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Professional Learning in the Midst of Teaching Computer Science

Published: 08 August 2018 Publication History

Abstract

The recent groundswell of interest in computer science education across many countries has created a pressing need for computing teachers at the secondary level. To satisfy this demand, some educational systems are drawing from their pool of in-service teachers trained in other disciplines. While these transitioning teachers can learn about computing pedagogy and subject matter at professional learning workshops, daily teaching experiences will also be a source of their learning. We studied a co-teaching program where instructional responsibilities were distributed between teachers and volunteers from the tech industry to explore how specific teaching practices supported teacher learning, with a focus on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Through qualitative analysis of questionnaire and interview data gathered from three teachers during one school year, we identified the practices they engaged in and how their learning related to the enactment of those practices. Our results highlight several factors that influenced the ways in which teaching practices provided participants with opportunities to learn PCK: (a) active participation of students and volunteers; (b) teacher's level of content knowledge; (c) interdependent practices; and (d) immediacy of the classroom environment.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    ICER '18: Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research
    August 2018
    307 pages
    ISBN:9781450356282
    DOI:10.1145/3230977
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    Published: 08 August 2018

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    Author Tags

    1. high school teachers
    2. pedagogical content knowledge
    3. teaching practice

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    ICER '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 28 of 125 submissions, 22%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 189 of 803 submissions, 24%

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    • (2024)A forma e a função dos laboratórios de computação nas escolas de educação básica: plataformas para uma revolução contra-hegemônica?Anais do IV Simpósio Brasileiro de Educação em Computação (EDUCOMP 2024)10.5753/educomp.2024.237547(384-394)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2024
    • (2024)Research-Education Partnerships: A Co-Design Classroom for College Students with Intellectual and Developmental DisabilitiesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36870508:CSCW2(1-26)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
    • (2024)Unblock Me: An Educational Model to Increase the Computer Science WorkforceProceedings of the 2024 on RESPECT Annual Conference10.1145/3653666.3656110(100-106)Online publication date: 16-May-2024
    • (2023)Computing Education Research in SchoolsPast, Present and Future of Computing Education Research10.1007/978-3-031-25336-2_20(481-520)Online publication date: 18-Apr-2023
    • (2022)An Analysis of Middle Grade Teachers' Debugging Pedagogical Content KnowledgeProceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 110.1145/3502718.3524770(533-539)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2022
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    • (2020)Leveraging local resources and contexts for inclusive computer science classrooms: Reflections from experienced high school teachers implementing electronic textilesComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2020.180528330:3(313-336)Online publication date: 3-Sep-2020
    • (2019)Identifying Teachers' Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Computer Science in the Primary YearsProceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research10.1145/3291279.3339410(147-155)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2019

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