Can you learn to teach programming in two days?

ABSTRACT

Between 2011 and 2013, an updated set of national standards for secondary school computer science education was introduced in New Zealand. This change caused great difficulties for many existing "computing" teachers. After many years of teaching primarily word processing, they were suddenly tasked with teaching programming, even though they were themselves unable to program. In this paper we describe the structure and results of two in-service professional development workshops for these teachers. The workshop structure places emphasis not only on improving a teacher's programming skill, but on exposing him or her to validated pedagogical techniques in programming education. Preliminary results are positive, with most teachers being able to transfer the training into their own classrooms. After the workshops, teachers continue to request support, especially additional classroom-ready materials. We maintain that effective in-service training must include this ongoing support.

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Index Terms

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Computing education

      • Computing education programs

        • Computer science education

        • Information science education