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Dedicated Teachers Help Students Learn Computer Science In Las Cruces

Anthony Moreno

It’s the end of the year, and Lauren Curry is leading her students in her Intro to Computer Science course in a discussion about some things that have been covered this year. Curry reestablished the computer science program at the school, and has been teaching computer science for the past five years.

“My first year I had seven boys in the first computer science class I taught, and now I have almost 200 students enrolled, and I’m teaching a sequence of five courses,” said Curry.

Curry says that her courses are aimed at getting students to understand computational thinking.

“If they can graduate understanding those major concepts, no matter what program they go into they are going to have a leg up.”

Students now having the opportunity to take computer science as a math or science credit is a “big win” for computer science in the state according to Curry. However, she says she would like to see a requirement that every student graduating from a New Mexico high school has some sort of computer science credit.

“It prepares them and gives them a deeper understanding of what computational thinking is, which is the way our world is going,” Curry said.

One of those students who have taken several computer science courses at Las Cruces High School is Brianna Widner. Widner began taking computer science courses in junior high school and is excited to continue her CS studies.

“It was sixth or seventh grade I joined this after school club called GUTS and basically they taught you how to program and star logo, which is a block coding, which is you have little blocks and you piece them together to make different types of code,” says Widner.

Widner, who just finished her junior year, says it a video game design course her freshman year that made her fall in love with Computer Science. She says she hopes to pursue a doctorate in computer science along with pursuing a career in video game design or even cyber security.

Across town at Centennial High School, Melody Hagaman teaches 3 different types of computer science courses. She says she was teaching middle school science when she says she discovered a CS program called Project GUTS. https://stem.nmsu.edu/out-of-school-time/project_guts/

“Through that program, and through the New Mexico Supercomputing challenge, I learned about an opportunity called New Mexico CS for all, and I got to be one of the teachers in the first cohort that year, and they basically trained us to teach their CS for all freshman level computer science course in high schools throughout the state,” Hagaman said.

Melody Hagaman visits with some of her Java computer science students as they leave her class for the final time this past spring semester.

On the day we visited, Hagaman was grading some of her students as they presented a Java Passion Project.  One of those students was Jenna McClellan, who took her love for Sudoku and created a challenging game, which she calls “Sudoku: Humanity vs. technology."

“I really like playing Sudoku, but I wanted to have a twist on the game…so I decided to a computer opponent to make it more of a competition rather than just a one-player game,” said McClellan.

This is McClellan’s third year of taking computer science courses, and she already has found success. She was among 50 high school women across the country honored for aspirations in computing and she won a Congressional App challenge by creating an app to help people with food allergies, like her mother. 

“My mom actually has food allergies so everyday I see how hard it is for her to manage those allergies on top of cooking for our family or eating out, so I decided to just make the app help make life a little easier for her and others like her,” McClellan said.

McClellan says that she wants high school students to know that they can create apps that can make a difference. It’s that empowerment is what Hagaman works toward everyday. She says that it’s important for people to not just be users of technology, but understand how it works.

“When they get to actually program, they learn how the technology is being created, and they also start to better understand implications of such technology,” Hagaman said.

Hagaman says that knowledge of computer science can also help students land jobs that can lead to high salaries and more opportunities for the future. To ensure that happens Hagaman says computer science should be a requirement at every level.

“Students from certain groups are less likely to opt in or self select computer science as an elective even if it is a science or a math credit, so if they don’t select into those courses then they don’t learn those skills and they don’t get the opportunities that come along with it,” said Hagaman.

Hagaman says that the New Mexico still is ahead of most states when it comes to computer science and that state’s public education department has worked well with the New Mexico Computer Science Teachers Association on professional development, so more teachers can provide more CS learning opportunities for students across the state.

Anthony Moreno serves as the Director of Content at KRWG Public Media. He also is host and executive producer for "Fronteras-A Changing America" and "Your Legislators" on KRWG-TV.