Microsoft TEALS partnership expands computer science at Chelsea, Oak Mountain

Learning computer science allows students to pursue careers in the fast-growing science and technology industries. 

For the 2019-20 school year, Chelsea and Oak Mountain high schools were chosen to be partner schools in Microsoft’s philanthropy initiative, designed to spread computer science knowledge to more high school students. 

Microsoft Philanthropies Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) operates as a grassroots volunteer program that helps high schools in the U.S. and Canada build and grow a sustainable computer science program for their students. It does this by pairing trained professionals in the local community with classroom teachers to team-teach computer science. 

TEALS was founded in 2009 by former high school computer science teacher and Microsoft engineer Kevin Wang. 

Dawn Bone, Shelby County Schools’ career technology resource specialist, said the support provided by TEALS, that they plan to use to integrate additional computer science lessons into Chelsea, Oak Mountain, Calera and Helena high schools through Advanced Placement courses and career preparation curriculum. 

“Kids only know what we tell them, so we want to expose them to more opportunities that’s going to educate them, and obviously, it will strengthen them in their computer science skills, their coding skills, their programming skills and hopefully give them some more opportunities if they want to further learn,” Bone said.

Computer science is one of the growing needs across almost every industry, Bone said, so it’s important for the schools to put more education in place for it. 

“We’re excited to just build that connection with the technology industry because that will build some partnerships and mostly give kids exposure to a growing need in our area,” she said. 

Each school is integrating the program a bit differently. OMHS is using TEALS by adding extra real-world support and resources to their AP Computer Science Principles class, Bone said, while TEALS is aiding Chelsea by providing the curriculum for an introduction to computer science through their career preparation course. 

The introduction course will allow 120 to 140 students to learn some of the basics of computer science and see if they’re interested in learning more, while the aid to the AP courses will focus on developing students who already have an interest in a career involving computer science. 

By partnering with Shelby County volunteers and technology specialists who come in once a week, Bone said, they are able to co-teach the broad introduction with high school teachers. In the AP classes, students will be able to “phone a professional,” Bone said, if they have any major problems come up. 

“The volunteer will be a ‘phone a friend’ type thing where the volunteer can come in, help judge, do specific lessons, talk about industry trends, that sort of thing,” Bone said. “It will be like a connection to the industry where that person can come in and tell them real world stuff.”

For more information about TEALS, go to tealsk12.org.