district-logoBoard Member – Information Technology Advisory Board

Granite School District

For almost four years, I have been volunteering as both an information technology industry expert (based on over 15 years of software development experience) as well as a post-secondary expert (due to my time as a college instructor, degree program chair, and then administrator) on the Information Technology Advisory Board for Granite School District.

The advisory board is focused on evaluating and redesigning current junior/high school CTE curriculum to better support students in either entering the computer science or information technology workforce right out of high school (if they cannot continue on to college do their socioeconomic situations), or to better prepare them to enter higher education institutions with a focus on computer science or information technology degree programs.

 

neumont_logoHigh School Instructor Workshops

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As a result of the success I have seen while working with UACTE as well as Utah school districts, I have been able to get Neumont College of Computer Science involved in reaching out to and supporting Utah high schools and their instructors. This is being accomplished by offering quarterly workshops, free of charge and openly available to all high school instructors. These workshops focus not only on technical skills, but on universal educational methodologies applied to teaching technical subjects.

Some of the workshops being offered:

  • How to take curriculum and make it project-based/experiential – Integrating project-based learning methods into existing curriculum
  • Project-based software development (similar to above but specific to software)
  • How to teach STEM effectively
  • How to engage students
  • Computer Science Is Simple (aka Don’t Overcook It) – Breaking down CS principles and topics to their simplest terms.
  • Teach What You Know, Know What You Teach – Becoming familiar and experienced with the tech you are asked to teach
  • Teach What You Don’t Know Perfectly – The art of saying “I don’t know” without losing your student’s respect
  • Static vs Instance – Global concepts vs object data
  • What, How, Why – The hierarchy of learning
  • If They Build It, They will learn – Preferential learning through doing over analysis of theory
  • Solving the Problem of Problem-solving – How to get high school students to strengthen their logic skills
  • We Are What They Grow Beyond – How to push your students to do and be more without crushing them
  • Learning to Learn – Building curriculum that focuses on improving our students’ ability to learn, rather than memorize and regurgitate
  • Learning to Code with [Fill in the blank] – Let’s focus on the basics of programming and not worry about learning a specific language

 

conventionGuest Lecturer: High School Computer Science Courses

Every year I try my best to guest lecture at as many high schools in my local area as my schedule will allow. Being that my specialty is computer science, specifically software development (programming), the majority of the classes I guest lecture in are programming 1 & 2, AP Programming, Web Design, Database 1 & 2, Mobile Development 1 & 2, etc.

Some of the schools I’ve had the privilege of guest lecturing with are:

  • Granite Technical Institute, Granite School District, 2016-2018, multiple classes
  • Park City High School, Park City School District, 2017, multiple classes
  • West High School, Salt Lake School District, Scheduled 2018, multiple classes

Utah IT Education >>