One of the critical barriers to increasing pre-collegiate computer science course offerings in the U.S. is a lack of qualified computer science teachers. Programs such as TEALS, a teacher preparation program pairing high school teachers with computing professionals to offer CS courses, provide opportunities for in-service teachers to gain experience teaching computer science. However, it is not clear whether the high school teachers develop sufficient pedagogical expertise to sustain high-quality computer science course offerings at their schools. Furthermore, the field of computer science education lacks valid and reliable ways of measuring pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), a construct that describes the knowledge teachers need for effective instruction. In this poster, the authors present these results from the first year of a three-year NSF grant to study how TEALS participation influences novice computer science teachers' PCK: 1) a theoretical framework describing the critical components of CS PCK, 2) the results of the first field test of a CS PCK assessment, including the psychometric properties of the assessment, and 3) a comparison of how teachers performed on the assessment at the beginning and end of their first year of computer science teaching and how they performed relative to their computing professional mentors.
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Computer Science Teaching Knowledge: A Framework and Assessment (Abstract Only)
Educators, researchers, politicians, tech companies, and others continue to advocate for the importance of K-12 students learning computer science in our increasingly tech-driven society. One way school districts in the United States address this growing demand is by allowing teachers certified in other disciplines to lead computer science courses. Summer and weekend professional development opportunities support these educators in developing the expertise needed for effective computer science teaching, but a great portion of their learning to teach computer science will occur through on-the-job experiences. Our four-year NSF EHR grant explores how a job-embedded professional development program that pairs high school teachers with tech industry professionals supports educators in acquiring computer science teaching knowledge. The research presented in this poster focuses on the third year of the study and includes (a) a theoretical component focused on creating a framework to explain on-the-job computer science teaching knowledge development based on case studies with six teachers, and (b) an empirical component focused on the creation and administration of a computer science teaching knowledge assessment. By the time of the SIGCSE symposium, we expect to have pre-test results from the first administration of our teaching knowledge assessment, completed by both high school teachers and their collaborating tech industry professionals. This poster will present our theoretical framework, resultant teaching knowledge assessment with sample items, and analysis of participants' assessment responses and their relationship to specific teaching experiences.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1348866
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10353801
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- SIGCSE '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 709 to 709
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3022399
