Introducing AI concepts in the earliest years of schooling can help children make sense of intelligent technologies, yet few resources exist for K–2 classrooms. This paper presents the design and outcomes of a professional development (PD) program supporting K–2 teachers as they explored AI literacy and co-designed unplugged classroom activities. Grounded in AI4K12's Five Big Ideas in AI framework, the PD combined hands-on learning, collaborative design, and micro-teaching opportunities. Guiding activities included Train the AI (pattern recognition), What Happens Next? (consequences of AI use), Who Did the Robot Hear? (data diversity), and Teach the Robot (model training). Educators then created screen-free, English Language Arts-aligned activities using storytelling, sorting, and embodied play to introduce AI topics such as machine learning and fairness in age-appropriate ways. The PD emphasized integrating AI into existing K–2 literacy routines, lowering implementation barriers while supporting vocabulary development, reasoning, and empathy. Teacher reflections revealed growing confidence in adapting AI topics for young learners and highlighted the value of peer collaboration, clear language, and tactile materials.

The Wind River Elementary Computer Science Collaborative is a research-practice partnership (RPP) among three school districts serving Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone communities on the Wind River Reservation, the Wyoming Department of Education, BootUp PD, and the American Institutes for Research. The purpose of the Collaborative is to support development and sustainability of K-8 computer science (CS) education through professional development, capacity-building, and connections to the school and broader communities. Since 2019, the Collaborative has engaged elementary and middle school educators and explored how to build sustainability of CS education in Indigenous communities. In this report, we share strategies our Collaborative used to foster sustainable CS instruction in our fourth and fifth years of implementation. We share teacher and student survey results that suggest progress toward sustainability, including increases in teacher self-efficacy and evidence of developing CS identities in students. We use teacher feedback and interviews to reflect on key features of the RPP's structure that supported sustainability and share future steps we plan to take to address continued challenges.

Early elementary teachers are eager to introduce artificial intelligence (AI) concepts to their students but lack age-appropriate resources for exploring abstract ideas such as bias, trust, and fairness. This poster reports on a professional development (PD) program that engaged K-2 teachers in co-designing unplugged, literacy-aligned lessons for AI literacy in resource-constrained classrooms. Grounded in the AI4K12 ''Five Big Ideas in AI,'' the PD combined three phases: concept exploration, lesson co-design, and micro-teaching practice. Through the co-design process, teachers created lessons to help translate abstract AI concepts into classroom-friendly activities. Teachers emphasized the importance of simplifying technical language, embedding activities within familiar English Language Arts (ELA) routines, and using embodied and narrative approaches to sustain student engagement. This work contributes a replicable PD model for introducing AI to early elementary teachers, concrete examples of unplugged AI literacy lessons, and early evidence that abstract AI concepts can be meaningfully connected to literacy and play in K-2 education.

The Wind River Elementary Computer Science (WRECS) Collaborative is a research-practice partnership (RPP) among three school districts serving Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho communities on the Wind River Reservation, the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE), BootUp Professional Development (BootUp PD), and the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The purpose of the WRECS Collaborative is to develop culturally sustaining elementary computer science (CS) education through integration of CS and Indigenous studies. The Collaborative engaged three cohorts of elementary educators in cycles of professional development, classroom implementation, and group reflection over the 2020-21, 2021-22, and 2022-23 school years. In this experience report, we share a set of reflections and lessons learned as the RPP developed relationships and worked through intersecting priorities, instructional goals, and ways of knowing and learning present within the RPP.

To understand secondary teachers of computer science's perspectives on barriers to implementing equitable CS instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, the research team administered a survey to the CS for All Teachers virtual community of practice in Spring 2021 and examined responses from middle and high school teachers of CS (n = 349). We used the CAPE framework (Capacity, Access, Participation, and Experience) to ground our analysis of survey responses. Key Finding 1 is that secondary CS expansion is limited due to competing priorities related to college preparation and standardized testing requirements, which do not usually include CS (Capacity; Access). Key Finding 2 is that student access to broadband at home creates barriers to secondary CS learning (Access; Participation; Experience). These findings reinforce the evidence base that expanding K-12 CS education (before, during, and after COVID-19) faces significant barriers due to gaps and disparities in CS education policies and inequities in students' access to necessary technology.

The computing education (CEd) research community's growth is fueled in part by the growing number of CEd Ph.D. graduates, who are also increasingly entering postdoctoral positions and fellowships. While prior work has shown that postdoctoral researchers have positive effects on research labs, provide essential support to graduate students, and serve critical roles in the research ecosystem, there are no existing support structures for postdoctoral researchers within CEd. As postdocs navigate the challenges of their new positions alongside the demands of research and job searches, they would benefit from a community of peers wherein they could share their experiences and learn from others. This Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) session is an organized space for CEd postdoctoral researchers, including those interested in postdoctoral positions, to build community and share postdoc experiences. Building on prior experience with running a similar BoF space for postdocs in SIGCSE 2022, the BoF discussion leaders is composed of current CEd postdocs, previous CEd postdocs who have taken on academic and research careers, and a CEd researcher from a non-academic space. This combination of diverse experiences, career contexts, and expertise will provide valuable perspectives that will aid in discussions of various postdoc experiences and research and career opportunities. BoF participants will have opportunities to discuss research goals, areas, and activities; exchange advice on navigating career paths and job searches; discuss approaches for mentorship within and outside research labs; and share best practices on the postdoc experience.

In fall 2019, the National Science Foundation awarded Southern Oregon University a two-year Computer Science for All Researcher Practitioner Partnership grant focused on integrating computational thinking (CT) into the K'5 instruction of general elementary and elementary bilingual teachers. This experience report highlights the process of transitioning one essential component of the project an elementary teacher summer institute (SI) from in-person to online due to COVID-19. This report covers the approach the team took to designing the SI to work virtually, the challenges encountered, the experiences of the 15 teachers involved through observations and surveys, and the opportunities for refinement. This report will be of potential interest for other computer science (CS) education researchers who also may be working with elementary teachers to incorporate CS and CT activities into their instruction.