Expanding a Statewide Pathway for CS Teacher Certification: A Curriculum Model for Secondary Education Teacher Candidates

亚拉巴马大学（UA）将在六所亚拉巴马高等教育机构（亚拉巴马州立大学、杰克逊维尔州立大学、位于伯明翰的亚拉巴马大学、位于亨茨维尔的亚拉巴马大学、亚拉巴马大学和南亚拉巴马大学）以及其他RPP合作伙伴（例如，亚拉巴马州的高中计算机科学教育工作者和亚拉巴马州教育部）。扩大K-12计算机科学（CS）教师专业发展的国家计划必须包括（职前）未来的教师候选人（TC）远远超出了目前只培训在职教师的模式。该项目将有助于一种新的方法，虚拟在线教学，准备前服务TC作为认证的未来CS教育工作者谁将介绍他们的学生计算thinkingskills和概念。参与者TC将从六个合作机构的候选人中招募，多样性，公平性和包容性的主题将成为两门课程途径的基础。该项目由以下核心CSforAll需求驱动：将有效的专业发展（PD）努力扩展到大量新的CS教师-其中许多人几乎没有正式的CS准备;为教师PD建立认证计划和认证路径;建立在线和混合PD方法，为教师和促进者创建强大的PD材料;和评估PD模型在内容知识，教学法，计算思维，课堂公平和学生结果方面的有效性为了满足这些需求，实施，该项目的研究和评估将侧重于扩大我们现有的知识，并从当地成功和最近完成的培训实施中扩大影响在现有的数学教师准备计划中，在CS中的中学数学TC。全州范围内的扩展和实施将扩大我们合作机构TC的地理覆盖范围，并将招聘范围扩大到中等教育的所有重点领域（例如，科学，数学，职业技术，甚至社会研究和其他教学领域的中学教师准备）。该项目的具体目标包括：（1）招募和招收多达90名中学TC，开始计算机科学准备途径，以追求在其中学教学学科中增加计算机科学认可;（2）培养72名具有计算机科学证书的中学TC，其中27名将获得AP计算机科学原理（CSP）的特定课程证书;（3）培训45名正式的获认可的中文科目教师;（4）利用一个超越以往努力的“资源增值计划”模式，这个计划将提供预备机会，让教师在毕业后可以教授中文科目，包括为Praxis课程取得正式的中文科目资格证书而作准备;以及（5）在六所高等教育伙伴机构的中学技术合作学校的所有学科中扩大和制定UA校园CS课程，提供了一个公开分享所有开发资源的机会，并帮助合作机构在引导自己的计算机科学教育工作。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用的支持基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响评审标准。

The University of Alabama (UA) will form a Researcher-Practitioner Partnership (RPP) among six Alabama higher-education institutions (Alabama State University, Jacksonville State University, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Alabama in Huntsville, University of Alabama, and University of South Alabama), as well as other RPP partners (e.g., high school Computer Science educators across Alabama, and the Alabama State Department of Education). A national plan for expanding K-12 Computer Science (CS) teacher professional development must include (pre-service) future teacher candidates (TCs) well beyond the current models of only training in-service teachers. This project will contribute to a new approach for virtual online instruction that prepares pre-service TCs as credentialed future CS educators who will introduce their students to computational thinkingskills and concepts. Participant TCs will be recruited from a diverse pool of candidates across the six partner institutions and topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion will be a foundation of the two-course pathway. The project is driven by the following core CSforAll needs: scaling effective professional development (PD) efforts to a large cohort of new CS teachers--many of whom have little to no formal CS preparation; establishing certification programs and preservice paths for teacher PD; establishing online and hybrid PD approaches, creating robust PD materials for teachers and facilitators; and assessing the effectiveness of PD models with respect to content knowledge, pedagogy, computational thinking, classroom equity, and student outcomesTo address these needs, the implementation, research and evaluation of this project will focus on expanding our existing knowledge and impacts from a locally successful and recently completed implementation for training Secondary Mathematics TCs in CS within their existing Mathematics teacher preparation program. The statewide expansion and implementation will widen the geographic coverage to TCs at our partner institutions and broaden the recruitment to all focus areas of Secondary Education (e.g., Science, Mathematics, Career Tech, and even Social Studies and other teaching fields in secondary teacher preparation). The specific goals of the project include: (1) recruiting and enrolling up to 90 secondary TCs to begin the CS preparation pathway in pursuit of a CS endorsement added to their secondary teaching discipline; (2) producing 72 CS credentialed secondary TCs, of which 27 will receive a course-specific certification for AP Computer Science Principles (CSP); (3) producing 45 full CS subject endorsed secondary teachers; (4) leveraging an RPP model that builds beyond a prior effort, this project will provide preparation opportunities that will enable TCs to be ready to teach CS upon graduation, including Praxis preparation to become fully credentialed in CS; and (5) expanding and enacting the UA campus CS curriculum for all disciplines of secondary TCs across six higher-education partner institutions, providing an opportunity for openly sharing all developed resources and assisting the partner institutions in bootstrapping their own CS education efforts.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.