CyberVA Cybersecurity Keystone
Empowering a new generation of cyber-aware citizens
Empowering a new generation of cyber-aware citizens
In order to create career awareness and to infuse cybersecurity across the education portfolio, we have created an inclusive and approachable cybersecurity survey course, targeting 9th-12th grade students in Virginia.
Focusing on our philosophy of learning, the learning process: is active, authentic, uses prior knowledge as a scaffold, occurs socially and contextually, and needs the participation and engagement of the learner to be effective.
We develop this content with the primary goal of providing an open source overview and survey of cybersecurity concepts. It presents key concepts at the 10,000 foot view providing students with knowledge of these concepts before advancing into a more technical course. A secondary goal is to make these concepts more accessible to a broader range of students.
Planned outcomes of this course are students that are more educated in cyber concepts that can protect themselves, and are empowered to share this knowledge with their families, friends and communities. Career awareness and the next steps for further technology development are important outcomes for this course.
We are changing expectations. This is unlike a networking course or current introductory cybersecurity courses traditionally found at many high schools and the college undergraduate level. The focus is use digitally-based problem solving to engage students from diverse backgrounds and interests. Problem solving and ethics are at the heart of every class. To be successful in cybersecurity, you have to be a capable problem solver.
Our approach to academic and career pathways is not only to identify them, but to capitalize on students' existing interest and build messages around cybersecurity and computer science. Interest building is centered around the concepts of 1) it's flexible, 2) it's stable 3) it's collaborative and 4) appeal to current interests and goals.
In order to appeal to the interests and goals of the students, our course will integrate an introductory survey for each section.
We suggest that teachers conduct the survey so that they can tailor existing modules to fit their students' interests. We hope to have a hub or repository of course materials and ideas, including projects and modules uploaded by other teachers.
Developing a teacher community for high school cybersecurity teachers as a support network that will actively engage, inform, and keep teachers current with the ever-changing cyber landscape.
We will crosswalk this course with the Virginia Department of Education Cybersecurity Competencies. We also pull in CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards relevant to the content taught in this course. In order to broaden the appeal and to make it easier for teachers to demonstrate that they and their students have met existing standards.
We combine our experiences of a current high school teacher teaching computer science topics, a former high school teacher a new college faculty whom has taught a version of this course, and a Ph.D. researcher who actively works in cybersecurity and developer of educational content for the Department of Energy's Cyber Fire training targeting adults new to and working in the cybersecurity field.