Bootstrap Readies 33 Teachers To Provide CS4RI This Fall
- Posted by Jesse Polhemus
- on June 30, 2016
As reported last week, Bootstrap saw sold-out enrollment for its June 27-29 workshop, and now 33 local teachers (plus four from other states) are ready to go out and teach computer science as part of Governor Gina Raimondo's CS4RI initiative. Recently cited by the White House for its efforts to improve the inclusiveness, accessibility, and reach of computer science education, Bootstrap is a computer science literacy curriculum used worldwide by almost 15,000 students whose founders include three members of Brown CS: Kathi Fisler (adjunct faculty), Shriram Krishnamurthi (faculty), and Emanuel Schanzer (staff).
Accompanied by Octavia Abell, the Director of Strategy at the Rhode Island Office of Innovation, the teachers spent three days exploring the Bootstrap:1 curriculum. Guided by Bootstrap's master trainers, they brainstormed and then began to create their own videogames, which provided an opportunity for the study of Cartesian space, functions, Boolean types, and other concepts as they developed programming skills. At the end, they each had a functioning game, and thirty-seven teachers, few of whom had any experience with CS education, had acquired the pedagogy and toolset necessary to immediately begin teaching computer science to a new generation of students.