Elementary Teachers' Curricular Engagement During Collaborative Professional Development: Supporting Computer Science Learning and Teaching

• In Event: Teaching and Learning: Career and Professional Development

Abstract

This paper presents data from a study of a computer science (CS) curricular unit implemented over seven weeks in three fifth-grade classrooms and the school library. The paper focuses on the collaborative professional development (PD) sessions that preceded each lesson implementation in which the teachers and school librarian learned key CS concepts, reflected on previous lessons’ implementations, and discussed improvements and adaptations. Discourse analyses of teacher talk during PD sessions revealed three types of curricular engagement episodes over the seven PD sessions, which were labelled suggestion, reflection, and connection episodes. We describe the episode types, trace their growth over the curricular enactment period, and examine how the episodes demonstrated teacher agency and learning.

Authors

• Courtney Stephens, Utah State University

• Jake Lauritsen

• Victor R. Lee, Stanford University

• Jody E. Clarke-Midura, Utah State University

• Mimi M. Recker, Utah State University