Collaborative Research: E-Facilitation Partnerships: Developing Scalable Online Professional Development for Expanding CS Teacher Expertise in Equity and Pedagogy with eTextiles

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The University of Pennsylvania, the University of Oregon, and the Education Development Center (EDC) will partner with the Exploring Computer Science (ECS) teacher community to help keep experienced high school ECS teachers engaged in the teaching profession. In the last 10 years, ECS has provided initial preparation to thousands of teachers new to teaching computer science (CS) with a focus on improving access and participation to CS for students from underserved communities. Little is known about what this new and growing population of experienced high school teachers needs to continue to grow and succeed in the teaching profession—knowledge critical for retaining and expanding CS teaching force in coming years. The project team will partner with experienced ECS facilitators and teachers to develop an online professional development program to train CS teachers in physical computing along with pedagogy skills that addresses equity into CS teaching. The newly developed, online professional develop program will then be delivered to interested ECS teachers over the course of two years. Outcomes from this work will be analyzed and case studies capturing teacher and facilitator experiences will be developed. This collaborative project between The University of Pennsylvania, The University of Oregon, and The Education Development Center (EDC) seeks to engage the Exploring Computer Science (ECS) teacher community to determine what experienced high school ECS teachers need to continue to grow and stay engaged in the teaching profession. The PIs propose to partner with a core group of experienced ECS teachers to develop a fully online and time efficient PD model that can handle the challenges of preparing teachers in physical computing while providing a supportive context for discussing equity issues. They will leverage the newly released ECS curriculum unit on electronic textiles (e-textiles), which situates computational thinking within designing functional circuitry in hands-on, personalized crafts, to develop ECS PD. The project team is versed in addressing issues of equity and diversity in CS, and it brings together expertise in teacher learning, computer science education, online instructional design, and learning sciences. This RPP addresses the critical goals for CS education: (1) identify needs of experienced ECS teachers for continued learning and engagement with CS; (2) create and pilot online PD and facilitation for physical computing with e-textiles; (3) examine how online facilitation can expand ECS teachers’ pedagogical capacities for addressing in equitable ways students’ CS interests and perspectives; (4) build and scale facilitator capacities within the ECS community; and (5) contribute to knowledge on how professional teacher communities can support CS pedagogical practices.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.