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Rosendo Torres, front, works on Microsoft Excel in a beginning computer class at Jordan High Scho

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At a time when the campus is mostly devoid of the buzz of UCLA students, a different buzz could be heard from the labs of Boelter Hall – the slight humming of over 20 computers on an early Saturday morning.

In front of the monitors were some of the brightest students and teachers from Los Angeles-area high schools, engaging in an advanced computer programming lesson from campus faculty. Speaking in programming jargon like “java,” “algorithms” and “selection sort,” computer science seemed like second nature to the diverse group of students and teachers filling the lab.

But for many of these Los Angeles Unified School District members – most from a minority ethnic background – this is the first year they are tackling high-level computer programming and the first time they feel the ominous threat of the Advanced Placement Computer Science exam looming in the near future. Several members of the UCLA community have recently become involved in researching and rectifying the problem they see in the lack of underrepresented and female students going into the field of computer science.

The students and faculty from LAUSD came to campus Saturday for a four-hour computer science lesson, part of the AP Readiness program instituted by UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies to help high school students prepare for AP exams in various subjects. The exams are taken by over a million people worldwide and allow students to demonstrate college-level achievement that sometimes fulfills university requirements.

Four such review sessions in computer science are planned on campus before students take the AP exam.

Saturday’s session was also a tangible measure of the success achieved by the collaboration of UCLA’s Department of Education and School of Engineering and Applied Science with LAUSD in an attempt to increase the number of women and underrepresented minority students taking AP computer science courses.

Other tangible successes are the numbers by which participation in advanced computer courses increased in the Los Angeles district since the program began last summer: The number of schools offering AP computer science courses doubled from 11 to 22 (out of a total 57 high schools in LAUSD), the number of female students tripled, Latina/o students tripled and black students doubled.

The numbers are a pleasant surprise, says Jane Margolis, a researcher in the UCLA Department of Education and co-founder of the training program, but warns that the biggest challenge still lies ahead.

“The challenge now is to sustain this over time and to assure success for students, to assure principals, counselors and school districts will provide the support that is needed,” she said. “It is clear that this is the type of issue that is going to take collaboration.”

And it was the initial collaboration between UCLA and LAUSD to which many of the program’s participants give credit for the program’s success.

The program used UCLA resources to train about 25 LAUSD teachers with an interdisciplinary approach to computer science, the program’s founders said. Its participants also applied for a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation last Friday to expand the institute in the future.

While training teachers, Margolis said it was important to communicate to them that computer science can be used in a variety of fields, ranging from biology to theater arts.

Two seniors from Hollywood High School, where AP Computer Science is being offered for the first time, said the course is more difficult than they expected and more difficult than other AP courses they have taken.

It’s especially hard because it “requires both memorization and application,” said senior June Wui.

And because the odds are against her, senior Jennifer Barraza said she is inspired to work harder.

Research done by Margolis and the director of the teacher-training institute, Joanna Goode, showed that high-level computer science courses were not offered in schools with high levels of students of color, instructors did not have sufficient background in the subject, and teachers were often pressured to focus on testing in reading and math to comply with federal standards, Margolis said.

Their conclusions prompted them to take an active role in rectifying what they perceive as an achievement gap in women and underrepresented minority students in the computer science field.

“We are not just researching and sitting back,” says Margolis, who refers to her work as “action research.”

According to the “AP Report to the Nation” published by the College Board this year, only 15 percent of AP Computer Science exam takers were female in 2004. While the percentages of some minority test takers were also low, overall minority participation in AP exams last year was closer to being reflective of U.S. high school demographics, according to the report.

Though much progress has been made in the last five years, “gaps between white, Asian and traditionally under-served minority students call for ongoing efforts to invest in the preparation of students in their middle school and early high school years,” the report states.

Vijay Dhir, dean of the engineering school, agrees that the low percentage of women and underrepresented minority students at the college level is a problem inherited from K-12 education. Only 16 percent of first-years and 17 percent of transfers in the incoming class of engineers at UCLA are women.

To address this problem, Dhir plans to institute an “Engineering and Science Corps” program next fall in which UCLA undergraduate and graduate students in the school of engineering would mentor LAUSD elementary, middle and high school students in math and science.

“The key thing here is that we have to do quite a bit of outreach, we have to start with elementary school,” Dhir said. “Students should be able to see what opportunities that science and engineering can offer.” Learning the ropes

Deepa Pai, the computer science teacher at David Starr Jordan High School in Watts, says she had a difficult time convincing the school’s administration that an AP Computer Science course was necessary at a school that emphasized technical skills over critical thinking skills.

But with her training through UCLA’s program, she said she was confident in her ability to teach the subject and convinced the school to include the course in the curriculum this year for the first time.

Pai’s AP course consists of three male students and three black students; the rest are female or Latina/o. The school, situated in a high-crime neighborhood, is comprised of a 77 percent Latina/o and 23 percent black student body.

Though the course was instituted, Pai said the school does not provide students with textbooks. Instead, she teaches the course using copies of books she bought on her own and material from the course’s Web site.

Pai said her students lacked motivation at first and were too nervous to come to UCLA on Saturday.

But “I told them what I saw (at UCLA) and what they are capable of and some students felt really confident,” she said, adding that at least a few students would come to campus this Saturday.

The leap in computer science education, which some UCLA faculty hoped LAUSD schools would make, is apparent in Pai’s schedule.

Her sixth period class teaches about 30 students computer basics – such as word processing skills.

In contrast, her fourth period is dedicated to preparing about 15 eager students to succeed in computer programming, utilizing some of the skills taught by UCLA’s program.

On Tuesday afternoon, students in the beginning computer course were learning spreadsheet computation on Microsoft Excel, with some of them saying they had never used a computer before taking the basics course. It is often the emphasis on technical courses over critical-thinking courses in schools with high minority populations that result in the lack of these students going into the field of computer science, Margolis said.

And with the institution of the new AP Computer Science course at Jordan, many beginners have high aspirations to take advantage of the opportunity at hand.

Freshman Aminah Marshall said she would be interested in taking the AP course once she got the basics down.

Still, “I need a whole heck of a lot of help,” Marshall said.