PI: Tiffany Barnes
North Carolina State University
Award Details

North Carolina State University proposes BJC-STARS, a CS10K proposal to broaden access to computing education through engaging colleges and universities to prepare and support regional communities of high school teachers to teach the Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC) Computer Science Principles course. The effort leverages the STARS Alliance and community to engage new college faculty to support and recognize high school BJC teachers as change agents who bring about educational reform, and to provide them with tiered mentoring and support.

BJC-STARS synthesizes the STARS leadership development, tiered mentoring, and community building models with the BJC curriculum and professional development to develop a nationwide community of universities to support the adoption of CS Principles in schools. Each summer NC State will conduct a 5-day intensive BJC-STARS professional development (PD) workshop and BJC-STARS training. The BJC-STARS training will prepare college faculty from the STARS network and experienced BJC high school teachers to lead BJC-STARS PD in small clusters with 1 faculty mentor, 1 teacher-leader, and 5 new HS teachers. The BJC-STARS PD will build on the pillars of CS content, inquiry, equity, community, and leadership, engaging participants as teachers, learners, and observers. The participants will practice BJC content, develop pedagogical content knowledge and lesson plans, devise effective recruiting and retention strategies for women and underrepresented minorities, work with one another to solve problems and learn CS content, and reflect upon the experience and how it can be translated to the classroom.