Middle school teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching computer science and digital literacy: Impact of the CS Pathways RPP professional development program
Title: Middle school teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching computer science and digital literacy: Impact of the CS Pathways RPP professional development program
Background: Researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) have gained increasing prominence within education, since they are crucial for identifying partners’ problems of practice and seeking solutions for improving district (or school) problems. The CS Pathways RPP project brought together researchers and practitioners, including middle school teachers and administrators from three urban school districts, to build teachers’ capacity to implement an inclusive computer science and digital literacy (CSDL) curriculum for all students in their middle schools. Objective: This study explored the teachers’ self-efficacy development in teaching a middle school CSDL curriculum under the project’s RPP framework. The ultimate goal was to gain insights into how the project’s RPP framework and its professional development (PD) program supported teachers’ self-efficacy development, in particular its challenges and success of the partnership. Method: Teacher participants attended the first-year PD program and were surveyed and/or interviewed about their self-efficacy in teaching CSDL curriculum, spanning topics ranging from digital literacy skills to app creation ability and curriculum implementation. Both survey and interview data were collected and analyzed using mixed methods 1) to examine the reach of the RPP PD program in terms of teachers’ self-efficacy; 2) to produce insightful understandings of the PD program impact on the project’s goal of building teachers’ self-efficacy. Results and Discussion: We reported the teachers’ self-efficacy profiles based on the survey data. A post-survey indicated that a majority of the teachers have high self-efficacy in teaching the CSDL curriculum addressed by the RPP PD program. Our analysis identified five critical benefits the project’s RPP PD program provided, namely collaborative efforts on resource and infrastructure building, content and pedagogical knowledge growth, collaboration and communication, and building teacher identity. All five features have shown direct impacts on teachers' self-efficacy. The study also reported teachers’ perceptions on the challenges they faced and potential areas for improvements. These findings indicate some important features of an effective PD program, informing the primary design of an RPP CS PD program. more »« less
Bausch, Gillian; Ni, Lijun; Martin, Fred; Hsu, Hsien-Yuan; Feliciano, Bernardo
(, SIGCSE '21: Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)
null
(Ed.)
This pilot study explores the impact of the CS Pathways professional development (PD) program on the teachers' self-efficacy in teaching a middle school computer science and digital literacy (CSDL) curriculum. The main goal of the study is to investigate the attributes that describe the teachers' self-efficacy after their first-year participation in the PD. A total of 19 middle school teachers from two states, NY and MA, attended the CS Pathway PD program and completed the end-of-year survey pertaining to self-efficacy in CSDL; more than half accepted the interview to help further understand their perceptions (n=10). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is applied to study the attributes of the teachers' self-efficacy. The preliminary results capture teachers' self-efficacy patterns, which inform the PD and indicate its effectiveness and challenges.
Hodges, Charles B.; Akcaoglu, Mete; Allen, Andrew; Doğan, Selçuk
(, Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)
Teacher self-efficacy (SE) has been observed to be an 'important construct for Computer Science (CS) teachers' professional development because it can predict both teaching behaviors as well as student outcomes" [1]. The purpose of the present study was to investigate teacher CS SE during a two-year federally funded professional development (PD) and curriculum development project for middle school teachers incorporating game-design and the Unity development platform. The research question investigated is: How does teacher self-efficacy for teaching computer science via game design with the Unity game development platform change during a year-long PD program? Investigations of teacher SE for teaching CS have resulted in some surprising results. For example, it has been reported that - There were no differences in self-efficacy based on teachers' overall level of experience, despite previous findings that teacher self-efficacy is related to amount of experience" and "no differences in self-efficacy related to the teachers' own level of experience with CS" [2], thus further study of CS teacher SE is warranted. Participants in this study were six middle school teachers from four middle schools in the southeastern United States. They participated in a year-long PD program learning the Unity game development platform, elements of game design, and foundations of learner motivation. Guided reflective journaling was used to track the teachers' SE during the first year of the project. Teachers completed journal prompts at four intervals. Prompts consisted of questions like "How do you currently feel about your ability to facilitate student learning with Unity?" and "Are you confident that you can implement the materials the way the project team has planned for them to be implemented?" Prior to beginning the project participants expressed confidence in being able to facilitate student learning after participating in the planned professional development, but there was some uneasiness about learning and using Unity. From a SE perspective their responses make sense, as all of the participants are experienced teachers and should have confidence in their general ability to teach. However, since Unity is a new programming environment for all of the teachers, they did not have the prior experience necessary to have a high degree of confidence that they could successfully use it with their students.
The "Computer Science for All" initiative advocates for universal access to computer science (CS) instruction. A key strategy toward this end has been to establish CS content standards outlining what all students should have the opportunity to learn. Standards can support curriculum quality and access to quality CS instruction, but only if they are used to inform curriculum design and instructional practice. Professional learning offered to teachers of CS has typically focused on learning to implement a specific curriculum, rather than deepening understanding of CS concepts. We set out to develop a set of educative resources, formative assessment tools and teacher professional development (PD) sessions to support middle school CS teachers' knowledge of CS standards and standards-aligned formative assessment literacy. Our PD and associated resources focus on five CS standards in the Algorithm and Programming strand and are meant to support teachers using any CS curriculum or programming language. In this experience report, we share what we learned from implementing our standards-based PD with four middle school CS teachers. Teachers initially perceived standards as irrelevant to their teaching but they came to appreciate how a deeper understanding of CS concepts could enhance their instructional practice. Analysis of PD observations and exit surveys, teacher interviews, and teacher responses to a survey assessing CS pedagogical content knowledge demonstrated the complexity of using content standards as a driver of high-quality CS instruction at the middle school level, and reinforced our position that more standards-focused PD is needed.
Ni, Lijun; Martin, Fred; Bausch, Gillian; Benjamin, Rebecca; Hsu, Hsien-Yuan; Feliciano, Bernardo
(, SIGCSE '21: Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)
null
(Ed.)
This paper presents an experience report from an NSF-funded researcher-practitioner partnership (RPP) project. Based on a collaboration among two public research universities and three urban school districts in the Northeast USA, the goal of the project is to establish an institutionalized middle school computer science curriculum in the districts. The CS curriculum incorporates digital literacy skills as an integral aspect of learning computer science, and is based on students developing mobile apps that provide social and community good. Here, we share our professional learning process during the project's first year, which had been developed iteratively and dynamically adjusted to a remote format in response to exigencies of Spring 2020. The paper includes analysis of three data sets from teacher-participants: (1) their questions about the nature of the project, which we categorized into three levels: project, district and teacher levels. These questions bridge the visions and knowledge among different groups of the project partners; (2) analysis of semi-structured interview conversations with more than half of the teacher-participants; and (3) teacher survey responses. Our findings include two recommendations: that RPP projects elicit teacher questions to illuminate the three levels identified, and use strategies that engage teachers in designing a professional learning process for teaching computer science.
Ni, Lijun; Bausch, Gillian; Feliciano, Bernardo; Hsu, Hsien-Yuan; Martin, Fred
(, SIGCSE 2022: Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)
This poster shares our experience of engaging middle school teachers in a collaborative design of a computer science and digital literacy (CSDL) curriculum through a researcher and practitioner partnership (RPP) among two public universities and three urban school districts in the Northeast USA. The project used the co-design approach to facilitate curriculum development and foster professional learning. In this poster, we introduce the co-design process, the developed curriculum, and teachers' professional learning experiences. Preliminary results indicate that the co-design approach supplemented with one-one-on coaching has not only facilitated the curriculum development but also fostered professional learning and collective capacity building for CS education.
Bausch, G., Ni, L., Martin, F., Hsu, H., and Feliciano, B. Middle school teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching computer science and digital literacy: Impact of the CS Pathways RPP professional development program. Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10351378. The intersection of RPPs and BPC in CS education: A culmination of papers from the RPPforCS Community . Web. doi:DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.31416.26887.
Bausch, G., Ni, L., Martin, F., Hsu, H., & Feliciano, B. Middle school teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching computer science and digital literacy: Impact of the CS Pathways RPP professional development program. The intersection of RPPs and BPC in CS education: A culmination of papers from the RPPforCS Community, (). Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10351378. https://doi.org/DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.31416.26887
Bausch, G., Ni, L., Martin, F., Hsu, H., and Feliciano, B.
"Middle school teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching computer science and digital literacy: Impact of the CS Pathways RPP professional development program". The intersection of RPPs and BPC in CS education: A culmination of papers from the RPPforCS Community (). Country unknown/Code not available. https://doi.org/DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.31416.26887.https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10351378.
@article{osti_10351378,
place = {Country unknown/Code not available},
title = {Middle school teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching computer science and digital literacy: Impact of the CS Pathways RPP professional development program},
url = {https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10351378},
DOI = {DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.31416.26887},
abstractNote = {Background: Researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) have gained increasing prominence within education, since they are crucial for identifying partners’ problems of practice and seeking solutions for improving district (or school) problems. The CS Pathways RPP project brought together researchers and practitioners, including middle school teachers and administrators from three urban school districts, to build teachers’ capacity to implement an inclusive computer science and digital literacy (CSDL) curriculum for all students in their middle schools. Objective: This study explored the teachers’ self-efficacy development in teaching a middle school CSDL curriculum under the project’s RPP framework. The ultimate goal was to gain insights into how the project’s RPP framework and its professional development (PD) program supported teachers’ self-efficacy development, in particular its challenges and success of the partnership. Method: Teacher participants attended the first-year PD program and were surveyed and/or interviewed about their self-efficacy in teaching CSDL curriculum, spanning topics ranging from digital literacy skills to app creation ability and curriculum implementation. Both survey and interview data were collected and analyzed using mixed methods 1) to examine the reach of the RPP PD program in terms of teachers’ self-efficacy; 2) to produce insightful understandings of the PD program impact on the project’s goal of building teachers’ self-efficacy. Results and Discussion: We reported the teachers’ self-efficacy profiles based on the survey data. A post-survey indicated that a majority of the teachers have high self-efficacy in teaching the CSDL curriculum addressed by the RPP PD program. Our analysis identified five critical benefits the project’s RPP PD program provided, namely collaborative efforts on resource and infrastructure building, content and pedagogical knowledge growth, collaboration and communication, and building teacher identity. All five features have shown direct impacts on teachers' self-efficacy. The study also reported teachers’ perceptions on the challenges they faced and potential areas for improvements. These findings indicate some important features of an effective PD program, informing the primary design of an RPP CS PD program.},
journal = {The intersection of RPPs and BPC in CS education: A culmination of papers from the RPPforCS Community},
author = {Bausch, G. and Ni, L. and Martin, F. and Hsu, H. and Feliciano, B},
}
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