New Program Preps Teachers in Computer Science

A text-based role-playing game on the green screen of an Apple IIe captured Dale Thompson’s imagination as a sophomore in high school.

More than 30 years later, he is an associate professor in computer science and engineering at the University of Arkansas, teaching students about network security and how the Internet works.

Thompson also put in eight years during the 1990s as an electronics engineer for the U.S. Army, where he worked in a laboratory that hosted one of the top supercomputer sites in the world at the time, and where he designed and maintained the telecommunications network for a 700-acre research center in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

He holds a Ph.D. in electronics engineering, and at the UA has given presentations, published multiple writings and led several National Science Foundation-funded projects on the subjects of computer systems, network security and radio frequency identification.

But it all started at Wynne High School in the early 1980s, where a small grant funded the purchase of two computers. 

Although an interest in technology was encouraged by the fact that his father was a tinkerer who worked with ham radios and also owned an 8-bit home computer, the Commodore VIC-20, Thompson said the exposure to computers at school made a big impression.

He was among a small group of students permitted to experiment with the machines. The students played games but also learned to write simple programs.

Thompson said the experience laid the foundation for his career in technology and that of at least one other, a classmate who is now a programmer in Memphis, Tennessee.

He believes computer education at the high school level was once important, but is now crucial — and that education cannot happen without qualified teachers. 

 

TACT Program

That’s why Thompson and Bryan Hill, a UA College of Engineering administrator, have launched a program that supports a law signed in February by Gov. Asa Hutchinson requiring computer science to be taught in all public high schools in the state.

The program, called TACT (Training Arkansas Computing Teachers), began in October and is bolstered by a $992,000 grant from the NSF.

Its objective is to train 50 teachers in three years. Hill said he aims to enroll 10 to 15 teachers this first year.

After training, the teachers will be prepared for licensure to teach a new advanced placement computer science class, AP Computer Science Principles. The course will be offered nationally for the first time during the 2016–17 school year, and Hill said the new curriculum is an improvement to previous offerings because it centers on inquiry-based and project-based learning.

The new class is among a number of factors that have come together to make the timing right for TACT.

“I think this is a great opportunity to stand behind the governor’s idea of teaching computing in all the different high schools,” Thompson said.

As of July, only 19 Arkansas high schools (6.4 percent) offered computer science courses, according to the Arkansas Department of Education.

Gov. Hutchinson passed the mandate for computer education, supported by $5 million in funding to the schools, in accordance with a campaign promise he made in 2014, avowing that the move would improve Arkansas’ workforce and make it more competitive nationally.

Arkansas students will come into the UA’s computer science and engineering department much better prepared to take the courses and to perform well, Thompson said.

Also, more exposure to computer science courses in high school might mean more computer science students at the college level and, therefore, more homegrown tech talent here in Arkansas.

 

Retaining Talent

Looking back, Thompson would have rather stayed in Arkansas, but he felt compelled to leave the state to pursue a career in computer science in 1986.

“There weren’t as many opportunities for me in the state of Arkansas to do computer-type jobs,” he said.

After high school, he attended Mississippi State University for his undergraduate and graduate degrees, and it wasn’t until 2000 before he had the opportunity to return to Arkansas, when he found a faculty opening at the UA.

“A few of us got to come back, but not everybody gets that opportunity,” Thompson said.

He wants his students to have more possibilities, and that will be a challenge moving forward — to keep the tech talent in balance with demand. 

To address this, the governor in April appointed 15 individuals with backgrounds in education, employment and technology to a task force responsible for studying the technology needs of the state.

Those individuals are charged with researching and recommending computer science and technology courses and standards for Arkansas high schools and recommending strategies to meet the anticipated computer science workforce.

The state-level licensure for teaching computer science has only been available since June, and only a handful of teachers have earned the certification so far, said Hill, who is assistant dean for student recruitment and diversity, honors and international programs at the UA College of Engineering.

Existing high school computer science teachers can train for the exam through a new course at the Honors College Advance Placement Summer Institute, with which TACT will work closely, Hill said.

Teachers interested in licensure who are not currently teaching computer science may attend a six-week summer “boot camp” course prior to joining the Advanced Placement Summer Institute, Hill said.

In addition to reaching math and science teachers already in the field who want to add computer science to their repertoire by taking the licensure exam, TACT will serve undergraduates through the UATeach program.

Hill is also director of UATeach, which addresses the shortage of secondary mathematics and science teachers in Arkansas, by reaching out to math and science majors. The program was founded in 2012 and is patterned after the UTeach Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

 

Ripe Opportunity

The computer science and computer engineering department at the UA hosts one of the high school programming competitions, and while Thompson is not directly involved with that program, he makes it a point to stick his head in. 

“I stop by and see how the high school students are doing,” he said.

He saw an opportunity for improvement and knew the university had the manpower to do it. The announcement of the governor’s initiative gave the nudge to move forward.

“We thought we have all the right people,” Thompson said. “We’ve got some really great people in the department.”

Hill and Thompson are partners on the project, with Thompson in charge of the curriculum and training side of things. “It’s a good fit for me. I’m from eastern Arkansas, and I think more computing jobs would be good for the state in general,” he said. “And, I like to teach, so that’s another good thing. That’s a passion of mine.

“A lot of work has already been done in the state, and we plan to build on that,” Thompson said, noting the contributions of the Arkansas STEM Coalition, a statewide organization that provides in-service and pre-service training to teachers in math and science.

“What we’re trying to do is build community among the teachers so they can learn from each other,” Thompson said.

“We can bring a lot of people up to speed, so that students across the state of Arkansas can have access to these classes, and that can do nothing but help the whole state.”