Summer Workshop Draws High School Mathematics Teachers to
Computer Science Education


Nine high school mathematics and computer science teachers spent a
week of their summer at UNL learning how to prepare their students
for the computer science major.  The event drawing them from large
and small schools across the state was a workshop titled "Mathematical
Foundations for Computer Science in the High School."  This is the
second year that Dr. Charles Riedesel, Chief Undergraduate Advisor
and Senior Lecturer of the Computer Science & Engineering Department,
has conducted a workshop dealing with the coordination of computer
science education between the University and Nebraska high schools.
A special thanks go to the Nebraska Mathemetics Science Initiative
for covering the cost of room, meals, books, and supplies.

Among the topics discussed were the beginning computer science and
mathematics courses at UNL including the breadth of the newest
introductory course, the role of mathematics (and in particular
discrete mathematics) in computer science education, the many choices
of programming languages, the influence (or lack thereof) of AP
courses on computer science teaching, and the gender gap (less than
12% of UNL computer science majors are women).  Substantial effort 
was devoted to the technical details of what to teach and how to
present it.

Of special interest was the issue of how to incorporate the knowledge
gained at the workshop into the local high school curriculum.
Some schools have the flexibility to institute full-fledged computer
science programs, but most are limited to making small adjustments in 
special topics courses or adding emphasis to mathematics courses.
Most of the topics discussed at the workshop can be implemented with
little or no cost other than materials.  Even in programming courses,
many useful languages can be obtained for free over the Internet and
installed on relatively antiquated machines.  This is made possible
through government and private funding of educational software 
development from a variety of sources, and by redirecting the
educational goals from those that require high cost professional
development tools to goals that involve building solid mathematical,
logical, and problem solving foundations where algorithm development
and analysis are seen as more valuable than learning the syntax of the
latest language.

Some of the participants elected to receive academic credit through their
involvement and the followup development of curricular plans and materials.
The week ended with an informal lunch with representatives from the
Computer Science Department, the Teacher's College, and the Mathematics
Department.  Plans are underway for a third workshop next summer,
tentatively planned to deal with the educational use of programming
languages and environments.