gage, the school will be starting to transition to a fully vocational school within the next two school years. Though academic and elective courses will still be offered, the primary focus will be for students to take part in one of the thirteen, and eventually fourteen, vocational programs the school has to offer. Another change is occurring at the same time: the teacher who has taught Taconic’s various computer science and information technology (IT) elective courses over the years will be retiring after this school year, with the school opting not to replace his position. Instead, the funds for the position will be used to hire an additional teacher for the Information Support Services and Networking (ISSN) vocational program (Curtis, 2022, p. 24; Gage et al., 2022). This has resulted in a major shift in computer science elective course offerings at Taconic with the number of offerings being limited to one, Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles (AP CSP) (Taconic High School, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c). Even with the transition to a fully vocational school, Taconic should still offer supplemental computer science elective courses to all interested students, especially students in the ISSN vocational program, by offering AP CSP and Advanced Placement Computer Science A (AP CSA) using the curriculums provided by Code.org.

Why Should There Be Computer Science Electives in the First Place?

With information coming out about Taconic’s eventual transition to a fully vocational school, concerns have been raised regarding vocational students’ access to elective course offerings outside of their vocational program, especially in the arts. In various communications regarding these concerns, Principal Matthew Bishop has made clear that vocational students in a fully vocational Taconic High School will still have access to elective course offerings, even in the arts. He has even been working on a new schedule to go into effect next school year which will allow for vocational students to have access to electives, which has not been the case in prior years. There is no question that elective course offerings will supplement a student’s education at Taconic even in a fully vocational school, but the question of what electives students will have access to at Taconic still remains. According to the course planners given to current students for the next school year, Taconic will be offering a wide variety of arts-based electives, but a lack of computer science electives (2022a, 2022b, 2022c). Meeting the interests of students is key to ensuring that students are interested in their learning and are adequately prepared for post-secondary education or employment. Otherwise, students will be disinterested in their learning, be less engaged in school, and end up not being as successful as if they were interested in their learning. As computer science is becoming more popular among students, Taconic needs to offer more computer science electives in order to meet the interest needs of these students.

Students have been becoming increasingly interested in computer science, primarily through means such as video games, and Taconic needs to be aware of this. Interest in video games has been increasing among students, especially in the past couple years with students resorting to video games to safely socialize with friends during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a study done by Rebecca Sevin and Whitney DeCamp (2016), they found that “there is a clear connection between playing video games and confidence with computers, as well as an interest in computer science.” They go on to mention how this could explained by students being exposed to concepts of digital and technological literacy through playing video games. This makes logical sense, students serious about playing video games will start to learn more about the computer systems that power their games, start to tinker with these systems to get the best gaming experience possible, then possibly start to develop an affinity for computer science. This is evident by the increase in popularity of YouTubers who cater to video game players wanting to tinker with their computer systems. For instance, the YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips has seen an increase of approximately 5.9 million subscribers since May of 2019 (Social Blade, 2022). Because of this, there is ample evidence that students are going to become increasingly interested in computer science and are going to want to learn more about the field in school. By offering computer science electives, Taconic can ensure the interest needs of students are being met and will ensure students stay interested in their learning.

Computer science elective course offerings can even help to supplement the Information Support Services and Networking (ISSN) program’s curriculum. The main purpose of the ISSN program is to prepare students for careers in information technology (IT) such as computer support specialist and network administrator (Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School, 2019). Though it is not a computer science vocational program, it does teach students concepts that are typically taught in an academic computer science setting. For instance, The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) framework for the ISSN program mentions that students should have certain skills in programming before leaving the program, as listed in Table 1 (2014, p. 12). As will be discussed shortly, AP CSP would meet most, if not all, of these programming objectives for the ISSN program. This could mean that time ISSN students spend in AP CSP could be counted towards the required hours needed to complete the program without using up any time “in shop.” In addition, offering these students AP CSA would exceed the required programming objectives while also providing students valuable skills that will be useful in their career after high school if they choose to continue in the IT pathway. In short, providing computer science electives to ISSN students will allow them to enrich their education beyond the time spent in the actual program.

Table 1

ISSN Framework Objectives Involving Programming

Standard	Objective
2.P.01.01	Describe what a computer program is and how it runs.
2.P.01.02	Identify and list various types of current programming languages.
2.P.01.03	Explain the steps in a program life cycle.
2.P.01.04	Design a simple program for a specific application.
2.P.01.05	Create, test functionality, debug and document a simple computer program.
2.P.01.06	Describe and apply database concepts.
2.P.01.07	Give examples of database queries and data reports.
2.P.01.08	Create a custom database.

The Case for AP Computer Science Principles

AP Computer Science Principles (AP CSP) is a great introductory computer science course that all students can take, even with no prior computer science background. College Board, the non-profit organization that oversees the Advanced Placement program, created the course back in 2015 in order to expose a diverse body of students to computer science, especially groups of students that have been underrepresented in the field (College Board, 2020b). No prior computer science experience is needed to take the course and the only recommended prerequisite is Algebra 1, meaning there is a very low barrier to entry for students who would like to take this course. AP CSP covers a wide range of topics in computer science, covering the basics on how the internet operates, to digital innovations and the impacts they have on society, to learning the fundamentals of programming (College Board, 2020c). AP CSP is a great introductory computer science course that most, if not all, Taconic students would be able to take. In addition, using Code.org’s curriculum for AP CSP would be a good fit for Taconic. The curriculum is completely online, which is important as all Taconic students have their own Chromebooks, which means there can be flexibility in how the course content is delivered to students. The curriculum is geared towards getting students comfortable with computer science even if they do not plan on continuing their education in the field (Code.org, 2021a), and no teaching experience with computer science is required to teach the course as long as the teacher goes to a summer workshop to prepare them to teach the course (Code.org, 2021b). This means that there is a low barrier to entry for Taconic to offer this course, even in the face of the retirement of their IT teacher.

However, courses like AP CSP have generated controversy from some computer science educators due to their decreased focus on programming concepts. For instance, in his opinion article in the professional computer science education magazine ACM Inroads, computer science educator Scott Portnoff (2020) criticizes the state of computer science education in high schools. He criticizes how schools and computer science curriculum designers have been pushing students to take “survey courses” such as AP CSP which deemphasize the programming aspects of computer science, which he sees as crucial in preparing students for future coursework. He argues that these courses do not prepare students for future coursework and that students will “learn nothing that will help them succeed in subsequent courses should they enroll, making the year spent a meagre use of limited instructional time.” Portnoff’s argument is important to mention as AP CSP is not designed to prepare students for future computer science coursework. The course only covers the major topics in brief, and even some of the programming skills may not transfer over to more advance courses.

Other computer science educators point out the faults of Portnoff’s argument by mentioning that the purposes of courses like AP CSP is not to prepare students for future coursework. For instance, in his blog post which responds to Portnoff’s article, computer science educator and researcher Mark Guzdial (2020) disagrees with Portnoff’s conclusions about the use of courses such as AP CSP, stating:

An important goal for CS Education is to get students in the door… They [the Computer Science Equity Alliance] care about getting diverse students to have their first experience with computer science… They care more about creating a technically-informed citizenry than producing more software developers.

The purpose of AP CSP is to get students “in the door” and for them to be comfortable with the field of computer science, not to prepare them for more advanced coursework that they will encounter in later computer science courses. This is important to make clear as if AP CSP is the only course offered to students interested in computer science, then these students will not be well prepared for the future coursework ahead of them.

The Case for AP Computer Science A

AP CSP cannot be the only computer science course Taconic offers. As stated previously, the purpose of AP CSP is to get students comfortable with the field of computer science, not to necessarily prepare them for future computer science coursework. It also has been shown that AP CSP is a less rigorous course compared to AP CSA. In a review of both curriculums using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, it was shown that AP CSP is a less rigorous course due to the course not covering most topics in-depth. At the end of the paper the researchers make the conclusion that “it is likewise important for schools and school districts to carefully consider the potential limiting effect of selecting Computer Science Principles as their sole AP Computer Science course offering” (Havard & Howard, 2019). This is crucial to mention as only offering AP CSP is a disservice to students who would like to continue their education in computer science as the course does not adequately prepare them for future coursework. In order to serve these interested students, Taconic needs to offer AP CSA as it is a rigorous course that prepares students for future computer science coursework.

According to College Board, AP CSA is a rigorous computer science course that focuses on programming in the Java programming language and that the course is equivalent to an introductory college course in computer science. The course covers a wide range of programming topics: from the basics of programming in Java, to methods and classes, to even object-oriented programming patterns such as inheritance and polymorphism. In addition, there is a minimum 20-hour lab requirement where students work hands-on with programming in Java to solve computer problems (College Board, 2020a). AP CSA is a great course to build up on the concepts students learned in AP CSP and give them new programming skills that will be useful after high school. In addition, with Code.org’s new AP CSA curriculum there is little barrier to entry for Taconic to implement this more advanced course. As with its AP CSP curriculum, Code.org’s AP CSA curriculum is completely online, providing flexibility in how the course content is delivered to students. The curriculum builds upon the knowledge students learned in AP CSP, which allows it to fit nicely as a more advanced computer science course to be taken after AP CSP. The curriculum teaches the material in a way where students utilize the concepts they learn all throughout the course. And most importantly the curriculum provides connections to software engineering practices not covered in College Board’s AP CSA curriculum, including code review, managing version control systems, and Unified Modeling Diagrams (J. Cocchiola, personal communications, March 29, 2022). The course design is phenomenal and is suited for preparing students for future computer science coursework and to prepare them for a career in computer science if they so choose. This makes it a great fit for students interested in computer science looking to expand upon the knowledge they learned in AP CSP.

In addition, it has even been shown in various studies that AP CSA prepares students for college computer science coursework. For instance, in a study by Chen Chen, Jane Kang, Gerhard Sonner, and Philip Sadler (2021), they found that students who took AP CSA in high school tended to do better in introductory computer science college courses than students who did not take the course. In another study done by Heidi Burgiel, Philip Sadler, and Gerhard Sonnert (2020), they found that students who had taken computer science courses that focused on programming in high school tended to have higher grades in introductory computer science college courses. And in another study by Timothy Weston, Wendy Dubow, and Alexis Kaminsky (2020), it was shown that women who learned computer programming concepts in high school tended to do better in computer science college courses. From these various studies, it appears as though high school courses that focus on teaching students programming are important in ensuring students’ success in introductory computer science college courses. This underscores the need for AP CSA at Taconic in order to properly serve students interested in computer science by providing a course that prepares these students for future computer science coursework. And with the ease of implementation provided by Code.org’s new curriculum, there is no good reason not to offer AP CSA to interested students at Taconic.

Course Alignment Recommendations and Logistics

It is crucially important when offering AP CSP and AP CSA that the courses are aligned in the most optimal way possible to allow for all students to succeed. The most optimal way of aligning courses to ensure that all students can succeed in both AP CSP and AP CSA is to offer AP CSP to students first, and then once they complete the course to offer them AP CSA. AP CSP is a great course to get a wide range of students interested in computer science and to give them the fundamentals needed to be able to succeed in future computer science coursework if they so choose, thought that is all the course is designed to do. As discussed previously, a comparison of both AP CSP and AP CSA using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy found that AP CSP is a less rigorous course than AP CSA. It primarily focuses on “applying knowledge and analyzing information” while AP CSA focuses more on “analyzing and evaluation [of information]” (Havard & Howard, 2019). This is by design, as the course is only meant to introduce computer science to students who otherwise have not had the opportunity to study computer science before. If students who had no computer science background were given rigorous computer science coursework such as the coursework found in AP CSA, then it would be setting these students up for failure. They need a foundational course to help them understand the basics of computer science, then build upon the basics in a more advanced course. Offering AP CSP first will allow students to get the foundations they need for understanding computer science, and then if they so choose can use those foundational skills to take a more advanced course, such as AP CSA.

It has also been found that AP CSP might be beneficial in increasing students’ tests scores on the AP CSA end of year exam. In a paper by Phillip Boda and Steven McGee of The Learning Partnership (2021), they analyzed what variables predicted students AP CSA test scores in the Chicago Public Schools. They found that “students that took ECS [Exploring Computer Science] before AP CS A were 3.5 times more likely to pass the AP CS A exam than those who did not, after covariate adjustment.” Because of this finding, they recommended the following:

Most notably by leveraging ECS as a foundational CS course to decide when a school may be ready for the implementation of AP CS A, as well as to think more acutely about how intermediate CS courses could be developed to support a scope and sequence of CS courses starting with ECS and continuing through AP CS courses.

Exploring Computer Science is an introductory level computer science course that is similar to AP CSP, though AP CSP covers some of the material more in depth such as programming (Exploring Computer Science, 2019). These findings could be extrapolated to AP CSP, which makes sense as students that already have a fundamental understanding of a topic will do better than students who do not have a fundamental understanding of that topic. With these findings and to ensure student success in both courses, AP CSP should be the first computer science course offered to students, then AP CSA should be offered to students who have completed AP CSP.

It should also be noted that under the updated Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) “recommended” program of study for high school students MassCore (2020), students can take AP CSP and have it count for either a science course or a math course (2018). As MassCore is aligned so that students can meet the requirements for attending a state college or university (Riley, 2018), most students would be able to swap a math or science course out for AP CSP without repercussions later on. DESE does recommend however that all students “should take algebra I and algebra II; students should consider taking computer science following geometry and prior to algebra II; and all students should take a mathematics course in their senior year” (Riley, 2019). As mathematics makes up the foundation of computer science, students should be advised not to swap out a math course for AP CSP at Taconic, though they should be allowed to swap out either chemistry or physics for AP CSP if they so wish. This could even be encouraged with students in the ISSN program, as they could be given the option to switch out chemistry or physics for AP CSP to align with their vocational program. This is not unprecedented at Taconic as students in the Health Technology program are encouraged to take anatomy and physiology instead of physics during their junior year. This shows that there is no reason ISSN students would not be able to do the same thing.

Logistical concerns also need to be figured out in implementing AP CSP and AP CSA at Taconic. First, Taconic needs to find a teacher to teach both AP CSP and AP CSA. Though a teacher does not need to have prior computer science experience to teach AP CSP with Code.org’s curriculum, it is recommended that they have experience teaching AP CSP when teaching their AP CSA curriculum (J. Cocchiola, personal communications, March 29, 2022). This certainly does present an issue to implementing these courses at Taconic, but under the new schedule vocational teachers will be able to teach an elective to students outside of their vocational program (T. Gage, personal communications, March 28, 2022). This could mean that the ISSN teachers could teach these two courses. Second, guidance counselors and students need to be well informed about these two courses, the differences between them, and the proper course alignment students should take in order to maximize chances of success on the end of year AP exams. To help facilitate in that, College Board has marketing materials available on their website for AP CSP (2021). However, Taconic should still create their own materials to help ensure that there is no lack of clear communication regarding these courses, which could set students up for failure. These two logistical challenges should not be a deterrent to offering AP CSP and AP CSA at Taconic however. The cost and time needed to implement these courses will not outweigh the potential benefits these courses could have on students, as well as ensuring the interest needs of students are met at Taconic.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Taconic should offer supplemental computer science education to all students by offering AP CSP and AP CSA using Code.org’s curriculums. Even though Taconic is transitioning to a fully vocational school within the next couple years, the school is still pushing for students to take additional elective coursework outside of their chosen vocational program. And with interest in computer science growing, there is no reason that computer science education should not be offered to interested students. To fulfill this need for computer science education, AP CSP and AP CSA should be offered to students. AP CSP is an introductory computer science course that is built to introduce a diverse range of students to the field of computer science, while AP CSA is a course that focuses on computer programming in the Java programming language and is a good course to build upon the material students learn in AP CSP. Code.org’s curriculums for both courses are web based, rigorous, and very well-designed, which make them a great fit for use at Taconic even after the retirement of their current IT teacher. And students should be recommended to take AP CSP before taking AP CSA, and students should be given the option to replace either chemistry or physics with AP CSP as allowed under MassCore. Keeping computer science education at Taconic is going to be crucial in preparing students for the future, as well as keeping students interested in their learning so they can be successful after high school.

References

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