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Indigenous communities remain significantly underrepresented in computer science (CS) and STEM fields, facing persistent barriers such as limited access to resources, infrastructure, and culturally relevant instruction. This study investigated how educators serving Indigenous populations designed and implemented culturally responsive computing (CRC)[2] curricula within a long-term professional development program grounded in a design-based research framework. The study examined how sustained, collaborative support enabled educators to effectively integrate Indigenous cultural knowledge, values, and practices into computer science education. Seven secondary teachers who work in schools in Arizona and New Mexico with over 90% Native American enrollment participated in a two-year professional development program called Let’s Talk Code Teaching Fellow. The program consisted of twelve online modules,weekly virtual meetings, in-personworkshops, and conference participation[3]. Following the DBR framework [1], teachers engaged in iterative cycles of lesson design, implementation, and revision, creating and teaching three culturally relevant computer science lessons. They received feedback from fellow teachers and research teams, allowing them to improve the connection between computing and cultural relevance in their lessons. The study employed a mixed-methods approach to data collection and analysis. Qualitative data included 14 finalized lesson plans, teacher reflections, teacher interviews, and classroom observation notes, which were thematically analyzed to identify common instructional practices and challenges, as well as strategies that connect culture and computing. Our findings showed that teachers sustained local culture by integrating Indigenous languages and art and innovative computing tools such as Scratch, micro: bit, and Sphero robots into their computing lessons. Teachers reported an increase in their confidence in computer science instruction following the long-term PD and benefited from a strong professional learning community. 

Demands in undergraduate education are shifting to reach larger student populations - especially learners beyond the brick-and-mortar classroom - which has led to more pressing demands to incorporate technologies that afford such learners access to high-quality, research- based, digital instructional materials. In this article, we explore three theoretical perspectives that inform the development of such instructional materials. In our team’s efforts to develop a game-based learning applet for an existing inquiry-oriented curriculum, we have sought to theoretically frame our approach so that we can draw on the corpus of researcher knowledge from multiple disciplines. Accordingly, we will discuss three bodies of literature – realistic mathematics education’s [RME’s] approach to curriculum development, inquiry-oriented instruction and inquiry-based learning [IO/IBL], and game-based learning [GBL] - and draw on parallels across the three in order to form a coherent approach to developing digital games that draw on expertise in each field.