Design Studios: CS Professional Development

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education (CEMSE) at the University of Chicago proposes a "Design Studio" for computer science education professional development (PD) providers. Attendees will have an opportunity to collaborate with each other and experts from the University of Chicago with the goal of addressing key issues in computer science PD raised by CEMSE's landscape study of computer science PD. That study, "Building an Operating System for Computer Science Education," released in December 2012, contained 14 recommendations for improving computer science education professional development. After findings from that study were presented to PIs from the National Science Foundation's Computing Education for the 21st Century (CE21) program in January 2013, many of the CS 10K practitioners expressed interest in further exploring these recommendations, and the implications for their work. The Design Studio will advance the recommendations of the landscape study by working with a variety of computer science professional development providers in a collaborative process to explore existing literature on effective professional development, review examples of success from other disciplines, and identify opportunities to improve CS professional development for high school teachers. The PD providers will collaborate with each other, as well as with experts from the University of Chicago in a structured and facilitated manner to explore three key questions that have implications for individual PD sites and for the field as a whole: 1. How can we move computer science education professional development toward a more coherent vision of what good computer science education and therefore professional development looks like? 2. How can we move computer science education professional development toward better fitting the needs of the groups that will comprise the computer science teacher workforce? 3. How can we move computer science education professional development to focus more on teaching and learning in the classroom?