Maya has been a middle school teacher for 17 years. She has been a PLTW Gateway teacher for six years. This will be her third year as an Introduction to Computer Science (ICS) Master Teacher.
At our school, 80 percent of our students get free or reduced lunch. Our students live a socioeconomically depressed area and have little access to technology beyond a phone. But this fall, five PLTW students and I ventured to Washington State University’s downtown Spokane campus. These five students joined teachers, administrators, and state leaders at the Project Lead The Way State Conference.
At the conference, the students had the opportunity to discuss our Introduction to Computer Science course with teachers and principals from other Washington schools. They got to show off their app-building skills and explain why they thought computer science was so important in low-income areas. They got to talk about their experience with PLTW and an activity-, project-, problem-based curriculum, which most of them had not experienced before.
In addition, two of our 8th graders were asked to sit on a panel of PLTW students and answer questions from a very curious audience. Students talked about how computer science has helped them to better understand our increasingly connected, and technology-dependent, world.
From this experience, it's clear: The best spokespeople for PLTW really are our students.
PLTW’s blog is intended to serve as a forum for ideas and perspectives from across our network. The opinions expressed are those of each guest author.