Search for: All records

An often overlooked but important component of understanding how to support teachers to enact computer science (CS) instruction is investigating how they plan CS activities. This study investigates how teachers in a research-practice partnership (RPP) report planning to integrate culturally relevant CS into their lessons. Teachers were interviewed about how they planned lessons to implement culturally relevant CS in their classrooms. Researchers analyzed the interviews using a framework of persistent challenges that teachers confront when planning and enacting instruction. Findings include that teachers were capable of anticipating and overcoming challenges of supporting students with basic technology skills. However, results also highlight that teachers planning CS instruction may need additional support to anticipate ways to assess student thinking, strategies for managing student behavior, and to develop and reach their personal goals for implementing culturally relevant CS lessons. 

As computer science (CS) is integrated in elementary science curricula, it is important to consider teachers’ perceptions in how they access CS and support students to engage in CS skills and standards through NGSS-aligned activities. This single case study utilizes the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (IMPG) to examine teacher change and explore the perspectives of a teacher, through semi-structured interviews, as he implements an NGSS-aligned, project-based CS unit over the course of four years. Findings indicate that the teacher perceived that changes in his practice helped inform changes in student outcomes and the curriculum and, in turn, these changes in outcomes further informed his teaching practice in the next iteration of the unit. Results highlight the importance of reflection and feedback as a way to impact the teaching practice of integrating CS in elementary science education. 

Energy is a central, cross-cutting concept in science, but its abstract nature poses challenges for learners. Metaphor has been recognized as a productive resource used by students, teachers, and scientists to understand and communicate about energy. While much research has focused on metaphors about energy expressed in learners’ speech, we know less about the range of ways learners use gesture to evoke metaphors about energy. In particular, the metaphor energy as substance has been found to be useful for conceptualizing various features of energy. Using a microethnographic approach, we demonstrate how students in an introductory algebra- based university physics course use gesture in three different ways to evoke substance-like metaphors that offer valuable affordances for sensemaking about energy: These include (1) container metaphor gestures, (2) stimulus metaphor gestures, and (3) accounting metaphor gestures. Implications for learning and teaching about energy are discussed. 

Not AvailableEngaging with computational models is central to both scientific and computational learning. A promising approach to “lower the floor” and make computational modeling more accessible is the development of domain-specific and block-based environments, which reduce programming complexity while leveraging students’ intuitions about scientific ideas. To balance usability and expressiveness in these environments, we develop the feature of “unpacking” blocks, allowing users to open and modify high-level blocks into the simpler constituent elements that define them. In this study, we analyze high school students’ models, screen recordings, and artifact-based interviews to investigate their motivation for modifying domain-specific blocks for eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems. We found that unpacking and modifying blocks supported students in both exploring scientific ideas and addressing specific goals of computational modeling, providing insights on how unpacking domain-specific blocks can support both computing and science learning. 

Not AvailableAn emerging body of work in the learning sciences has examined how computational models can support teachers in responding to students' prompts, inquiry, and ideas. This work has highlighted how teachers make discursive moves in relation to computational models to support classroom discussion. In this paper, we focus on a complementary phenomenon: teachers' design of code reflections, or curricular modifications that deepen students' engagement with one another's code for scientific and computational sensemaking. We highlight how these code reflections advanced student discourse and how both the code reflections and discourse became more sophisticated over time, shifting towards making connections across code, behaviors, simulation outcomes, data and the scientific process being represented. We reflect on how this progression was driven by shifts in the teachers’ comfort with code and computational modeling and the resources designers can offer to educators to support the development of code reflections.