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MMSA and Educate Maine awarded Google’s CS4HS Grant.

The Maine Mathematics & Science Alliance (MMSA) and Educate Maine have been announced as state partners to Google’s Computer Science for High School (CS4HS) program. This grant program will provide resources to allow Maine teachers to strive for excellence in their teaching of Computer Science (CS) - something that will help propel Maine forward in technology education. MMSA and Educate Maine’s program, Project>Login, are committed to increasing student access to computer science through quality teacher professional development. Teachers are the foundation of excellence in computer science. The world needs well prepared educators to facilitate CS not only because of the growing number of computing related jobs, but also because it develops critical thinking skills needed to solve complex problems, creativity that fosters new ideas, and skills to drive innovation in tech and other fields.

This award will provide the resources for MMSA and Educate Maine to:

• Create a supported and structured community of practice, where educators engaged in computer science professional development can network, share learning, and collectively address larger issues of access, sustainability, and equity.
• Generate a rural community of practice, employing a hybrid (online and in-person) model, for educators integrating computer science into their curriculum.
• Explore and learn content and pedagogical strategies to engage girls and rural students
• Design and implement a computer science professional development model to address the needs and challenges of rural teachers
• Enable and inspire students to use computational thinking skills to explore the power of digital technology through the 7 Big Ideas such as: 1) collaboration, 2) creativity, 3) programming, 4) utilization of data, and 5) algorithmic reasoning applied to solving problems and knowledge creation.

This partnership will allow 58 Maine teachers to gain professional development opportunities in computer science across the state in the 2017-2018 school year.

For more information on CS4HS, visit the Google site (https://goo.gl/xsjOZ0)

Contact:

Dr. Ruth Kermish-Allen

MMSA Executive Director

rkermishallen@mmsa.org

207.691.2504

Ed Cervone

Executive Director

Educate Maine

ed@educatemaine.org

207.713.4034

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