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Based on work in an ongoing research-practice partnership, we share teacher-designed project-based learning (PBL) units that sought to integrate Appalachian heritage and CT. We offer reflections on the lessons learned in the design and implementation of PBL units in addition to making recommendations for future PBL units that integrate CT and cultural heritage. This work has implications for improving computing education in rural contexts and in PBL settings. 

Based in a research-practice partnership around district-wide computational thinking (CT) Pathways, this paper explores how six districts utilized the CT Engagement Inventory to examine if and how students are engaged in computing learning opportunities and write inclusive CT pathway goals. We found the CT Engagement Inventory supported districts in articulating inclusive pathway goals that moved beyond focusing only on access and participation. Instead, goals focused on building capacity to make broader access and participation possible and examining the nature of student participation. This paper demonstrates a tool to support districts in ensuring inclusive computing learning opportunities reach all students. 

Students in Appalachia have a heritage of problem-solving. We explore how computational thinking (CT) relates to and complements this heritage by analyzing 34 local ingenuity stories, and perspectives from 35 community members about the relevance of CT. We found the two problem-solving approaches are meaningfully different, but can be used in concert. Since equating them could contribute to confusion and cultural erasure, researchers and educators bringing CT as a problem solving strategy into rural and other resourceful cultures must clarify what they mean by “CT helps problem solving.” In these cultures, CT skills are better introduced as new tools to expand students’ problem-solving toolkits, rather than tools that are identical to or better than those traditionally used in their culture. 

We report on eleven middle school project-based learning units designed by fifteen Central Appalachian teachers, following our research practice partnership’s first week-long computational thinking curriculum design institute. We investigate whether and how these planned units offer opportunities for students to practice computational thinking while engaging with the region’s rich heritage of innovation, community connections and storytelling. We find that all, or the vast majority of unit plans, incorporate computational thinking, heritage/community and storytelling in compelling ways. We discuss implications for our partner community, for rural education, and for the field of computational thinking education research. 

Our research-practice partnership with two school districts in Eastern Kentucky has created a rurally sustaining computational thinking (CT) pathway. In this paper we share our project’s operational understanding of the concept of rural sustainability in the context of CT pathways. We posit that an effective CT pathway for rural communities must be firmly rooted in their cultural wealth, funds of knowledge, and socioeconomic priorities. Moreover, it should empower students to draw upon their own innovation heritage, leveraging CT as a tool to identify and address community challenges. Emphasizing the necessity of incorporating rural contexts into discussions on equitable access to computing education, our conceptualization provides insights into how policy and research can contribute to this important goal. 

For many rural teachers and students, the notion of “computational thinking” sounds like a novelty and nice-to-have from far away cities, rather than an essential competency relevant to their local context. However, two Appalachian school districts, in a research practice partnership, have begun to look for connections between rural heritage stories and computational thinking, to help students grow as community problem solvers. The team has collected several local “ingenuity stories” and began to analyze what the local flavor of ingenuity is, and direct tie-ins to computational thinking. The stories have been inspiring, but it takes some thoughtful interviewing to identify the exact connections to computational thinking. Come hear about the first round of research findings, and think with us about ways to move forward so we can ground computing education in local rural contexts. 

With computational thinking (CT) emerging as a prominent component of 21st century science education, equipping teachers with the necessary tools to integrate CT into science lessons becomes increasingly important. One of these tools is confidence in their ability to carry out the integration of CT. This confidence is conceptualized as self-efficacy: the belief in one’s ability to perform a specific task in a specific context. Self-reported self-efficacy in teaching has shown promise as a measure of future behavior and is linked to teacher performance. Current measures of teacher self-efficacy to integrate CT are limited, however, by narrow conceptualizations of CT, oversight of survey design research, and limited evidence of instrument validity. We designed a valid and reliable measure of Teacher Self-Efficacy for integrating Computational Thinking in Science (T-SelECTS) that fits a single latent factor structure. To demonstrate the instrument’s value, we collected data from 58 pre-service teachers who participated in a CT module within their science methods course at a large Mid-Atlantic university. We found evidence of significant development in pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy for integrating CT into science instruction. We discuss how the T-SelECTS instrument could be used in teacher education courses and professional development to measure change in self-efficacy. 

There is a need for more K-12 computer science (CS) teachers. The need to scale teacher professional development (PD) points the CS education community towards virtual learning, and prior work shows that in-person PD with a diffuse schedule is more successful than condensed schedules. There is currently little research about virtual K-12 CS PD with a diffuse schedule. The pandemic served as a forced opportunity to explore the design and implementation of a diffuse-scheduled virtual PD for two small, equally-sized cohorts of middle school (grades 5-8) teachers; one from a metropolitan school district and another from across the United States. Our findings reveal several important post-pandemic design implications for future CS PD programs. First, the teachers’ CS knowledge and attitudes significantly increased in both cohorts. Second, there were no significant differences in attitudes or achievement between the cohorts. Third, the teachers in the virtual PD showed as good changes or better in attitude than those in a prior in-person PD. Finally, both cohorts were largely positive about the change from a few intensive PD days to a few hours a week for several weeks, even as they joined from vacations.