Understanding Teachers’ Evolving Debugging Pedagogies Through Participation in Professional Learning Cycles and Classroom Enactments

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 10:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Enhancing Engagement in Computer Science Education: The Role of Peer Mentoring and Teacher Professional Development (Table 9)

Abstract

As teachers increasingly integrate computation into STEM classrooms, there is a need for professional learning (PL) to help teachers in supporting students during debugging. Using the lens of the Interconnected Model of Teacher Professional Growth that characterizes teacher change in terms of four interconnected analytic domains, we examine how two teachers developed their “debugging pedagogy” during a two-year collaborative PL. The PL featured cycles of guided rehearsals of debugging strategies, reflective discussions, and classroom enactments of a computationally-rich science inquiry unit. Findings traced changes in teachers’ domains, showing how increasing confidence in their knowledge of debugging influenced their debugging pedagogy and how growing understanding of how students engage in debugging affected how much they let different students independently debug.

Authors

• Jessie M. Nixon, Weber State University

• Umar Shehzad, Utah State University

• Srinjita Bhaduri, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Mimi M. Recker, Utah State University

• Colin Hennessy Elliott, Drexel University