In recent years, Wyoming has developed Computer Science (CS) standards for adoption and use within K-12 classrooms. These standards, adopted in January of 2022, go into effect for the 2022-2023 school year. The University of Wyoming has offered two different computer science week-long professional developments for teachers. Many K-12 teachers do not have a CS background, so developing CS lessons plans can be a challenge in these PDs.This research study is centered around three central questions: 1) To what extent did K-12 teachers integrate computing topics into their PD created lesson plans; 2) How do the teacher perceptions from the two CS PDs compare to each other; and 3) How was the CS PD translated to classroom activity? The first PD opportunity (n=14), was designed to give hands-on learning with CS topics focused on cybersecurity. The second PD opportunity (n=28), focused on integrating CS into existing curricula. At the end of each of these PDs, teacher K-12 teachers incorporated CS topics into their selected existing lesson plan(s). Additionally, a support network was implemented to support excellence in CS education throughout the state. This research study team evaluated the lesson plans developed during each PD event, by using a rubric on each lesson plan. Researchers collected exit surveys from the teachers. Implementation metrics were also gathered, including, how long each lesson lasted, how many students were involved in the implementation, what grades the student belonged to, the basic demographics of the students, the type of course the lesson plan was housed in, if the K-12 teacher reached their intended purpose, what evidence the K-12 teacher had of the success of their lesson plan, data summaries based on supplied evidence, how the K-12 teachers would change the lesson, the challenges and successes they experienced, and samples of student work. Quantitative analysis was basic descriptive statistics. Findings, based on evaluation of 40+ lessons, taught to over 1500 K-12 students, indicate that when assessed on a three point rubric of struggling, emerging, or excellent - certain components (e.g., organization, objectives, integration, activities & assessment, questions, and catch) of K-12 teacher created lessons plans varied drastically. In particular, lesson plan organization, integration, and questions each had a significant number of submissions which were evaluated as "struggling" [45%, 46%, 41%] through interesting integration, objectives, activities & assessment, and catch all saw submissions which were evaluated as "excellent" [43%, 48%, 43%, 48%]. The relationship between existing K-12 policies and expectations surfaces within these results and in combination with other findings leads to implications for the translation of current research practices into pre-collegiate PDs.
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Design of an Evaluative Rubric for CT Integrated Curriculum in the Elementary Grades Authors
Despite the recent proliferation of research concerning integrating computational thinking (CT) into K-5th grade curriculum, there is little literature concerning how to evaluate the quality of CT integrated curricula, especially curricula integrating CT into language arts and social studies content areas. In this paper, we present a theoretically derived rubric for the evaluation of CT integrated curricula for grades K-5 across the curriculum (math, science, language arts, social studies). Our rubric is divided into two sections. The first section provides guidelines for identifying the integration type (disciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary). The second section presents six categories of evaluation that further subsume nine sub-categories. The principal categories of evaluation include the following: conceptual coherence, role of computational technology, assessment, use of multiple representations, play, and equity. We include the play category as an aspect of developmental appropriateness. Play is an important pedagogical approach for learning in the early grades. Our work takes place in the context of the Computer Science (CS) for All initiative in the United States which emphasizes the goal of improving racial and gender diversity in CS participation. Therefore, creating integrated lessons that address equity is important. Our paper describes rubric development from the theoretical perspectives that underlie the inclusion of each type, category, and sub-category. Our evaluative rubric can guide future efforts to integrate CT/CS into the elementary curricula. Researchers can utilize our rubric to evaluate and analyze CT-integrated curricula, and educators can benefit from using this rubric as a guideline for curriculum development.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1837086
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10355727
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- CTE-STEM 2022 Conference.
- 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/10.34641/ctestem.2022.475
