Peter Jacob Rich

In an effort to deepen learning in K-12 science classrooms, there has been a national movement to integrate computational thinking (CT). The purpose of this phenomenographic study was to understand teachers perceptions of the function and usefulness of a task analysis and a decision tree tool designed to help them with integration. Teachers participated in a long-term professional development to improve their knowledge and application of CT and then developed lesson plans integrating CT into science investigations. To assist in the integration, teachers used the two unique tools. No one lesson plan or content area addressed all of the CT practices, but all CT practices were addressed in lessons across all four science areas. All 19 teachers found that the task analysis tool helped them to shift their lessons to a student-centered focus and helped them pinpoint data practices so they could systematically integrate CT practices. However, they expressed confusion over the amount of detail to document on the tool. Similarly, teachers found both benefits and barriers to the decision tree tool. Teachers found the decision tree tool to be useful in predicting the ways students may misunderstand a data practice and in reflecting on the level of accomplishment of students. However, teachers were sometimes uncertain with how to efficiently document complex student behaviors when engaged with data practices and CT. Implications for the use of the two lesson planning tools is discussed.

Hour of Code is one of the largest educational campaigns implemented. It exposes millions of learners, to an hour of computer science fundamentals. With such a large impact, a large number of research articles have been published on the topic. This research ranges from reports of experiments testing the efficacy of Hour of Code and analysis of learner behavior, to reports of participation and suggestions for facilitating.

Interest in coding education has exploded in the past five years, especially in elementary and early secondary education. Teachers who are largely new to coding are expected to guide entire student bodies through the fundamentals of coding and computational thinking. But little is known about which coding and computational thinking (CT) concepts teachers feel most comfortable with and which concepts they struggle with. This study describes 127 elementary coding teachers’ changes in their beliefs about teaching coding and CT as they participated in year-long continuous professional development. Novice elementary coding teachers demonstrated most growth in their self-efficacy for teaching sequences, algorithms and loops. They were less secure in their knowledge of conditionals, variables, and functions. For computational thinking, teachers were most confident in their ability to identify patterns, think algorithmically, understand logic, and evaluate outcomes, showing less growth with decomposition and abstraction.

This report presents a review of study abroad research conducted from an ecological perspective (Kramsch, 2003; Leather & van Dam, 2003; van Lier, 2004) and identifies areas of inquiry that are lacking compared to second language acquisition and other fields (i.e., linguistics, psychology). It identifies value-based views as a high-priority area of interest and draws on frameworks in other fields to outline how language learning research could effectively describe the moral ecology of study abroad for language learning.

The teaching of computing is becoming an essential addition to 21st-century learning. An important part of this new addition is the teaching of computing in earlier grades, starting as early as kindergarten in some countries. Yet, there is little research that reports on computing practices in earlier grades. The purpose of this study was to paint a broad picture of the teaching of computing in primary education from teachers perspectives through a 20-minute snowball survey sent out to elementary computing groups. This study reports on the teaching of over 300 teachers who are responsible for teaching computing to nearly 60,000 primary-aged students. The results principally represented teachers in the US and the UK, though smaller samples of teachers from 23 total countries are included. We report on teachers responses by analyzing quantitative data and open-ended responses to questions about their experiences in teaching computing to children. Results highlight teachers level of preparation to teach computing, the most commonly taught programming languages, teacher successes and challenges, and observations on how learning to program has affected students.

Increasingly, elementary teachers are being asked to teach the missing elements of a STEM educationcomputing and engineering. Over the course of a year, we worked with an entire elementary school (K-6) to implement computing and engineering lessons. Through persistent observation, field notes, and interviews, teachers revealed both enablers and inhibitors to successful classroom implementation. These fell into two categoriesexternally provided and internally cultivated enablers and inhibitors. We provide evidence for these claims and discuss how internally cultivated enablers and inhibitors can lead to or impeded the successful implementation of computing and engineering lessons in elementary education.

The purpose of this study was to gain an in depth understanding of how video influences the process of teacher change. Using a Spradley-based qualitative design, we examined the change process of teachers in videoclubs in 3 different environments: private, religious, and special education. Six-overarching themes emerged throughout the change process. Teachers reported that video encouraged change because it helped them: (a) focus their analysis, (b) see their teaching from a new perspective, (c) trust the feedback they received, (d) feel accountable to change their practice, (e) remember to implement changes, and (f) see their progress.

Recently, interest in using video to facilitate teacher reflection has increased. Despite this increase, the frameworks employed to help teachers use video to reflect on their teaching are not based on the results of prior video analysis research. There is a need to better understand how and in what ways video has been used to reflect on ones own teaching. The purpose of this paper is to review past studies in order to help educators make more informed decisions as they establish their own video analysis processes. This review includes 63 studies where participants recorded their own teaching, examined their performance on video, and reflected on the performance. Several dimensions of video analysis that varied across past studies are discussed: type of tasks, manner of facilitation, extent to which teachers reflect individually or collaboratively, length of video used, number of reflections, and measurement. This paper summarizes reported findings regarding each of these dimensions and raises several questions that need further investigation.

Programming is a fundamental component of modern society. Programming and its applications (e.g., Web and game development, online communications, networking and storage) inundate much of how people work and interact. Because of our reliance on programming in one or many of its applications, there is a need to teach students to be programming literate. Because the purpose of the International Technology Engineering and Education Association (ITEEA) is technological literacy, it follows that technology education teachers include programming literacy as one of the fundamental literacy domains they teach. In this article, we advocate that programming literacy be taught in school and demonstrate how it fits within the ITEEA Standards for Technological Literacy (STL): Content for the Study of Technology (2000) framework. In order to understand how teachers might incorporate programming literacy into their existing courses, we then provide a practical example of a current junior high teacher who has modified his Communications courses to incorporate programming literacy through the design of videogames.

Qualitative researchers have evolved their methods continually, often due to technological breakthroughs that have enabled them to collect, analyze or present data in novel ways or to obtain a stronger authenticity or reflection of participant perspectives. In examining historical situations that have led to methodological shifts, we assert that the qualitative research community is currently on the precipice of another such change, specifically in the transcription of audio and visual data. We advocate for the benefits afforded by emerging technologies to collect, analyze, and embed in research reports actual multimedia data, thus avoiding the loss of meaning and unavoidable interpretation bias inherent in transcription. Working with data in its original multimedia (audio or video) state, instead of a transcription, can allow for greater trustworthiness and accuracy, as well as thicker descriptions and more informative reporting. We discuss the challenges still present with this approach, along with suggestions for improving future methodologies.

While video is commonly used to record ?expert? teachers, video editing and analysis tools have made it possible for preservice teachers to systematically document, assess, analyze and adapt their own teaching practices. This case study documents the experience of three preservice teachers as they used a Web-based video analysis tool to analyze and subsequently act on their instructional decisions. Findings highlight the ability to identify and address discrepancies between thought and action, resulting in marked differences in teaching practice.

While video has long been used to capture microteaching episodes, illustrate classroom cases and practices, and to review teaching practices, recent developments in video annotation tools may help to extend and augment teacher self-reflection. Such tools make possible the documentation and support self-analysis using verifiable evidence as well as to examine changes in development over time. Video annotation tools offer the potential to support both the reflection and analysis of one?s own teaching with minimal video editing as well as the ability to associate captured video with related student and teaching evidence. In this paper, we compare and contrast emerging video annotation tools and describe their applications to support and potentially transform teacher reflection.

The increasing ease and ubiquity of video has resulted in a proliferation of video annotation tools used and designed for improving education. While similar, each tool has its relative strengths and weaknesses. Choosing the right tool can have an impact on the experience of teachers and the effectiveness of video as a means for improving teaching and learning. In this article, we present ten guiding questions for making an informed choice about which video annotation tool will best suit each individual situation.

STEM, the integration of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics is increasingly being promoted in elementary education. However, elementary educators are largely untrained in the 21st century skills of computing (a subset of technology) and engineering. The purpose of this study was to better understand elementary teachers self-efficacy for and beliefs about teaching computing and engineering. An entire faculty of a US-based elementary school participated in a year-long series of weekly professional development trainings in computing and engineering. Researchers collected quantitative data through a survey designed to assess teachers self-efficacy and beliefs towards the integration of computing and engineering and compared responses with a demographically similar Title I school in the same city. Additional qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews and documented observations. Researchers found that between the two schools, self-efficacy and beliefs toward computing and engineering were likely influenced by professional development (p < .05). Through interviews, teachers attributed changes in self-efficacy and beliefs to the trainings. Although all teachers reported higher beliefs about the importance of computing and engineering, their self-efficacy for teaching these varied widely. A grounded theoretical analysis revealed this difference was likely attributed to each teachers level of implementation, background, and willingness to experiment. We discuss how these factors may affect the professional development of elementary educators in preparing them to teach computing and engineering-related topics.