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The continuous rising of digital learning platforms have unarguably brought about a surge in the amount of data obtained from different learning environments, which presents a great opportunity for computer science teachers to gain an understanding of students’ coding processes. This is vital for enhancing student support as teachers can gain insights into students’ thought process, strategies and identify areas where students might be struggling while tacking programming tasks. Traditional assessment methods such as feedback after homework submissions or completed lab assignments often results in late and untimely intervention that would prevent early dropouts and massive failures as the students’ learning journey is neglected in the process. We leverage students’ keystroke data obtained from Python and Java-based introductory programming courses delivered through CODIO learning platform, to design an interactive code visualization and error detection platform using Streamlit. The application features an interface that reproduces students’ code snippets with JavaScript enabled syntax highlighting. It includes a combination of dropdown menu and an adjustable slider which enables an instructor to navigate through the timestamps and have a detailed view of students’ coding processes. The application also includes a navigation to an environment that enables instructors to run the generated code snippets for error detection, giving the instructors clear idea of the difficult part(s) of the course for intervention purposes. The intervention ultimately fosters a more supportive learning environment and helps boost students’ confidence. 

In the United States, 1 in 5 people, approximately 66.3 million individuals, live in a rural area. To address the growing need for computing professionals and the need for a computationally literate populace, we need to engage rural learners effectively. A first step in this direction is understanding the learning context for students engaging in computer science, and how that differs for a rural population. In this paper, we draw upon the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, and the 2021 American Community Survey, to underscore a lack of access to computer science learning contexts for students in these communities. We also explore how rural out-migration is compounding this challenge, and explore the roots of the rural out-migration trend. We then examine how multiple strains of research and scholarship identify rurality as either a place-based identification (i.e., where a student is from) or a distinct social identity. While convenient, geographic-based definitions lack important nuance in understanding rural populations and tend to emphasize heterogeneity in rural populations, especially regarding economic factors (i.e., what the communities produce). In contrast, identity-based definitions often emphasize commonalities across rural populations including a set of shared values, a sense of belonging to a rural community, emphasis on social bonds, and a distrust of solutions offered by government, academia, and technology which are often seen as misguided and antithetical to those shared values. In certain kinds of decision-making, this rural identity has even been shown to overshadow intersectional racial and ethnic identities. This is an important consideration as 22\% of the US rural population is composed of racial and ethnic minorities. Finally, we discuss strategies to engage with rural populations authentically and meaningfully. We offer as an illustrative example our Cyber Pipeline program, an outreach effort including a Creative Commons licensed, customizable, modular curriculum; extensive teacher preparation program; and ongoing support for K-12 teachers working to bring computer science into rural schools. We also describe reasons why these rural-dwelling teachers seek to provide computer science education for their students. We highlight the specific challenges of this program, as well as our identified promising practices, in the hopes of fostering similar programs across the United States. 

In the push to broaden participation in computer science (CS) within the United States, there have been a number of highly successful efforts to engage urban high schools and communities. As urban areas often have high concentrations of poverty and underrepresented populations, these efforts meet a well-known need, and have a strong potential impact. However, urban audiences are not the only ones to lack adequate computer science education opportunities. In the United States, 1 in 5 people live in a rural area [19], and studies consistently show that rural areas offer fewer opportunities for students to engage with computer science than their urban and suburban peers. While some of the challenges rural schools face are shared by urban schools, the rural schools also have unique challenges that must be understood before engaging in successful intervention efforts. This paper describes one effort to support rural schools, their teachers, and their students. We seek to share the lessons we have learned in the hope that other programs may benefit. 

The lack of computer science education in rural areas presents unique challenges in the present pursuit of achieving equitable access to computer science education. The increase in the recognition of the need for computer science education comes with a need for inclusion of rural areas, and a corresponding increase in the demand of competent computer science teachers and educators. Teacher training programs play an important role in meeting these demands. This paper evaluates the impact of a teacher training program with focus on professional identity, commitment, confidence and competence as it relates to the teaching of computer science. The research includes teachers from rural, suburban and town locales enrolled in three separate semester courses. Through a mixed-method design, it uses quantitative data obtained through surveys taken prior to and at the completion of the training program to measure the impact. A combination of p-values and effect sizes were used to measure the impact of the teacher training programs. The survey covers three different domains - Teacher and Computing Identity, Rural Identity and Teacher Mindset, and lastly, Teaching Perceptions and Computational Thinking. Qualitative data gathered through reflective journals provides insights into teachers’ backgrounds and teaching experiences as well as anticipated professional growth. Following the training, findings show that rural teachers reported positive shifts in their identities and teaching competencies and are more likely to advocate for more students to take computer science courses. Teachers from the rural locales also showed a marked improvement in confidence and commitment to teaching computer science. 

A nationwide effort is underway to provide students pursuing higher education with options for satisfying general education (gen ed) math requirements. Within the context of this effort, computer science has an opportunity to introduce students to programming fundamentals and computer science principles while also satisfying gen ed math requirements. This paper is an experience report that describes initial efforts at the University of Nebraska-Omaha in piloting a course, satisfying the gen ed math requirements for non-STEM majors, whose content spans computer science, mathematics as well as the visual arts. 

This Full Paper in the Research to Practice Category reports on an empirical empirical study in which novel educational tools and techniques were employed to teach fundamentals of problem decomposition - a cognitive task transcending disciplines. Within the discipline of computer science, problem decomposition is recognized as a foundational activity of software development. Factors that contribute to the complexity of this activity include: (1) recognizing patterns within an algorithm, (2) mapping the understanding of an algorithm to the syntax of a given programming language, and (3) complexity intrinsic to the problem domain itself. Cognitive load theory states that learning outcomes can be positively affected by reducing the extraneous cognitive load associated with learning objectives as well as by changing the nature of what is learned. In the study reported upon here, a novel instructional method was developed to decrease students' cognitive load. Novel instructional content supported by a custom visualization tool was used in a classroom setting in order to help novice programmers develop an understanding of function-based problem decomposition within the context of a visual domain. Performance on outcome measures (a quiz and assignment) were compared between the new method and the traditional teaching method demonstrated that students were significantly more successful at demonstrating mastery when using the new instructional method. 

In the current climate of a technology-centered world and standards-based educational system, the vision of including computer science and computational thinking at the elementary level has gained momentum in recent years. This paper examines the similarities between elementary mathematics and computer science content standards and practices, and describes a hands-on, visual coding curriculum that allows teachers to integrate the two into mathematics instruction that meets the requirements of the standards using research based instructional strategies.