Dan Garcia

Digital Library

ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award

USA - 2024

citation

With Brian Harvey, for their advocacy of and advances in education to bring the beauty and joy of computing to all students, especially those from historically underrepresented communities.

Dan Garcia is a Teaching Professor and Brian Harvey is a Teaching Professor Emeritus, both in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) department at the University of California at Berkeley.

Together they have been instrumental in expanding Computer Science education, particularly through their role in developing the ?Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC)?, which began as a pilot for the CSforAll movement. A key part of this effort was Snap!, a blocks-based programming language for which the defining characteristics were driven by Brian. Dan and Brian have expanded BJC?s reach by training nearly 1,000 teachers, creating a Spanish version, and developing a middle school version, BJC Sparks. The BJC course at Berkeley is the only EECS course to exceed 50% female enrolment.

Individually, Dan and Brian have been recognized with prestigious teaching awards and both have shown a spirit of generosity with their work. Dan has been recognised in 2019 as SIGCSE?s most prolific author, readily sharing his work, and has served in several roles for SIGCSE. Brian (with Jens Mönig) built and curates an international online community around Snap!, with over 500,000 learners from over 40 countries. The results of their remarkable collaboration and sharing of resources have been of immense benefit to the CS education community and to countless students.

ACM Distinguished Member

USA - 2012

2024 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award

Dan Garcia, Teaching Professor, UC Berkeley, and Brian Harvey, Teaching Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley, receive the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award for their advocacy of and advances in education to bring the beauty and joy of computing to all students, especially those from historically underrepresented communities.

Together Garcia and Harvey have been instrumental in expanding computer science education, most notably through the development of the Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC) curriculum, which began as a national pilot for the CSforALL movement. A key part of this effort was Snap!, a blocks-based programming language on which Harvey collaborates with principal developer Jens Mönig. Subsequently Garcia and Harvey and BJC co-PI Tiffany Barnes went on to expand BJC’s reach by training over 1,000 teachers, offering the curriculum in Spanish, and developing a middle school version, BJC Sparks. Importantly, the BJC Course at Berkeley is the only EECS course to exceed 50% female enrollment and once exceeded 70%.