Education

ACM has joined with the IEEE Computer Society and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence to develop "Computer Science Curricula 2023” (CS2023). CS2023 provides a comprehensive guide outlining the knowledge and competencies students should attain for degrees in computer science and related disciplines at the undergraduate level. Establishing uniform curricular guidelines for computer science disciplines is essential to the ongoing vitality of the field and the future success of those who study it.

A new report from the ACM Data Science Task Force, convened by ACM’s Education Board, seeks to define what the computing/computational contributions are to this new field, as well as to provide guidance on computing-specific competencies in data science for departments offering such programs of study at the undergraduate level. The document, “Computing Competencies for Undergraduate Data Science Curricula,” also invites collaborations with statisticians, mathematicians, and others in this interdisciplinary field.

ACM and IEEE Computer Society have issued "Computing Curricula 2020 (CC2020): Paradigms for Global Computing Education." Developed by a 50-member task force drawn from 20 countries, CC2020 outlines global recommendations for baccalaureate degrees in computing. Designed to be comprehensive, CC2020 delineates the latest curricula for computer engineering, computer science, information systems, information technology, and software engineering, as well building on the CC2005 document with newer disciplines such as cybersecurity and data science.

The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) has made key sessions from the 2026 SIGCSE Technical Symposium available in its YouTube Channel.

Highlights include the closing keynote by Titus Winters, Senior Principal Scientist at Adobe, "CS and SE Education, Post-AI." In the keynote, Winters provides some industry perspective, identifies what seems outdated in CS and SE pedagogy, and tries to sketch out some more fruitful directions for revision to our assignments, classes, and overall curricula.

View the webinar, “Language Matters: DEI and the Question of URM,” featuring Nicki Washington of Duke University and Tiffani L. Williams of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in discussion on the importance of language to promote inclusive environments for work and study. The webinar was organized by the ACM Education Board’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Computing Education Task Force and ACM’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council, and was moderated by DEI-CE co-chair Fay Cobb Payton.

Machine Learning has tremendous potential for developing tools to improve efficiency and accuracy in decision-making. However, ML also has the potential to lead to outcomes that reinforce human biases, disproportionately impact vulnerable populations, and violate notions of privacy. Mehran Sahami and moderators Fay Cobb Payton and Susan Reiser as they explore some of the promise and perils that arise from Machine Learning to understand both some of the ethical issues and competing value trade-offs at stake.

ACM education activity has been reorganized into two entities: the Education Board and the Education Advisory Committee (EAC). The Board wields the final executive and decision-making power to facilitate the work of the Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee is a task-force-based, networking-oriented environment whose aim is to promote ACM's educational mission to as wide a range of constituencies as possible: universities, community colleges, high schools, corporations, and the U.S. government.

Briana B. Morrison joins Alison Derbenwick Miller as Co-Chair of ACM's Education Board and Advisory Committee, to serve for the two-year term ending June 30, 2026. Morrison is Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Virginia. She has served on the ACM SIGCSE Board, the ACM Education Committee, past co-editor of EngageCSEdu, and past Higher Ed Co-Chair of the AP CS A Development Committee. Derbenwick Miller is an independent consultant and Strategy Advisor to the Stanford Deep Data Research Lab.

Yasmin B. Kafai, Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, and Mitchel J. Resnick, Professor of Learning Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receive the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award for long-lasting and collective contributions to creative computing, including Scratch and electronic textiles, developing new ways for young people to create and collaborate within learning communities. Scratch has become the world’s largest coding community for young people, with more than 150 million registered users who have created over 1 billion projects.

For the past several years, the Actionable Computing Enrollment and Retention (ACER) project of the ACM Education Board has analyzed and reported about enrollments, degree completions, and retention in undergraduate computing programs in the US. This report is based on comprehensive data obtained from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) for the 2019–20 through 2023–24 enrollment cohorts. The 2023–24 data has not been previously reported. Data for the other cohorts was revised to correct inconsistencies from year to year in the counting methodologies used previously by the NSC.

The ACM Education Board's Retention Committee has released "Retention in Computer Science Undergraduate Programs in the U.S.: Data Challenges and Promising Interventions." The report calls for additional research to provide a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of attrition and retention, and encourages higher education institutions to provide proactive counseling to undergraduate students about career opportunities in CS.

European higher education is as diverse as the continent’s cultures and traditions. This also means that making analyses and meaningful comparisons can be complex. The area of Informatics is no exception. This report presents the first pan-European analysis of student retention and graduation rates in bachelor-level Informatics programmes. Conducted jointly by Informatics Europe and ACM Europe, it draws on the Informatics Europe Higher Education (IEHE) Data Portal and examines trends across thirteen European countries over the period 2010 to 2023.

The ACM Task Force on Generative Artificial Intelligence and Student Programming Assessment was formed to track the evolution of approaches to teaching programming in the era of GenAI, document concrete examples of integration strategies, and assemble emerging best practices to support instructors in adapting their courses and assessments. Visit the Task Force website to view its recent report (based on a survey of more than 700 educators), explore community approaches to integrating GenAI into computing education, as well as to contribute an approach.

Although research on computational thinking (CT) within K-12 has been emerging over the past few years, few studies have investigated the teaching of CT at the younger ages. The ACM and the Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund co-funded this special research publication to examine empirically-based studies that focused on the integration of computational thinking at the elementary levels into a variety of learning disciplines including math, ELA, science, and computer science.

Did you know that the ACM Education Board has a special project that allows you to share outstanding instructional materials from your classes? EngageCSEdu publishes high-quality, engaging, classroom-tested Open Educational Resources (OER’s) for computer science education. OER’s accepted for publication must use at least one research-based engagement mechanism aimed at increasing diversity and inclusion, e.g., culturally responsive pedagogy or an engagement practice from the NCWIT engagement framework. General submission information can be found on the content submission site.

The ACM Europe Council and Informatics Europe have collaborated on a report that builds on an earlier document, "Informatics Education in Europe: Are We All in the Same Boat?". The report, "Informatics for All: The Strategy," aims to establish Informatics as an essential discipline for all, a subject available at all levels throughout the educational system. The strategy is also summarized in a one-page document.

The Computing Research Association (CRA) conducted two surveys about the COVID-19 disruption in summer 2020. One surveyed computer science faculty members about their experiences transitioning from teaching in person to teaching online as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The other surveyed department chairs, asking them about the impact of COVID-19 on their faculty, department operations, student job searches, and budgets, and their concerns going into fall 2020.

The Council of the European Union has adopted a set of recommendations on digital skills and education. The Informatics for All Coalition has endorsed the bold recommendations outlined in the new Council report. The recommendations of the Council reflect a timely and ambitious approach towards the development of digital competences, addressing the need to make education fit for a genuine digital transformation and able to keep pace with the times, while providing the necessary skills and competences that are necessary in this new reality.