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1. The Effectiveness of Summer Professional Development for K-8 Computer Science Teachers

   Nugent, G.; Wang, K.t.; Soh, L.-K. (January 2020, Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference)

   Marks, G. H.; Schmidt-Crawford, D. (Ed.)

   The growing interest in offering computer science (CS) in public schools has illuminated the need for more trained K-8 educators. This paper provides initial evidence that carefully structured professional development (PD) that focuses both on CS skills/concepts and pedagogy can successfully impact teacher outcomes. Testing before and after the summer PD showed significant increases in teachers’ knowledge of CS concepts and computational thinking, as well as confidence in their CS skills and pedagogy. The only moderating effect was for rural versus urban differences in CS confidence. 

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2. Lessons in adaptation: A five-year design analysis of culturally responsive computer science PD for elementary teachers

   Mathayas, N; Nolte, A; Mead, H; Mouza, C; Pollock, L; Rolon-Dow, R; Alkhateeb, B; Ospina-Tabares, S (March 2025, Society of Information Technology and Teacher Education)

   This study examines the evolution of a professional development (PD) program over a 5-year period designed to enhance computer science (CS) education in elementary schools. Despite growing emphasis on CS in K-12 education, elementary teachers often lack resources and training. Our project addressed this gap by offering an annual summer PD Institute (2020 to 2024), aimed to equip K-5 teachers with content and pedagogical knowledge needed to integrate CS into their curriculum. The overarching intention of the program is to increase CS opportunities in elementary schools, with a focus on engaging female students and those from underrepresented backgrounds. Utilizing the framework of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), the PD design was iteratively refined based on teacher feedback and artifact analysis. We conducted a retrospective, qualitative analysis to identify core PD characteristics and their evolution. Our findings reveal how PD content evolved across dimensions of the TPACK framework, with the fifth year achieving a balanced distribution of components. This study contributes to understanding effective design principles for elementary CS teacher PD and highlights the importance of researcher-teacher partnerships in building a community of elementary CS educators. 

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3. Developing Empathy and Persistence through Professional Development in New to CSA Teachers

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469793  

   Broneak, Cassandra; Rosato, Jennifer (August 2021, ICER 2021: Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research)

   null (Ed.)

   To meet the rising demand for computer science (CS) courses, K-12 educators need to be prepared to teach introductory concepts and skills in courses such as Computer Science Principles (CSP), which takes a breadth-first approach to CS and includes topics beyond programming such as data, impacts of computing, and networks. Educators are now also being asked to teach more advanced concepts in courses such as the College Board's Advanced Placement Computer Science A (CSA) course, which focuses on advanced programming using Java and includes topics such as objects, inheritance, arrays, and recursion. Traditional CSA curricula have not used content or pedagogy designed to engage a broad range of learners and support their success. Unlike CSP, which is attracting more underrepresented students to computing as it was designed, CSA continues to enroll mostly male, white, and Asian students [College Board 2019, Ericson 2020, Sax 2020]. In order to expand CS education opportunities, it is crucial that students have an engaging experience in CSA similar to CSP. Well-designed differentiated professional development (PD) that focuses on content and pedagogy is necessary to meet individual teacher needs, to successfully build teacher skills and confidence to teach CSA, and to improve engagement with students [Darling-Hammond 2017]. It is critical that as more CS opportunities and courses are developed, teachers remain engaged with their own learning in order to build their content knowledge and refine their teaching practice [CSTA 2020]. CSAwesome, developed and piloted in 2019, offers a College Board endorsed AP CSA curriculum and PD focused on supporting the transition of teachers and students from CSP to CSA. This poster presents preliminary findings aimed at exploring the supports and challenges new-to-CSA high school level educators face when transitioning from teaching an introductory, breadth-first course such as CSP to teaching the more challenging, programming-focused CSA course. Five teachers who completed the online CSAwesome summer 2020 PD completed interviews in spring 2021. The project employed an inductive coding scheme to analyze interview transcriptions and qualitative notes from teachers about their experiences learning, teaching, and implementing CSP and CSA curricula. Initial findings suggest that teachers’ experience in the CSAwesome PD may improve their confidence in teaching CSA, ability to effectively use inclusive teaching practices, ability to empathize with their students, problem-solving skills, and motivation to persist when faced with challenges and difficulties. Teachers noted how the CSAwesome PD provided them with a student perspective and increased feelings of empathy. Participants spoke about the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on their own learning, student learning, and teaching style. Teachers enter the PD with many different backgrounds, CS experience levels, and strengths, however, new-to-CSA teachers require further PD on content and pedagogy to transition between CSP and CSA. Initial results suggest that the CSAwesome PD may have an impact on long-term teacher development as new-to-CSA teachers who participated indicated a positive impact on their teaching practices, ideologies, and pedagogies. 

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4. What CS Teachers Want in a CS Professional Development Passport

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3641555.3705280  

   Tise, Joseph C; Thigpen, Laycee; McGill, Monica M; Schwarzhaupt, Robert (February 2025, ACM)

   Although there is extensive research on what makes teacher computer science (CS) professional development (PD) effective, little attention has been given to how PD providers prefer to collect and report data. A platform that met the needs of teachers while also simultaneously meeting the needs of funding bodies could be powerful in answering questions about participation and experiences in CS PD. Our research question for this study was: Which features and types of data do teachers find most important to include in a platform designed to record data related to their engagement with PD?We used an exploratory-sequential mixed methods approach that included focus groups and a survey created from an analysis of the data from the focus groups. The three most desired feature included adding information about the subject/topics targeted by the CS PD offerings for the CS PD they took, the grade levels targeted by the CS PD offering, and the number of training hours, points, and/or CEU credits earned or available to be earned by each CS PD offering taken. The three least desired features included have the capability for teachers to take notes about a CS PD, QR codes for signing up for CS PD, and capability to enter data about non-CS PDs you have completed. While we will use this data to inform the development of the platform, this study is significant as states can leverage this knowledge as they create their own systems for creating platforms for teachers within their own states. 

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5. Integrating Computational Thinking Within and Across Disciplines in the Context of Teacher Professional Development

   Nolte, A.; Mead, H.; Mouza, C.; Rolon-Dow, R; Pollock, L. (January 2023, Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference)

   Teachers’ lack of computer science (CS) content knowledge and limited opportunities to incorporate CS in existing curricula pose unique challenges at the elementary level. Despite the crucial role of professional development (PD) in preparing elementary school teachers to integrate CS in classroom instruction, there is little research documenting PD programs that focus on integration in literacy and mathematics when compared to other subject areas. In this work, we present a PD program that integrates CS with disciplinary content to support teachers as they integrate CS with literacy and mathematics in elementary school classrooms. Using data from multiple sources, we present findings from two case studies to examine the impact of the PD on teachers’ integration of CS with content in lesson planning and implementation. Findings have implications related to the integration of CS in elementary school and teacher professional development. 

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