Through a three-year $550,786 National Science Foundation grant, the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, UW-Eau Claire and UW-Stout will work in a partnership to train local high school teachers by having them conduct research in computer science and later develop materials to teach their subject.
“Our goal is not for them to be doing research after this, but to take what they have learned and build a curriculum module for their computer science classrooms back in their home schools,” said Anthony Varghese, chair of the Computer, Information and Data Sciences Department at UWRF. “They come over to our campuses, either River Falls or Eau Claire; we show them how the research is done, and then after that they spend a couple more weeks going over how educational research is done so they can go over things on their own.”
Varghese said the experience is named Research Experiences for Teachers, or RET.
While Varghese trains instructors on UWRF’s campus, Rahul Gomes, associate professor in computer science at UWEC, will act in a similar role on campus in Eau Claire. Then, Katrina Rothrock, assistant professor of mathematics at UWEC, and Abhimanyo Ghosh, assistant professor in engineering and technology at Stout, will help to lead a three-week session in Menomonie where teachers will learn how the educational research can be conducted and implemented into their curriculum.
“The hope is that they spread this knowledge of how computer science works to their communities,” said Varghese. “Mainly to high school students of course, but hopefully beyond that too … We have a lot to learn from teachers themselves, because they can tell us about these kinds of things that they run into as far as teaching computer science in high school.”
Merry Mclaird, director of grants and research at UWRF, said in a press release, “This project will bring computer science research to the communities in this region, providing high school students with enhanced data analysis skills going to work in local communities. Each cohort of teachers who transfer their research experience back to their schools and their communities will yield hundreds of high school students capable of thinking more deeply about the relevance of computer science in their local community.”
There is a hope that working with local instructors will help towards the approach of computer science, whether that is with new technologies or the general understanding of its components. Furthermore, it may also be able to have an indirect impact on the region’s economy with how technology is taught and understood by both instructors and students.
“Just being able to use computers, see how computers work ‘under the hood’ and get an idea of how things really work I think is good for the community,” said Varghese. “Once we start getting a more skilled workforce, they will be ready for jobs of the future.”
Moving forward, the program is intended to be built on and work with the existing partnerships between area high schools and the three universities. Varghese said they are excited to be progressing with support from the National Science Foundation grant, and that the support is a good sign they are on the right track.
©2024 the Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wis.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
