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Objectives. Physical computing systems are increasingly being integrated into secondary school science and STEM instruction, yet little is known about how teachers, especially those with little background and experience in computing, help students during the inevitable debugging moments that arise. In this article, we describe a framework, comprising two dimensions, for characterizing how teachers support students as they debug a physical computing system called the Data Sensor Hub (DASH). The DASH enables students to program sensors to measure, analyze, and visualize data as they engage in science inquiry activities. Participants. Five secondary school teachers implemented an inquiry-oriented instructional unit designed to introduce students to working with the DASH as a tool for scientific inquiry. Study Method. Findings drew on video analysis of the teachers’ classroom implementations of the unit. A review of the data corpus led to the selection of 23 moments where the teachers supported an individual or small groups of students engaged in debugging. These moments were analyzed using a grounded perspective based on Interaction Analysis to characterize the teachers’ varied interactional approaches. Findings. Our analysis revealed how teachers’ moves during debugging moments fell along two dimensions. The first dimension characterizes teachers’ positioning during the debugging interactions, ranging from a positioning for teacher understanding to a positioning for student understanding of the bug. The second dimension characterizes the inquiry orientation of the teachers’ questions and guidance, ranging from focusing on the debugging process to focusing on the product—or fixing the bug. Further, teachers’ moves often fell along different points on these dimensions given nuances in the instructional context. Conclusions. The framework offers a first step toward characterizing teachers’ debugging pedagogy as they support students during debugging moments. It also calls attention to how teachers do not necessarily need to be programming experts to effectively help students learn independent and generalizable debugging strategies. Further, it illustrates the variety of expertise that teachers can bring to debugging moments to support students learning to debug. Finally, the framework provides implications for the design of professional learning and supports for teachers as they increasingly are asked to support students in computing—and debugging—activities across a range of disciplines. 

Objectives. The increasing demand for computing skills has led to a rapid rise in the development of new computer science (CS) curricula, many with the goal of equitably broadening participation of underrepresented students in CS. While such initiatives are vital, factors outside of the school environment also play a role in influencing students’ interests. In this paper, we examined the effects of students’ perceived parental support on their interest in computer programming and explored the mechanisms through which this effect may have been established as students participated in an introductory CS instructional unit. Participants. This instructional unit was implemented with upper primary (grade 5) school students and was designed to broaden trajectories for participation in CS. The participants in the current study (N=170) came from six classrooms in two rural schools in the western United States. Study Method. The seven-week instructional unit began with students playing a commercial CS tabletop board game that highlighted fundamental programming concepts, and transitioned to having students create their own board game levels in the block-based programming language, Scratch. Further, because the board game could be taken home, the instructional unit offered opportunities to involve the family in school-based CS activities. To investigate the effect of students’ perception of parental (specifically father and mother) support on their interest in and self-efficacy to pursue CS, we surveyed students before and after the unit’s implementations and explored the structural relationship of the data using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results. We present three findings. First, the combined effect of students’ perceived mother’s and father’s support measured prior to the implementation (pre-survey) predicted students’ self-efficacy (Std B = 0.37, SE = 0.010, p < .001) and interest in computer programming (Std B = 0.328, SE = 0.134, p < .003) measured after the implementation (post-survey). Secondly, the combined effect of perceived mother and father support (Std B = 0.132, 95% CI [0.039, 0.399], 99% CI [0.017, 0.542]) on students’ interest was mediated by whether or not they took the CS board game home. Conclusions. Our findings indicate that perceived parental support has the potential to play an important role in students’ self-efficacy and interest in computer programming and that providing opportunities for students to bring CS artifacts home has the potential to further affect students’ interest in computer programming. 

Collaborative design, or “co-design”, is a term that has gained popularity in educational research and design communities, including those working with K-12 educators. While more groups are identifying with and pursuing co-design, much remains to be understood about how to structure the work within given different constraints, circumstances, and resources available to different parties. We propose understanding co-design as having inherent asymmetries and that structuring co-design work patterns involves negotiation of those asymmetries. Through a case of an elementary computer science and math integration research-practice partnership, we share ways that those asymmetries are both intentionally softened and leveraged at different times. 

In the United States, school curricula are often created and taught with distinct boundaries between disciplines. This division between curricular areas may serve as a hindrance to students’ long-term learning and their ability to generalize. In contrast, cross-curricular pedagogy provides a way for students to think beyond the classroom walls and make important connections across disciplines. The purpose of this paper is a theoretical reflection on our use of Expansive Framing in our design of lessons across learning environments within the school. We provide a narrative account of our early work in using this theoretical framework to co-plan and enact interdisciplinary mathematics and computer science (CS) tasks with a team of elementary school educators and school district personnel. The unit focuses on the concepts of exponents in mathematics and repeat loops as a control structure in computer science. Using a narrative approach, we describe what occurred during the collaborative planning of lessons and subsequent enactments in two fifth-grade classrooms and one computer lab and provide a practitioner‑oriented account of our experience. 

This study examines how a rural-serving school district aimed to provide elementary-level computer science (CS) by offering instruction during students’ computer lab time. As part of a research-practice partnership, cross-context mathematics and CS lessons were co-designed to expansively frame and highlight connections across – as opposed to integration within – the two subjects. Findings indicated that most students who engaged with the lessons across the lab and classroom contexts reported finding the lessons interesting, seeing connections to their mathematics classes, and understanding the programming. In contrast, a three-level logistic regression model showed that students who only learned about mathematics connections within the CS lessons (thus not in a cross-context way) reported statistically significant lower levels of interest, connections, and understanding. 

Despite proliferated efforts to integrate computer science in elementary education, there is a dearth of studies that synthesize the current state of CS education research in formal educational contexts, specifically in upper elementary classrooms. Further, while numerous studies have investigated approaches and strategies that broaden participation in computing, the majority of them focus on secondary and post-secondary settings. The present study uses a systematic literature review process to review research conducted with students in formal classroom settings in grades 4, 5, and 6 and published since 2013. We review the research through two questions: What are barriers to broadening participation in CS in upper elementary (grades 4-6)? What instructional approaches and strategies help broaden participation in CS in upper elementary (grades 4-6)? A systematic search of the literature highlighted approaches used for broadening participation, including using various teaching media, designing scaffolds in instruction, and integrating into other subject areas. We conclude by identifying gaps in the research and identifying areas for further research. 

Rural students, schools, and communities have unique challenges that hinder academic achievement, growth, and opportunities, compared to other locales. While there is a need to study this community more, there is also a pressing need to bring the local community members together to support the future generation of learners in developing pathways that lead them to future career opportunities. This article focuses on how a Research Practice Partnership (RPP) can be developed in rural communities to support STEM pathways for local middle-school youth. RPPs are often described as long-term collaborations between both researchers and practitioners in which the participating partners leverage research to address specific persistent problems of practice. We present findings from a developing design-based RPP focused on bringing community members and organizations together to co-design opportunities for underserved youth in rural mountain communities. 

This article describes a sensor-based physical computing system, called the Data Sensor Hub (DaSH), which enables students to process, analyze, and display data streams collected using a variety of sensors. The system is built around the portable and affordable BBC micro:bit microcontroller (expanded with the gator:bit), which students program using a visual, cloud-based programming environment intended for novices. Students connect a variety of sensors (measuring temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, sound, acceleration, magnetism, etc.) and write programs to analyze and visualize the collected sensor data streams. The article also describes two instructional units intended for middle grade science classes that use this sensor-based system. These inquiry-oriented units engage students in designing the system to collect data from the world around them to investigate scientific phenomena of interest. The units are designed to help students develop the ability to meaningfully integrate computing as they engage in place-based learning activities while using tools that more closely approximate the practices of contemporary scientists as well as other STEM workers. Finally, the article articulates how the DaSH and units have elicited different kinds of teacher practices using student drawn modeling activities, facilitating debugging practices, and developing place-based science practices.