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Most Recent Status Reports:

Succeed Strategy - Eda Davis-Butts:
The Succeed Workgroup met at SuperQuest at WOU on August 6; collaborators also present were Chris Brooks, Don Domes, Natasha Macdonald and Ron Tenison.  The focus was planning for the August 19 Workshop “A Community Conversation: Diversity in the CS Classroom”.  Agenda and additional materials were set, and the top priority was identified as recruiting teachers to attend.  Ron Tenison volunteered to email a notice to the OCSTA listserv, and others committed to personally contacted likely teachers.

The August 19 workshop was held in North Salem. Eda Davis-Lowe, Don Kirkwood, and Don Domes presented best practices in diversity and instances of particular implementations to 10 teachers. A brainstorming exercise focused on particular challenges to and resources for implementing best practices in a teacher’s local environment. A group discussion on the necessary and sufficient conditions for pioneering a CS program, or any technology program, at a school finished the day. Initial feedback from all participants was positive.

Prior and subsequent activity sparked by the need for substantial door prizes at recruiting events may result in an ongoing relationship with Best Buy, which Jo is pursuing.

Respectfully submitted, Jo Oshiro, September 5, 2008

Motivate - Ben Manny:

The Motivate Workgroup met on August 20.  A wide-ranging discussion including Bruce Schafer reaffirmed that the eventual goal of the Engineering Coach Model is more than a team participating in a league or externally organized competition, although that team may be the most immediately implementable piece of the model.  Criteria for assessing student quality of experience and program goals and supports, discussed during June’s worksession, were revisited. Ultimately, we wish to not only affirm engineering enthusiasts in their choice, but to encourage students who might otherwise not consider engineering to become motivated to pursue these experiences and disciplines. Bruce continues to emphasize that in order to have a handle on the administration and evaluation of programs (e.g., FIRST Tech Challenge) a limited number of models and organizations is much to be desired.  

Several teachers recruited at SuperQuest were interested, and Don and Terrel are seeing some applications come through.  Don Domes remains confident that he will be able to secure funding to support these pilot efforts.

Respectfully submitted, Jo Oshiro, September 5, 2008

Prepare – Walt Mayberry:

The Prepare Workgroup met on July 29 and formally welcomed Walt Mayberry as the new chair.  Updates on OPAS-related activity:

• Plans and some materials for the PLTW presentation at the ODE/COSA Superintendent Summer Institute (August 5) were reviewed.
• Tim Brower reiterated, via email, the need for filling the State Leader Role; Tim also provided some data on the Summer Training Institute teachers.
• Plans for the OPAS workshop “A Community Conversation: Diversity in the CS Classroom” (August 19) were reviewed.
• Sherwood will pilot the Engineering Coach Club model, partially funded by Chalkboard.

Chris Brooks explained his review of the challenges of In-Class computer science programs; we will await additional information from SuperQuest and teachers returning from the University of Washington cs4hs workshop. Post-meeting, additional information on the TeachScheme program sparked an email discussion; this topic may be delegated to a subtaskforce collaboration of ETIC CSTF, Techstart, and Prepare.

Respectfully submitted, Jo Oshiro, September 5, 2008

Pathways - Tom Thompson:

Italics indicate activity since the meeting.

Four members of the workgroup met with Bob Broeg of WOU, Past Chair of the OCCC (Oregon Council of Computer Chairs), to explore possible opportunities and challenges for a statewide articulation agreement for CS (Computer Science) degrees, analogous to the Manufacturing Engineering Technology Statewide Articulation Agreement.  The OCCC promotes and coordinates computer curriculum among the public community colleges and public universities in Oregon.

Issues and considerations in creating such an agreement:

• Because of previous work and relationships among the OCCC, the framework on which an articulation agreement could be built is in place; Bob believes the interest is probably there.
• More than one flavor of CS degree may be needed as it is a very broad discipline; it is not unusual to find a CS doctoral candidate with no undergraduate CS.  There are cultural differences between CS in liberal arts colleges (emphasis on discrete math) and in engineering schools (emphasis on calculus).  Bob said he is educating CS students to work in the 80% of high tech jobs in Oregon that are not in a high tech industry.
• ACM (national professional society for computer science, not an accrediting body) has a standard for course numbering.
• A nationally-normed assessment would be very useful.  Something might exist in NOCTI. (Jo’s cursory review of the NOCTI Computer Networking Fundamentals and Computer Programming Assessments documentation at http://www.nocti.org/ResultsExp.cfm?category=Computer%20Related is that these assessments are not appropriate for CS past the first year, and perhaps not past the first programming class.  No object-oriented concepts or data structures appear to be included. The College Board has an Information Systems and Computer Applications exam that looks a bit more thorough, but is definitely slanted to Information Systems and Technology not CS – see http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/clep/ex_isca.html)
• Finding bandwidth from appropriate people:CS departments tend to be small, and students/courses require a significant degree of support.  From Bob: “All of this and the stuff we do on the ETIC CS Task Force is really good, but if we don’t do a good job in the classroom none of it matters.”

Tom and Susan will develop a scope of work statement for this project, and investigate possible funding and additional staff support.  Scott start conversations with potential recruits once this summary is in his hands.

The Manufacturing Engineering Technology Statewide Articulation Agreement has been completely signed off; Jo can widely distribute the “Good News for Students” article.  This information was well-received at both OACTE (Oregon Association of Career and Technical Educators) in April and the NW Youth Career Expo in May.  Further publicity materials will  be developed, especially for high school students and counselors.  Again, it was emphasized that the Articulation agreement is a bundling of courses rather than a conferred degree or an extensive implementation of new curricula.

Much of the continuing work of this committee is planned to be done offline.  The next meeting will probably be scheduled for October.

Respectfully submitted, Jo Oshiro, 7/31/07

Update 12/17/07: Tom Thompson presented the articulation work to the Oregon Council of Computer Chairs (OCCC) at their regular meeting, November 2. Reaction was positive. OCCC consists of computer science instructors, deans, and professors from community colleges and universities. Bruce Schafer and Dick Knight also brought the group up-to-date on the activities of the ETIC Computer Science Taskforce and the OPAS Prepare Workgroup. Conversations around doing the next set of statewide articulation agreements with CS programs have begun.

Update 01/08/08: There has been a lull in ongoing discussions about targeting CS as the next statewide articulation agreements that should pick up now that the new term has started.

Update July 2008: Debbie Moller has joined CCWD, taking over part of Susan Boyanovsky's responsibilities as Susan has moved on to Chemeketa Community College. Chair Tom Thompson and Debbie have been meeting regularly; her group may want to take the example of the Manufacturing Engineering Technology Articulation Agreement and continue the work under the aegis of CCWD or one of the statewide Pathways groups.

Marketing and Communications (Di Saunders):

Potential Marketing Help, as developed by the now sunsetted OPAS Marketing Committee July 24, 2006.

Volunteers and OUS Staff may contribute to the OPAS Initiative work in the following ways:

1. Outreach to Dept. of Education on curriculum changes (involves development of fact sheets; 2-pagers; sample curriculum; presentation materials).
2. Outreach to legislature to support building of pipeline; OPAS funding with ETIC budget; and curricular inclusions.
3. Dissemination of information on resources for students and teachers (eg, BEC Techno Supersite, grant/program opportunities, professional development opportunities.
4. Student-based materials on “what is engineering”, how to prepare, educational opportunities, how engineering is entry point to other careers such as marketing, logistics management, etc; use of creative design to attract teen readers (website or hard copy, tee shirts, etc.).
5. Materials for specific populations, such as under-served students, under-represented students (e.g, “For Girls Only” brochure on engineering).
6. Compilation and use of data to support various efforts to answer commonly asked questions and concerns.
7. Outreach to business groups and foundations to gain support and endorsement.
8. Public outreach on “what’s in it for me” to have more trained engineers in the state.

Respectfully submitted, Jo Oshiro, 1/30/07

 Steering Committee (OPASS) - Bruce Schafer

Eight committee members attended the June 20 Steering Committee meeting. Updates on workgroup and other related activity:

• Tom Thompson reports the successful conclusion of Oregon’s 3rd Math in CTE conference. This national effort, now headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky has math and CTE teachers attend as partners. Teachers exchange technical and theoretical pedagogy, content, and vocabulary so that the mathematical content of CTE courses is made explicit to teachers and students.
• This year’s teachers were mostly CAD and drafting; therefore much geometry was discussed.
• Don Domes also attended and enthusiastically endorsed the program. Despite his years of experience, he was surprised at how much geometry he has been teaching, and how much terminology he learned.
• “Math teachers have given up teaching fractions” but CTE teachers haven’t.
• Motivate Workgroup’s recent session resulted in tuning the “Engineering Team Challenge” to focus on a club model over a team model. Clubs would serve as bases from which to field teams. We want to be sure that club advisors do get connected to resources and a limited number of models so that we are allocating funds in ways that address our issues.
• Cathy Swider of ORTOP recently returned from a FIRST partner’s meeting for FIRST Tech Challenge (the high school program that connects most tightly to FIRST LEGO League) and reports they are open to our ideas.
• Prepare Workgroup’s upcoming meetings will focus on the CS side of our proposed in-class programs and will be led by Chris Brooks. We hope to identify the highest leverage points in case of budget cuts.
• Pathways: Tom recently met with Debbie Moller; CCWD may be moving to taking the lead on doing more of the statewide articulation work now that we have provided the Manufacturing Engineering Technology articulation agreement as a model for doing so.
• ETIC Student Marketing: Although carrying an ETIC title, the OPAS committees and workgroups should feel free to offer comments and guidance as the mission overlap, and in some cases people overlap, is so great.
• Target: A February 2009/ National Engineer’s Month roll-out of getreal 3.0 website with engineering content added to the current CS content.
• The website is only part of a communication plan that includes “push” marketing driving traffic to the site.
• Has been brainstorming on social networking.
• Discussed the Johns Hopkins CTY opportunity, and is moving closer to consensus that we (OPAS, ETIC, OUS) want to participate. Discussion with Johns Hopkins shows they are open to allowing us methods to achieve greater inclusivity, and perhaps learning from that.
• ETIC CSTF:
• Opened the topic “Should more OUS institutions broaden offerings to include more software engineering, informatics, and business computing?”
• Clackamas recently signed an articulation agreement with OIT in health informatics.
• Dick: Be sure the message communicates the need for a rich, broad-based education, not just vocational need.
• Started checking out Carnegie Mellon’s cs4hs materials/programs, which could complement or be adopted by SuperQuest. Cs4hs has been adopted by Washington.
• Summer workshops are not a complete answer; trying to define a more complete answer.
• http://www.cs.cmu.edu/cs4hs/
• Succeed Workgroup has been working on a method to build on Don Kirkwood’s recruiting success to his CS program in North Salem. This has evolved into a collaboration with the Prepare Workgroup, ETIC CS Taskforce, and Techstart Education Foundation. A summer one-day teacher workshop is being planned, at which teachers will share best practices, identify barriers, develop plans to address barriers, and begin applications for Techstart minigrants for recruitment/retention events and activities focused on inclusivity. Efforts to date were praised.
• Open Question: returning veterans are traditionally a rich recruiting ground for the technical workforce; do we know what is being done and/or who is paying attention to this issue?
• Some community college activity was noted.

Next Meeting: Tuesday, July 22, 3:30 – 5:00

Respectfully submitted, Jo Oshiro, June 26, 2008

For questions or information regarding OPAS Initiative activity, please email Jo Oshiro or call (503) 821.1139