Tuesday, November 07, 2017

CS Educator Interview: Mike Zamansky–the update

When I last talked to Mike Zamansky for this blog he was teaching computer science at Stuyvesant high school (one of New York City’s entrance exam high schools). Since then he has had something of a career change. Like many great teachers he was looking for a chance to make an impact beyond one school. But I’ll let him explain more.

Since I last interviewed you, you’ve had some big changes. Tell us about what you are doing today.
I left Stuyvesant a little under two years ago and I'm now at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY).

At Hunter I have two primary responsibilities. One is to develop K12 CS Teacher certification programs. The other is to build an undergraduate honors program in CS, connect Hunter CS to the tech industry and basically give NYC students a first rate option for a CS education that doesn't require taking on a mountain of debt.

What made you decide it was time for a change?
I think I accomplished all I could at Stuy and it was taking too much energy to keep the program where it was let alone advance it. It was also clear that the NYC DOE wasn't interested in engaging Stuy with at the helm so it was time to move on. It was also time for others to take the reins there. I've been privileged to work with some amazing teachers at Stuy and it was time for them to take the program to the next level.

When I was connected with Hunter I saw two amazing opportunities. I've pretty much given up on the NYC DOE. I'm convinced that they're going to roll out CS4All hastily and we'll end up with bad CS for all. Poorly prepared teachers and a weak curriculum. I hope I'm wrong but I don't think I am. Regardless of what the DOE does, if a class has a strong teacher that class has a chance.
Hunter prepares about 10% of NYC teachers so if I can steer the Hunter CS Education programs in the right direction then we can have a sizable impact.

As to the CS Honors program, I mentioned above that the city needs a  great affordable option. I'm proud of my work at Stuyvesant and proud that I worked at a public school all those years but at Stuy I only had access to kids that passed the test. True, we started our non-profit to get to more kids but that was limited. I'm still working with a select group in the honors program but as I'm also working with Hunter CS in general, I can impact a much wider range of students. That's exciting.

You’re developing teacher certification programs in computer science and building an honors undergraduate CS cohort. Can you describe those two efforts and what you are doing to implement them in more detail? Are you part of the CS department or the education department? Or a foot in each?
My appointment is in the school of education. That was mostly because I don't have a doctorate and this made things easier. Right now most of my work is in the computer science department under the school of Arts and Sciences since we're waiting for approval for my teacher ed programs.

On the CS Education front, we've designed two programs - a Masters program in CS Education and a Certificate program for teachers already licensed in another subject area. Unlike some other proposed programs we don't offer courses tied to specific curricula (APCS-A AP-CSP etc.) although we do expose our teacher candidates to many of the current offerings. Rather, we are requiring courses that cover methods, and curriculum development along with a depth and breadth of content knowledge. Our teachers will be able to teach anything out there and also design their own experiences for students.

We're also trying to convince NY State that programs like ours are the way to go rather than quick slapshot professional development and scripted curriculum. This means that we've also had to work out a way to transition to new certification requirements over a period of years and also allow for dual certification (math -> CS, CS -> math for example). Of course it remains to be seen what direction NY State goes in.

On the honors CS front I've designed a new intro course for my students that combines Hunter's normal first year of CS with some software engineering best practices and a few extras. We also hold a number of special events. Last year and this we attended Catskills Conf -- one of my favorite events of the year - think "tech conference meets summer camp" and we've also had guest talks, workshops  and more. I'm also working on recruiting all my former students who are now in the tech industry to support Hunter CS and work with the students -- I'm hoping this will be a huge win for both Hunter and ultimately New York City. It's an easy sell -- help an elite private university and you're not really helping equity and diversity. Help Hunter and you're still getting great kids but you can make a big impact on both equity and diversity.

A lot of my time now is trying to get the word out and convince high schools that Hunter is a great option.

How is the college environment different from the high school environment? Both for teaching and for “overhead?”
Teaching is much more relaxed for me. I'm only teaching one class and it meets twice a week. That's both good and bad. That's a far cry from 5 classes of 32 a day 5 days a week. The overall schedule is much more flexible. At Stuy, even if I didn't have classes I had to be in the building. Leaving early for a meeting involved paperwork and approval. As a faculty member at Hunter, it's much more free. We're treated much more professionally than teachers.

A big plus for me personally is the level of support I'm getting at Hunter. Everyone between me up to and including our president is on the same page for CS and CS Education. At Stuy I had an amazing team and amazing colleagues but the administration was never all that supportive and don't get me started on the DOE.

The biggest downside of Hunter is that I'm much more isolated. I still have great kids but since my office is in the Ed department far away from undergrads I don't see them as much. Likewise professors aren't around the same way as teachers. I'm trying to convince the higher ups to find me a space near the students since I think that's really important as we try to build a positive CS culture but space at Hunter is hard to find.

What did I not ask you about that you would like to know?
I think that's about it.

Where online can people learn more about the programs your working on  at Hunter?
Unfortunately, Hunter's in the middle of reworking its web site so there's a freeze on adding new content. There's a bit of info on the scholars program at http://hunter.cuny.edu/scholars but nothing specific to the Daedalus program. Once we have final CUNY and state approval of our Ed programs, those will go up as well but that's still pending.

I hope to have more of a web presence on both soon.

Do you have a Twitter account, blog, and/or other social media that I could share with my readers?
Note: The index for this interview series is at http://blog.acthompson.net/2017/10/computer-science-educator-interview.html and is updated as new interviews are posted.























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