Question: What is up with new CSTA Standards? A teacher recently asked a group of other OCSTA members the following and sparked a good discussion: Have you tried aligning your curriculum to the standards? https://www.csteachers.org/page/standards Did you notice the following? By 2nd grade, students should be able to “develop programs with sequences and simple loops, […]

Don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity for Professional Development offered by the Oregon CSTA — Teachers teaching teachers. Learn about continued opportunities for receiving a stipend to join a Professional Learning Community (PLC), or how you can host a customized Pop-Up SuperQuest event at your school. Meet and network with other educators and CS professionals. […]

From our allies at OregonASK, the Statewide Afterschool Network:  Join us in Salem on October 22nd for the Oregon Afterschool Conference! We’ve got tracks in Technology, STEAM, Cultural Conversations and more. Whether you are looking for ways to engage more underserved youth in your program, or would like to hear more about Building a K-5 Computer […]

Promised updates to previous OCSTA event presentations are up: BEC STEMConnect 2016 Impact and Stakeholder reports posted.  Summarized: Chris Stephenson from Google on “And Now the Hard Work Begins: Achieving the Promise of Computer Science Education”, original slides included. Summarized: Exploring CS and NCWIT resources for inclusive CS education with Joanne Goode, UO, and Jane Krauss, NCWIT. […]

NCCE — the National Council for Computer Education — has its roots in Oregon. They will be in Portland at the Convention Center for the Largest Education Conference in the Pacific Northwest, March 22-24, 2017.  Conference organizers have invited and encouraged OCSTA members to submit presentation proposals — 50 minutes, 2 hours, or exhibitor showcases. […]

Except, of course, for the afterparty — a backlog of resources to share, and connections to be made, and processes to polish so that next summer’s SuperQuests are even more timely, useful, and well-run. We’re planning on having an informational email on the Virtual Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) for the coming academic year to be […]

SuperQuest Eugene wrapped Friday, August 5, but not before we got a great talk from Joanna Goode, one of the co-authors of the Exploring Computer Science Curriculum, and her occasional colleague and co-champion of inclusive pedagogy, Jane Krauss. They talked about Equity and Inclusion in Computer Science. Joanna, from the University of Oregon’s School of […]

Don Domes gives his class of teachers a small number of LEGO pieces, access to some student-appropriate internet resources, a worksheet, markers, whiteboards, lots of hands on time to practice, and very little lecturing. Some teachers have no previous experience, some have a couple of years, but all are engaged and making progress at showing […]

To paraphrase Ruthe Farmer, the White House’s Tech Inclusion Advisor: We must include everyone, not just for the social and economic justice issues, but for the necessary diversity of thought to drive innovation. We must recognize the components of equity:   Diversity: counting who is in the room. Access: Who knows the room exists? Who has […]

One thing teachers who attend SuperQuest find really useful: the time to talk with their peers, share resources, and brainstorm around issues of classroom management, pedagogy, and student learning (and all the really good teachers I have known treat these as separate things, complexly interlinked.) Some CTE teachers gathered for lunch, then headed off to […]