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ABSTRACT BackgroundIn recent years, computer science education has emerged as a necessary part of school curricula for students of all ages. With such momentum in this direction, it is essential that program designers, educators, and researchers ensure that computer science education is designed to be inclusive, effective, and engaging for all students. ObjectiveAccordingly, this paper reports on the design and implementation of an inclusive digital learning platform and accompanying curriculum for scaffolding and integrating coding into writing instruction for elementary‐aged students (approximately ages 9–12). In this paper, we report on teachers' uses of the Compose and Code (CoCo) platform and curriculum, how students used its features, and its influence on students' computational thinking skills and attitudes about coding. MethodData analysed in this mixed‐methods study come from 11 teachers and 595 students in Grades 3–6. Data sources included teacher reflections and interviews, an assessment of computational thinking for students, and a coding attitudes survey for students. Quantitative data were analysed descriptively and using paired samplet‐tests. Qualitative data were analysed inductively using open coding to determine emergent categories. Results and ConclusionFindings indicate that (1) a majority of students effectively used the CoCo platform to plan their work and code in Scratch, with a smaller percentage using the self‐evaluation and self‐monitoring features, (2) teachers indicated overall positive perceptions of the CoCo platform and curriculum, with strong support for using it in the future, (3) students' computational thinking skills improved over the course of the project, with results indicating a large effect size (g = 1.24), and (4) student attitudinal results were mixed, providing insights to the barriers that students face when learning to code. Overall, this study indicates that the CoCo platform and curriculum show promise as a scaffolded, structured, and integrated tool for teaching elementary computer science to elementary grade students. 

This article reports results from the implementation of a model of professional development (PD) to help K-5 teachers develop the knowledge and skills to teach Computer Science (CS) in classrooms of diverse students, including students with high-incidence disabilities. This article describes our Inclusive CS model of PD, how we made the PD model available to teachers during a pandemic and presents quantitative and qualitative results about the impact of the PD on teachers’ knowledge, comfort, and beliefs related to teaching computer science to students. Results indicate that the teachers’ knowledge, comfort, beliefs and perceptions about teaching CS to students with disabilities significantly improved. Teachers’ knowledge and understanding of Universal Design for Learning for supporting students in learning about CS also improved.