Technology Professor Anu Gokhale and Philosophy Professor Emeritus Kenton Machina are starting a program in teacher education in computer science (TECS) with the help of the National Science Foundation, which will provide $700,000 over three years for the new project.

Illinois State University’s teacher education in computer science program will create an innovative structure for preparing in-service and future high school teachers to teach computer science (CS). This project will generate a state-approved program of study that will prepare teachers who complete it to be well-positioned to pass the certification exam for the CS endorsement.

The TECS curriculum will not be a new major, but rather will be for existing mathematics and technology teacher education majors.

The TECS curriculum will be created by an interdisciplinary team of Illinois State faculty, out of existing courses from computer science, mathematics, and technology, in cooperation with the NSF-funded Taste of Computing team in Chicago.

UCLA’s Gail Chapman will provide a design for a new computer science teaching methods course to be added to existing courses, to be piloted in cooperation with the Taste of Computing institutions. The project will use advanced computer science majors for peer tutoring and mentoring TECS students. Scholarships will be provided as needed for preservice and in-service teachers in TECS.