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1. First impressions matter: An analysis of prospective teachers' noticing of curriculum materials

   Block, Scott; Quaisley, Kelsey; Males, Lorraine M (October 2023, Proceedings of the forty-fifth annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   Lamberg, T; Moss, D (Ed.)

   Given the ubiquity of curriculum materials and complexity of their usage, it is imperative that teacher education programs prepare prospective teachers (PSTs) to use curriculum materials. In this paper, we focus on what PSTs notice when they are interacting with curriculum materials, and how their initial impressions of curriculum materials influence their later understandings of curriculum materials. We found that PSTs’ 20-second impressions may be indicative of their longer impressions of curriculum materials, which can include their preferences, values, beliefs, and approaches to using curriculum materials. We suggest that teacher educators expose PSTs to a variety of curriculum materials to better support PSTs in planning and enacting lessons. 

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2. Using an Evidence-Centered Design Approach to Examine the Alignment of Computer Science Curricula with Standards

   Rutstein, Daisy; Basu, Satabdi; Yang, Hui; Rachmatullah, Arif; Tate, Carol; McGee, Steven (June 2024, International Society of the learning Sciences, ICLS 2024 Proceedings)

   In the early stages of K-12 Computer Science (CS) curriculum development, standards were not yet established, and the primary objective, especially in younger grades, was to spark students' interest in CS. While this remains a vital goal, the development of the CS standards underscores the importance of standards-aligned curriculum, ensuring equitable, content rich CS education for all students. We show that standards alignment is most useful when it includes details about which aspects of the standards a curriculum aligns with. This paper describes our process of decomposing five middle school CS standards into granular learning targets using an evidence-centered design approach and mapping the learning targets onto individual lessons from one widely popular middle school CS curriculum. We discuss the potential implications of this work on curriculum design, curriculum selection, and teacher professional learning. 

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3. Project-Based Software Engineering Curriculum for Secondary Students

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3605468.3605501  

   Gransbury, Isabella; Brock, Janet; Root, Emily; Catete, Veronica; Barnes, Tiffany; Grover, Shuchi; Ledeczi, Akos (September 2023, Proceedings of the 18th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research)

   Background. Software Engineering (SE) is a new and emerging topic in secondary computer science classrooms. However, a review of the recent literature has identified an overall lack of reporting on the development of SE secondary curriculum. Previous studies also report low student engagement when teaching these concepts. Objectives. In this experience report, we discuss the development of a 9-week, project-based learning (PBL) SE curriculum for secondary students. During this curriculum, students create a socially relevant project in groups of two to three. We discuss displays of participant engagement with CS concepts through the PBL pedagogy and the SE curriculum. Method. We examine participant engagement through group artifact interviews about student experiences during a week-long, virtual summer camp that piloted activities from our curriculum. During this camp, students followed a modified SE life cycle created by the authors of the paper. Findings. Participants showed engagement with the curriculum through various aspects of PBL, such as autonomy, creativity, and personal interest in their project topic. Implications. The lessons learned from this experience report suggest that PBL pedagogy can increase student engagement when teaching CS concepts, and this pedagogy provides detail and structure for future secondary SE curriculum implementations to support educators in the classroom 

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4. Digital Video Representations for Teaching Mathematics and Coding to Middle School Students

   https://doi.org/10.1109/DSP58604.2023.10167969  

   Pattichis, Marios S; Celedón-Pattichis, Sylvia; LópezLeiva, Carlos (July 2023, IEEE Xplore)

   We present an integrated mathematics and computer programming curriculum for teaching bilingual middle school students how to code using digital video representations. Building on the student's familiarity with digital video, we introduce them to number representations (e.g., binary and hexadecimals), NumPy arrays, coordinate systems, color, frames, and how to combine them into digital video content. The curriculum is fully integrated with middle school mathematics. Middle school students who completed the curriculum joined undergraduate students to co-teach the curriculum in a small group collaborative learning environment. We found evidence of successful implementations based on video recordings of student and facilitator interactions, attitude scales, student exit interviews, and samples of student work. 

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5. Co-Designing Accessible Science Education Simulations with Blind and Visually-Impaired Teens

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3373625.3418025  

   Winters, R. Michael; Harden, E. Lynne; Moore, Emily B. (October 2020, The 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility)

   null (Ed.)

   Design thinking is an approach to educational curriculum that builds empathy, encourages ideation, and fosters active problem solving through hands-on design projects. Embedding participatory “co-design” into design thinking curriculum offers students agency in finding solutions to real-world design challenges, which may support personal empowerment. An opportunity to explore this prospect arose in the design of sounds for an accessible interactive science-education simulation in the PhET Project. Over the course of three weeks, PhET researchers engaged blind and visually-impaired high-school students in a design thinking curriculum that included the co-design of sounds and auditory interactions for the Balloons and Static Electricity (BASE) sim. By the end of the curriculum, students had iterated through all aspects of design thinking and performed a quantitative evaluation of multiple sound prototypes. Furthermore, the group’s mean self-efficacy rating had increased. We reflect on our curriculum and the choices we made that helped enable the students to become authentic partners in sound design. 

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