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This article describes the Infusing Computing project, a 4-year study designed to support middle and high school teachers in infusing computational thinking (CT) into their disciplinary teaching. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, weeklong workshops held in summer 2020 were shifted to a virtual format and utilized emerging technology tools, synchronous and asynchronous sessions, explicit collaborative scaffolds, networking, and digital badging. Specifically, this study examined the experiences of English language arts (ELA) teachers (14 middle school, 13 high school) who participated in the virtual Infusing Computing workshops. Findings demonstrated that ELA teachers were able to leverage learning successfully from virtual PD to infuse CT into existing curricula, although teachers differed in the ways that they appropriated and adapted pedagogical tools for CT infusion. 

Despite increasing attention to the potential benefits of infusing computational thinking into content area classrooms, more research is needed to examine how teachers integrate disciplinary content and CT as part of their pedagogical practices. This study traces how middle and high school teachers (n = 24) drew on their existing knowledge and their experiences in a STEM professional development program to infuse CT into their teaching. Our work is grounded in theories of TPACK and TPACK-CT, which leverage teachers’ knowledge of technology for computational thinking (CT), CT as a disciplinary pedagogical practice, and STEM content knowledge. Findings identify three key pedagogical supports that teachers utilized and transformed as they taught CT-infused lessons (articulating a key purpose for CT infusion, scaffolding, and collaborative contexts), as well as barriers that caused teachers to adapt or abandon their lessons. Implications include suggestions for future research on CT infusion into secondary classrooms, as well as broader recommendations to support teachers in applying STEM professional development content to classroom practice. 

In this paper, we explore how standards-based Making activities offer opportunities for teachers to address interdisciplinary concepts and encourage students to tinker, collaborate, create, and design. This qualitative study draws on results from a two-year, NSF-funded research project that involved the integration of standards-based Mobile Maker Kits into 15 elementary schools within a suburban-rural Southern school district. Specifically, we examine teachers’ goals for using Mobile Maker Kits, as well as how the hook, brainstorm, prototype, share, synthesize framework supported them in integrating Making into their existing standards and curricula. 

The purpose of this paper is to describe findings from a study in which we investigated a gradual increase of responsibility model to scaffold a 1st and a 3rd grade teacher as they integrated interdisciplinary, standards-based Mobile Maker Kits into their classrooms over the course of an academic year. Qualitative discourse and multimodal analysis techniques were used to investigate teacher practices and beliefs related to the integration of the kits, which included lesson plans linking all activities and materials (e.g., picture books, craft materials, tablets, 3D printers, circuits and other electronic materials) to ELA, science, math, and social studies standards. Findings identify the affordances and constraints of a gradual increase of responsibility model for supporting teachers. We conclude by offering implications for supporting the integration of Making practices into P-12 classrooms.