Despite the increasing attention to infusing CT into middle and high school content area classrooms, there is a lack of information about the most effective practices and models to support teachers in their efforts to integrate disciplinary content and CT principles. To address this need, this paper proposes the Code, Connect and Create (3C) professional development (PD) model, which was designed to support middle and high school content area teachers in infusing computational thinking into their classrooms. To evaluate the model, we analyzed quantitative and qualitative data collected from Infusing Computing PD workshops designed for in-service science, math, English language arts, and social studies teachers located in two Southeastern states. Drawing on findings from our analysis of teacher-created learning segments, surveys, and interviews, we argue that the 3C professional development model supported shifts in teacher understandings of the role of computational thinking in content area classrooms, as well as their self-efficacy and beliefs regarding CT integration into disciplinary content. We conclude by offering implications for the use of this model to increase teacher and student access to computational thinking practices in middle and high school classrooms.
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Leveraging virtual professional development to build computational thinking literacies in English language arts classrooms
This article describes the Infusing Computing project, a 4-year
study designed to support middle and high school teachers in
infusing computational thinking (CT) into their disciplinary
teaching. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, weeklong workshops
held in summer 2020 were shifted to a virtual format and
utilized emerging technology tools, synchronous and
asynchronous sessions, explicit collaborative scaffolds,
networking, and digital badging. Specifically, this study
examined the experiences of English language arts (ELA)
teachers (14 middle school, 13 high school) who participated in
the virtual Infusing Computing workshops. Findings
demonstrated that ELA teachers were able to leverage learning
successfully from virtual PD to infuse CT into existing curricula,
although teachers differed in the ways that they appropriated
and adapted pedagogical tools for CT infusion.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1742332
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10388699
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education
- Volume:
- 21
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1528-5804
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 626-654
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Despite increasing attention to the potential benefits of infusing computational thinking into content area classrooms, more research is needed to examine how teachers integrate disciplinary content and CT as part of their pedagogical practices. This study traces how middle and high school teachers (n = 24) drew on their existing knowledge and their experiences in a STEM professional development program to infuse CT into their teaching. Our work is grounded in theories of TPACK and TPACK-CT, which leverage teachers’ knowledge of technology for computational thinking (CT), CT as a disciplinary pedagogical practice, and STEM content knowledge. Findings identify three key pedagogical supports that teachers utilized and transformed as they taught CT-infused lessons (articulating a key purpose for CT infusion, scaffolding, and collaborative contexts), as well as barriers that caused teachers to adapt or abandon their lessons. Implications include suggestions for future research on CT infusion into secondary classrooms, as well as broader recommendations to support teachers in applying STEM professional development content to classroom practice.more » « less
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