The material certainly could be used in the school day since it is connected to the middle grade math curriculum. We focused on after school use because teachers reported that it was hard to fit it into math classes during their regular school day. However technology teachers have reported that it works well in their classes. Also, teachers who have flexible schedules have been able to include it.

Thanks for the response. I’m doing some work right now that suggests pacing guides and state standards discourage teachers from bringing in interesting topics that might give more life to the content. Is that part of the issue you’re seeing with cryptography in the school day?

Absolutely. That is what we have seen. Some schools have special time slots for enrichment and multi-disciplinary classes and our cryptography material has worked well there. But many teachers, particularly those who teach math in a departmentalized school, tell us they feel pressure to stick to their standards and don’t have additional time for non-required content.

What a shame. This has so much possibility for getting kids excited about calculation and numerical reasoning, maybe logical reasoning too. From my point of view, these are the kinds of activities kids should be doing regularly. My guess is that there are ways to integrate this with what teachers feel they have to do; I’d be happy to talk some more about that and help you explore it (in all the time I have, ha!). Janet

Yes, anyone can set up a group for their students. They do not need to be directly connected to our project. They just need to register and set up an account.
As for the mathematics, we assume students have seen the math content in their regular math classes. They apply it as they learn and use the codes. The depth at which the math is covered depends on the club leader. Some leaders are math teachers and can go quite deep into the math content. Others are after school educators who might not even be certified teachers.They tend to cover it at less depth, but students still enjoy the activities.

I’m just thinking that there are others who know how to make these kinds of activities more systematic. Have you talked to Nichole Pinkard about integrating these activities into the system she is building to help teachers add inquiry to their classrooms?

No, I haven’t talked to Nichole. Thanks for the tip.I will follow up on it.

Reason for participation varies. Some programs are offered as math clubs that students self-elect to attend. Others are part of a larger after school program that offers a variety of clubs, along with homework help and other activities. In such programs, it is often parents who enroll students in the program and students who choose which club they want to participate in.

I was thinking the same thing. In fact, I was initially surprised that it was about math and not computing. I think it is only a short way from using these activities for math and using them for learning computing concepts. Arthur, I would get together with Janet and figure this out together and pass it on to others who are doing the pilot AP CS course. Try it out. Ask NSF for money to try it out. ;-)

The other Janet

Thanks, Janet, for the encouragement.

I will be sharing this resource with the pilot instructors of this course. The website for the pilot AP CSP course is at: http://goo.gl/fuPY7c. We teach 7 big ideas in the pilot AP CSP course and one of the big ideas is the Internet. The AP CSP Curriculum Framework: http://goo.gl/pKaqeV, includes learning objectives on Cyber Security, Cryptography and Encryption, and can be found on page 28 of the curriculum framework. If you would like further information and or have more questions, please contact me. Again, thanks for providing this resource Janet. I am really looking forward to embedding in my course!

Thanks for your interest, Arthur, and for the links to the course site and Framework. I will take a look at them and be in touch.

Good question. I’d also like to know what teachers have to say about student participation, engagement, like of mathematics, etc.

Meixia: It has been hard to figure out how to measure improvement in math understanding—we wanted to minimize testing in an after school setting and we found it hard to find appropriate control groups. In the near future, we will investigate mathematics understanding using a talk aloud protocol.
Janet K: Teachers generally report engagement and enjoyment of the material. One comment we have heard from several teachers is that these activities give students a chance to experience success in math-related activities, when they aren’t necessarily high achievers in regular math class.

Glad to hear those engagement results. It is what I would have expected. My own experience with project-based kinds of activities is that they achieve that, and that the fact that the kids have some success makes some of them more interested and engaged in further discpilineary stuff, also helps with their confidence and with what others thing of them. I think it was Randi Engle who wrote about positioning and its role in learning; feeling more confident should lead to taking on more agency (i.e., feeling positioned to do that), and others appreciating the participation of someone who doesn’t usually participate or do well opens the way for them to feel that this person has reason to participate. It is a set of papers worth looking at, as you could propose a change model that would help you figure out how to integrate these activities into school and how to take advantage of what these kids are doing out of school in the classroom. Lots of opportunities here.

Thanks, Janet. I will follow up with you.