Preparing Computationally Literate Teacher Educators: A Professional Development Approach

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Sustainable efforts to bring computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) to all classrooms requires infusion of CT into teacher education preparation programs. In order to begin this process, teacher educators participated in a professional development program to gain CT knowledge and skills. CT is a problem-solving methodology that can be implemented with or without a computer. The infusion of CT into schools of education enables teacher educators to introduce pedagogical practices for teaching CT into education courses. This symposium begins with an examination of the professional development program for teacher educators. It subsequently includes presentations from teacher educators who participated in the program and developed CT modules which were infused into teacher education courses.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Technology as an Agent of Change in Teaching and Learning

Chair

• Chrystalla Mouza, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Papers

• Teacher Educators' Transformations Through a Computational Thinking Professional Development Program - Megean Garvin, University System of Maryland

• Educator Observations of Computational Thinking Skills During Children's Play - Jade Burris, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

• Developing Preservice Elementary Teachers' Conceptions of Computational Thinking in a Mathematics Content Course - Delayne Johnson, Delaware State University

• Preservice Elementary Teachers' Perceptions of Challenges Pertaining to Integrating Computational Thinking in Science Teaching - Zoubeida R. Dagher, University of Delaware

• Using Computational Thinking With Critical Lenses to Enhance Literary Interpretation and Analysis - William E. Lewis, University of Delaware

• Computational Thinking Across the Curriculum - Andrea Drewes, Rider University