Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science [ Dec. 2011]
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA, US

M.S. in Computer Science  [ May. 2005]
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA, US

B.S. in Computer Engineering [ May. 2002 ]
Syracuse University, NY, US 

Research Interests

• Computer Science Education Research
• AI Education Research
• Computer Science  Professional Identity Development
• Learning Technology Design & Evaluation
• Curriculum Development
• Assessment Design for K-12 and Undergraduate students

Leadership

• AI for K-12 Initiative, Steering Committee Co-Chair – July 2018 – Present
• ACM Education Advisory Committee, Member, Ethics In Computing Education Task Force
• University of Florida Foundation Executive Board, Faculty Representative
• RESPECT 2021, Program Chair – December 2020 – Present
• EAAI 2021/2022/2023, Special Paper Track: Demos, Software Tools, and Activities for Teaching AI in K-12
• Future of Computing Education Research Workshop, Learning Subgroup
• RESPECT 2020, Conference Chair – July 2019 – May 2020
• Teaching AI in K-12 Symposium, 2019 Fall Symposium Series – Symposium Co-Chair (2019)
• AI in K-12 Symposium, 2018 Fall Symposium Series – Symposium Co-Chair (2018)
• ACM SIGCSE Panel & Special Session Chair – 2017 – 2019
• AP Computer Science Principles Development Committee – 2012 – 2015

Conferences

• AAAI / EAAI
• ACM SIGCSE
• IEEE RESPECT
• ACM ITICSE
• ACM ICER

AWARDS

• 2022 AAAI Educator of the Year Award
• 2020 Faculty Career Influencer Award from the University of Florida Career Connections Center(C3)
• 2019 UF Graduate Student Champion Award
• 2019 Google Faculty In Residence
• CRA-W Distinguished Lecture, March 23, 2013
• CRA-WDREU Mentor (2013-2015)

GRANTS 

• NSF-ITEST – AI4GA [2021-present]
• NSF – AI Across the Curriculum [ 2022-present]
• NST-ITEST – AI4K12 Initiative & State of K-12 AI in Your State Planning Workshop [2019-2021]
• NSF – Everyday Computing  
• NSF – STEM+C – Science Modeling & Computational Thinking [2020-2023]
• NSF S-STEM – Generation Next [2019 – 2024]
• K-12 AI Teacher Conference Scholarships [2019-2020]
• ACM SIGCSE Special Award, CS Identity Development Interview Project [ June 2018 – 2019]
• NSF/ NSA GenCyber – CyberBytes Summer Camp & Teacher Professional Development [2015-2019]
• NSF/NSA – TechEdge K-12 CS Education [2014-2019]

TEACHING & COURSE DEVELOPMENT

• CEN 3031 Software Engineering, University of Florida, [Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2019]
• CEN 3031 Software Engineering, Online, University of Florida, [Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019]
• CISE 4930/6930, Introduction to Computer Science (CS) Education Research, University of Florida, [Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018]
• CISE 4930/6930, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence & Computer Science (CS) Education Research, [Spring 2023]
• CIS 6905, Video Data Analysis Research, University of Florida, [Fall 2014]

UNIVERSITY SERVICE

• UF Faculty Representative, UF Foundation Executive Board (Mar 2021 – Feb 2023)
• K-12 AI Education Team, UF AI Initiative (June 2020-Present)
• Chair,  Curriculum Committee, Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) (Aug 2020 – Present), University of Florida
• Task Force Member, First Year Engineering Design Experiences (Fall 2016 – Present), College of Engineering, University of Florida
• Committee Member,  Undergraduate Curriculum Revision Committee, Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) (Jan 2017 – Present), University of Florida
• Committee Member, Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Curriculum Committee (Jan 2017 – Present), University of Florida
• Committee Member, Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) HCC PhD Admission Committee & Advisory Board (2015 – Present), University of Florida

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

Journal Articles

• Feijóo-García, P.,  Chen, Y.,  Esmaeili, S.,  Ma, Y., Gardner-McCune, C. (in Press) Write2Code: Pen-Based Educational Tool for Java” which will appear in the International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (IJET).
• Herro, D., Gardner-McCune, C., and Boyer, D. M (2015). Perceptions of Coding with MIT App Inventor: Pathways for their Future. Journal for Computing Teachers. Winter 2015, Pages 30 -40.
• King, L., Gardner-McCune, C., & Vargas, P.  (2014) “Re-Discovering and Re-Creating African American Historical Accounts through Mobile Apps: The role of mobile technology in history education.” Journal of Social Studies Research – Special issue on the theme of Research on Technology in the Social Studies: PreK-College.

Book Chapters

• Touretzky, D.,  Gardner-McCune. C. (2022) Artificial Intelligence Thinking in K-12 . In edited Book  Computational Thinking in K-12: Artificial Intelligence Literacy and Physical Computing” edited by Siu-Cheung Kong and Hal Abelson, MIT Press in Spring 2022.
• Gardner-McCune, C. and Jimenez, Y. (2017) Historical App Developers: Integrating CS into K-12 through Cross-Disciplinary Projects. In Yolanda Rankin & Jakita Thomas (Eds) Moving Students of Color from Consumers to Producers of Technology, 1st ed. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. pp 85-112. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-2005-4

Peer Reviewed Conference Papers

2021

• Blanchard, J., Gardner-McCune, C., & Anthony, L. (2021) Dual Modality Instruction & Programming Environments: Student Usage & Perceptions. 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE18).
• Resch, C., Kapoor, A., & Gardner-McCune, C. (2021). (in Press). Reflection and Transformational Learning in a Data Structuresand Algorithms Class. ASEE 2021.

2020

• Blanchard, J., Gardner-McCune, C., & Anthony, L. (2020) Dual-Modality Instruction and Learning: A Case Study in CS1. 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE20). Acceptance Rate: 31%. 2nd Best Paper Award
• Kapoor, A. &  Gardner-McCune, C. (2020). Exploring the Participation of CS Undergraduate Students in Industry Internships. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 20). https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366844    Acceptance Rate: 31%
• Kapoor, A. &  Gardner-McCune, C. (2020). Barriers to Securing Industry Internships in Computing. In Proceedings of the 22nd Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 20). https://doi.org/10.1145/3373165.3373181    Acceptance Rate: 45%
• Feijóo-García, P.G., & Gardner-McCune, C. (2020) Using student-created instructional videos in CS upper-level courses: A successful strategy in a functional programming course. 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education. H. Chad Lane, Susan Zvacek, James Uhomoibhi (Eds.)
  ISBN: 978-989-758-417-6, published by SCITEPRESS.

2019

• D. Touretzky, C. Gardner-McCune, C. Breazeal, F. Martin, and D. Seehorn. (2019). A Year in K-12 AI Education. AI Magazine 40(4):88-90, Winter 2019.
• Feijóo-García, P.G., Wang, S., Cai, J., Polavarapu, N., Gardner-McCune, C., & Ragan, E. (2019). Design and evaluation of a scaffolded block-based learning environment for hierarchical data structures. 2019 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC). doi: 10.1109/vlhcc.2019.8818759 (link)
• Feijóo-García P. G., & Gardner-McCune, C. Improving Functional Programming Understanding through Student-Created Instructional Videos. 24th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE), Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. July 2019. doi: 0.1145/3304221.3325587. [To appear].  
• Amanpreet Kapoor, and Christina Gardner-McCune. 2019. Understanding CS Undergraduate Students’ Professional Identity through the lens of their Professional Development. In Proceedings of the 24th Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE 2019). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 7 Pages. [To appear]    Acceptance Rate: 28%
• Amanpreet Kapoor, and Christina Gardner-McCune. 2019. Understanding CS Undergraduate Students’ Professional Development through the Lens of Internship Experiences. 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 19). https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287408    Acceptance Rate: 32%
• Touretzky, D. S., Gardner-McCune, C., Martin, F., & Seehorn, D. (2019). Blue Sky: Envisioning AI for K-12: What should every child know about AI? Proceedings of AAAI ’19, Jan 27 – February 1, Honolulu, HI. AAAI Press, Palo Alto, California USA

2018

• Amanpreet Kapoor and Christina Gardner-McCune. 2018. Considerations for Switching: Exploring Factors behind CS Students’ Desire to Leave a CS Major. 23rd ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE 18). https://doi.org/10.1145/3197091.3197113. Acceptance Rate: 29%
• Amanpreet Kapoor and Christina Gardner-McCune. 2018. Understanding Professional Identities and Goals of Computer Science Undergraduate Students. 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE18). https://doi.org/10.1145/3159450.3159474. Acceptance Rate: 35%
• Aggarwal, A., Touretzsky, T., & Gardner-McCune, C. (2018). Demonstrating the Ability of Elementary School Students to Reason about Programs Proceedings of SIGCSE ’18, Baltimore, MD. Association for Computing Machinery. Acceptance Rate: 35%
• Crawford, C., Gardner-McCune, C., and Gilbert, J., (2018). Brain-Computer Interface for All. Proceedings of SIGCSE ’18, Baltimore, MD. Association for Computing Machinery. Acceptance Rate: 35%

2017

• Rivera, R., Gardner-McCune, C., & McCune II, D. B. (2017). Engagement in Practice: University & K-12 Partnership with Robotics Outreach. In 2017 American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference & Exposition. Columbus, OH.
• Gardner-McCune, C., Luo, W. & Ritzhaupt, A. D. (April, 2017). Examining STEM changes in a middle school robotics learning environment: Attitudes before and after the experience. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, San Antonio, TX.
• Touretzky, D. S., Gardner-McCune, C., and Aggarwal, A. (2017) Semantic reasoning in young programmers. Proceedings of SIGCSE ’17, Seattle, WA. Association for Computing Machinery.
• Aggarwal, A., Gardner-McCune, C., and Touretzky, D. S. (2017) Evaluating the effect of using physical manipulatives to foster computational thinking in elementary school. Proceedings of SIGCSE ’17, Seattle, WA. Association for Computing Machinery.
• Thomas, S., Jones, J. N., Gardner-McCune, C., & Gilbert, J. E (2017). Empowering Middle School Students to be Technical Designers Through an Intergenerational Partnership. In American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Zone 2 Conference Proceedings, San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 2-5, 2017.

2016

• Touretzky, D. S., and Gardner-McCune, C., and Aggarwal, A. (2016) Teaching ‘lawfulness’ with Kodu. Proceedings of SIGCSE ’16, Memphis, TN. Association for Computing Machinery.

2015

• Herro, D., Boyer D.M., and McCune-Gardner, C. (2015). Adolescents and app development in middle school classrooms. Proceedings published in the 10th Annual Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Conference. Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press.
• Thomas, S., & Gardner-McCune, C. (2015). Social Media as a Springboard to Teach Minority Students How to Code. Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning 2015. Kona, HI: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

2014

• Herro, D., McCune-Gardner, C., & Boyer, M. (June, 2014). Tinkering and computational thinking: Adolescents and app development in middle school classrooms. Paper presented at Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Conference 2014. Madison, WI.

• Mack, N., Hall, P., Gardner-McCune, C., Hodges, L., & Gilbert, J. (2014). Designing with Students: A Participatory Approach to Creating Know Your History: An Interactive History Textbook. In World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 1232-1242).

2013

• Gardner-McCune, C., McCune, D., Stallworth, C., & Edwards, C. (2013). “I-3 Experience: Expanding Research and Design Opportunities for Under-represented High School Students.” American Society of Engineering Education: Computers in Education Division.
• Daily, S., Gardner-McCune, C., Eugene., W., Remy, S., McMullen, K., & Hall, P. (2013)“Alternate Pathways to Careers in Computing: Recruiting and Retaining Women Students.” American Society of Engineering Education: Computing & Information Technology Division.
• Arpaci-Dusseau, A., Astrachan, O., Barnett, D., Bauer, M., Carrell, M., Dovi, R., Franke, B., Gardner, C., Gray, J., Griffin, J., Kick, R., Kuemmel, A., Morelli, R., Muralidhar, D., Osborne, R. B., Uche, C. (2013). “Computer Science Principles: Analysis of a Proposed Advanced Placement Course.” Proceedings of the SIGCSE’13, pp. 251-256, March 6–9, 2013, Denver, Colorado, USA

Before 2012

• Clegg, T, L., Gardner, C.M. & Kolodner, J. L. “Technology for Supporting Learners in Out-of-School Learning Environments,” Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL’11), Hong Kong, China (July 2011)
• Gardner, C.M. & Kolodner, J. L. “Turning on Minds with Computers in the Kitchen: Supporting Group Reflection in the Midst of Engaging Hands-on Activities,” Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL’07). New Brunswick, NJ. (July 2007)
• Gardner, C. M., Clegg, T. L., Williams, O. L., & Kolodner, J. L. “Messy Learning Environments: Busy Hands and Less Engaged Minds,” Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Bloomington, IN (June 2006).
• Clegg, T., Gardner, C., Williams, O., & Kolodner, J. (2006). “Promoting Learning in Informal Learning Environments,” Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Bloomington, IN (June 2006).

White Papers

• Gardner-McCune, C. (2014) A Case for Learning Research in Computer Science Education. Future of Computer Science Summit I. Orlando, Fl. (35% Acceptance rate).