Mississippi State University’s Center for Cyber Education has taken its first step in helping move the state toward a K-12 computer science curriculum.
The center is an integral part of the Software Development Pathway Program that’s launched in university partnership with Ridgeland-based telecom company C Spire. State officials and C Spire executives announced the program at a press conference in Ridgeland earlier this week.
The Software Development Pathway Program is based on the Base Camp Coding Academy in Water Valley, which C Spire helped develop. While the academy was a 12-month program, the new program will offer two years of specialized software development curriculum in high school and one year in community college starting in fall 2019. C Spire is fully funding the program for its first year and partially funding it in the second and third years.
Shelly Hollis, assistant director for the Center for Cyber Education, said the center is working with state community colleges and school districts to determine where to implement the program.
“We’ve looked at the community colleges that already have a programming path in place,” Hollis said. “There are nine of those, so we’ve looked at what school districts feed into those community colleges to approach first to participate.
“The goal is to have 10 high school teachers this first year and then add 10 more each year (for three years),” Hollis added. “We’ll start with 10 teachers this year and ask them to recruit 10 students so that we’d have 100 (students) potentially coming through the program for the first cohort.”
While talks are ongoing, Hollis said East Mississippi Community College has a coding program and is interested in participating. She added the center has also received interest from the Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District and the Columbus Municipal School District.
Under the Software Development Pathway Program, students in participating districts could begin taking dual-credit computer science-focused courses as early as 10th grade and graduate with up to 36 credit hours for their local community college. That would allow them to graduate after one year in community college with an associate’s degree of applied science.
There is a major need for computer science professionals, both in-state and nationwide. Mississippi, according to Code.org, has more than 1,300 open computing jobs with only about 150 computer science graduates per year. Across the nation, there are more than 500,000 open computing jobs.
C Spire CEO Hu Meena said in a press release that computer science’s importance has only grown as software continues to spread to more aspects of daily life.
“Computer science, coding and software development drives innovation and creates jobs in our economy, but we need to do more now to encourage schools to offer courses, equip teachers and enable young people to develop these important skills and pursue IT careers,” Meena said. “These students will have an opportunity to receive quality education and training in a short, accelerated time frame with the ability to enter a critical field that businesses of all types and sizes need within one year of graduation.”
Further goals
While the software development program is the Center for Cyber Education’s first project, the center’s mission will extend beyond the program.
Hollis said the Mississippi Department of Education has set a goal for the state to have K-12 computer science curriculum and qualified teachers in all schools by the 2023-24 school year. The Center for Cyber Education is working to help meet that goal, in what Hollis said will be a continuation of work the university’s Research and Curriculum Unit has already started.
She said that includes working with teachers to update existing curriculum or develop new curriculum as needed. The center will also train 100 teachers each summer for the next five years.
Hollis said continuing to improve the state’s computer science education is vital for exposing students to potential career paths and to help them realize how computer science impacts them daily. That’s true even for those students who don’t go into fields directly related to coding or programming, she said, noting that recent research shows elementary students who take coding early perform better in math, reading and science.
“As we introduce computer science at younger and younger ages and they come up through the system understanding the impact computer science has on their lives — just as a citizen, as well as whatever career they’re looking at — I think it will help them value more the skills they’re learning,” she said. “It will help them as they hit high school to make informed choices about what’s going to be most relevant for the career they’re interested in.”
Hollis said increasing access to computer science education is also important for improving diversity in the field for minorities and girls.
“Research will tell you that girls, in particular, make up their mind on what they’re good at by middle school,” she said. “If they haven’t been exposed to and had a successful experience with things like computer science, they are much less likely to pursue those opportunities in middle school and high school.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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