Several ECEP Alliance members will be presenting at the 2017 SIGCSE (Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education) annual global symposium, which addresses challenges common among educators and features demos, lightning talks, papers, panels, posters, special sessions, and workshops. Informal opportunities for networking and ‘birds of a feather’ sessions allow for further discussions of computer science education. The event provides a forum for sharing new ideas for syllabi, laboratories, and other elements of teaching and pedagogy, at all levels of instruction.

The ECEP Alliance, and the work of the alliance states, will be represented through a number of panels, workshops, papers, posters, and special sessions during the conference, which runs March 8-11 in Seattle, Wash. Below is a roundup of sessions that feature participation from ECEP PIs, co-PIs, staff and ECEP state leaders. 

Workshop: GP: A General Purpose Blocks-Based Language
John Maloney, Michael Nagle, Jens Mönig, and Mark Guzdial (GA – ECEP PI)
Wednesday, March 8, 7-10 pm

Panel: The Role of CS Departments in the US President’s “CS for All” Initiative
Mark Guzdial (GA – ECEP PI), Barbara Ericson (GA – ECEP Co-PI), W. Richards Adrion (MA – ECEP PI), and Dianne O'Grady-Cunniff (MD)
Thursday, March 9, 10:45 am - noon

Panel: Building CS Teaching Capacity: Comparing Strategies for Achieving Large Scale Impact
Carol Fletcher (TX), Leigh Ann Delyser, Anthony Owen (AR), and Kimberly Hughes
Thursday, March 9, 1:45 pm - 3 pm

Panel: Teaching the Global Impact of Computing
Jeff Gray (AL), Jennifer Rosato, Bradley Beth, Nigamanth Sridhar 
Thursday, March 9, 3:45 pm - 5 pm

Paper: Creativity in Authentic STEAM Education with EarSketch
Shelly Engelman, Brian Magerko, Tom McKlin (Sage Fox Consulting Group), Morgan Miller, Doug Edwards, and Jason Freeman
Friday, March 10, 1:45 pm - 3 pm

Poster: A Final Project Report on CS4Alabama: A Statewide Professional Development Initiative for CS Principles
Kathleen Haynie, Jeff Gray (AL), Sheryl Packman, Carol Crawford , Mary Boehm (AL), Jonathan Corley
Friday, March 10, 10 am - noon

Paper: Building a Statewide Computer Science Teacher Pipeline
Helen Hu (UT), Cecily Heiner, Thomas Gagne, and Carl Lyman
Friday, March 10, 3:45 pm - 5 pm

Paper: Getting Principled: Reflections on Teaching CS Principles at Two College Board University Pilots
Jeff Gray (AL), Michele Roberts, Jonathan Corley
Friday, March 10, 3:45 pm - 5 pm

Workshop: Using, Customizing Open-Source Runestone Ebooks for Computer Science Classes
Brad Miller, Paul Resnick, and Barbara Ericson (GA – ECEP Co-PI)
Friday, March 10, 7-10 pm

How to Plan, Run Computing Summer Camps - Logistics
Krishnendu Roy, Kristine Nagel, Sarah Dunton (MA – ECEP Project Manager)
Friday, March 10, 7-10 pm

Workshop: Guiding Students to Discover CS Concepts, Develop Process Skills Using POGIL
Clifton Kussmaul, Chris Mayfield, and Helen Hu (UT)
Friday, March 10, 7-10 pm

Panel: Teaching To Increase Diversity and Equity in STEM
Helen Hu (UT), Douglas Blank, Albert Chan, and Travis Doom
Saturday, March 11, 10:45 am - noon

Workshop: How to Plan, Run Effective Teacher Professional Development
Barbara Ericson (GA), Rebecca Dovi (VA), and Ria Galanos
Saturday, March 11, 3-6 pm

Workshop: Evidence Based Teaching Practices in CS
Briana Morrison, Mark Guzdial (GA – ECEP PI), Cynthia Lee, Leo Porter, and Beth Simon
Saturday, March 11, 3-6 pm

Dates and times to be determined:

Birds of a Feather: CSTA K-12 CS Standards for All
Deborah Seehorn (NC) and Lissa Clayborn

Birds of a Feather: High School CS Teacher Certification: Standards, Assessments, and Professional Development
Wesley Monroe and Carol Fletcher (TX)

Posters: Collecting participation data across CS10K- funded PD providers
Rebecca Zarch and Alan Peterfreund (both from Sage Fox Consulting Group)

Posters: CS for SC: A Landscape Report of K-12 Computer Science in South Carolina
Quinn Burke (SC), Madeleine Schep (SC), and Travis Dalton

Posters: Should your college computer science program partner with a coding boot camp?
Louise Ann Lyon, Quinn Burke (SC), Jill Denner, and James Bowring

Posters: Cracking the Code: Bringing Introductory Computer Science to a Charleston Middle School
Clare Rumsey, Quinn Burke (SC), and Christopher Thurman

Learn more about SIGSCE 2017 by visiting their website.

The Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance (ECEP) aims to broaden participation in computing education by working with leaders at the state level. The alliance includes 17 states and U.S. territories in a community that shares its practice and progress on making state-level systemic change that will result in more and more diverse students in the pathway to computing and computing-intensive degrees. ECEP also offers resources such as mini-grants, workshops, models for organizations, reports, and evaluation to its members.

The ECEP Alliance includes 16 states – Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia – and Puerto Rico. More information can be found at www.ecepalliance.org.