Despite the need for computing professionals and high salaries, the majority of Computer Science (CS) majors at Colorado School of Mines in a pre-service teaching methods class (CS Teaching Techniques) reported interest in becoming K-12 teachers. Get The Facts Out survey results from a customized myth-busting presentation about K-12 teaching careers confirm that, even among students pursuing a teaching minor, K-12 teaching satisfaction, salaries, and pensions are misunderstood in comparison to industry careers. More students may be attracted to CS teaching careers utilizing Get The Facts Out state-by-state presentation materials.

The primary purpose of PATHS (Path Ambassadors to High Success), an NSF-funded S-STEM scholarship program, is to create new pathways and strengthen existing pathways for academically talented, low-income Colorado high school and community college students to study computer science (CS) at Colorado School of Mines (Mines). PATHS has achieved the following major project goals: 1) Increase number of academically talented, low-income students studying CS in Colorado; 4) Increase retention of these students; 3) Establish an active on-campus community to support PATHS scholars and similar students; 4) Engage scholars to perform CS recruitment and outreach at area high schools and community colleges; 5) Evaluate PATHS activities through comparative analysis to provide new insights on best practices for attracting and retaining academically talented, low-income CS students; 6) Broaden participation of historically underrepresented groups in CS; and 7) Develop a new flexible degree program combining other STEM fields and CS. PATHS students are diverse (e.g., 40.8% from underrepresented groups in computing) and academically successful (e.g., mean GPA is 3.4). Thus far, the program has awarded scholarships to 49 students and retained 93.9% of the students. Of the 49 students, six have graduated and three of the six have also pursued a CS Master's degree.

Colorado Strategic Approach to Rally Teachers (C-START) has provided computer science (CS) professional development to 1,425 K-12 teachers from 2016 to the present impacting over 7,000 students (who are ~33% female and 21% from other underrepresented groups). Pre and post training surveys from the 2019 summer cohort revealed teachers made statistically significant gains in CS content knowledge, confidence in teaching CS, confidence in learning CS, motivation to learn CS, and knowledge of engaging students in CS. C-START professional development trainings are offered each year based on educator requests, such as Beauty and Joy of Computing, Mobile CSP, Java Programming, Web Programming, Snap!, CS Unplugged, and Introduction to Cryptography. Synergystically, the C-START program has hosted the National CSPdWeek three times featuring Bootstrap and Exploring Computer Science. C-START has had a significant positive impact in Colorado CS high school education. For example, in 2015, a year before C-START began, only 170 high school students in Colorado took the AP CS A exam and only 15.4% of those students were female. In 2018, 791 high school students took the AP CS A exam in Colorado and 20.6% of the exam takers were female. Similar positive outcomes exist for students from other underrepresented groups (e.g., from 7.3% to 21.3% for Hispanic/Latino). While C-START is not the only PD opportunity for Colorado teachers, we are confident that C-START is helping more Colorado students access CS education.

The Computer-Science Student-Centered Instructional Continuum (CS-SCIC) is a new framework to support PreK-12 instructors in their lesson design. Educators are faced with choices when building lessons; there is a tension between direct instruction, constructivism and constructionism and difficulty in providing differentiated instruction. Theoretically aligned to Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, CS-SCIC places research-based instructional strategies on a simple learning continuum. Teachers use the continuum to discuss, review and design learning events. Used internationally, initial qualitative feedback from teachers who attended pilot CS-SIC workshops was emphatically positive. Future work includes more feedback from academia and formal research, including pre and post-professional development workshop surveys.

Increased opportunities for online learning, including growth in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS), are changing our education environments, increasing access and flexibility in how students engage with education. However, there are still many questions regarding how we engage with students effectively in these environments, in particular through assessment.

Computer Science (CS) is a new subject area for many K-12 teachers around the world, requiring new disciplinary knowledge and skills. Teacher social-behavioral factors (e.g. self-esteem) have been found to impact learning and teaching, and a key part of CS curriculum implementation will need to ensure teachers feel confident to deliver CS. However, studies about CS teacher self-esteem are lacking. This paper presents an analysis of publicly available data (n=219) from a pilot study using a Teacher CS Self-Esteem scale. Analysis revealed significant differences, including 1) females reported significantly lower CS self-esteem than males, 2) primary teachers reported lower levels of CS self-esteem than secondary teachers, 3) those with no CS teaching experience reported significantly lower CS self-esteem, 4) teachers with 0-3 years experience had a negative CS self-esteem, but after four years, teachers had a positive CS self-esteem, and 5) teachers who lived further from metropolitan areas and in some countries reported lower CS self-esteem. These initial findings suggest a pressing need for future research to look further into teacher CS self-esteem to inform teacher CS professional development.

The Department of Computer Science ([email protected]) at Colorado School of Mines (Mines) was founded in 2016 when the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (CS) split into separate departments. As a result, CS faculty, who had worked for years to broaden participation in computing without departmental lead- ership support, were able to become more strategic in their efforts. [email protected] faculty, staff, and students now engage in well-defined recruitment, retention, and evaluation strategies, which includes K-12 outreach programs, flexible CS major and minor tracks, a near-peer mentoring program, scholarship programs, and contin- ual evaluation. Ten years ago, the CS degree program at Mines had 157 majors, 17 women (10.8%), and 12 students from underrepre- sented groups in computing (7.6%). As of Fall 2019, [email protected] has 679 majors, 146 women (21.5%), and 132 students from underrep- resented groups (20.2%). Although the concentrated effort focused on increasing the number of women majors, the data clearly shows an increase in students from underrepresented groups as well. The changes achieved by [email protected] are noteworthy considering (1) only 30% of the students at Mines are women, (2) only 17% of the students at Mines are from underrepresented groups in computing, and (3) women and underrepresented groups enrolled in undergraduate CS programs are predominantly not at parity with their respective populations in the United States. [email protected] achieved positive results by applying the Undergraduate Systemic Change Model developed by the National Center for Women & Information Technology. In this paper, we present [email protected] as a case study for positive change and discuss the strategies [email protected] has enacted (74 of the recommended 81).

There has been a growing interest and increase in work shared about national K-12 Computer Science Education (CSED) curriculum and implementation efforts around the world. Much of this work focuses on curriculum analysis, country reports, experience reports and case studies. The K-12 CSED community would benefit from an international strategic effort to compare, contrast and monitor K-12 CSED over time, across multiple countries and regions, to understand pedagogy, practice, resources and experiences from the perspective of teachers working in classrooms. Furthermore, there is a need for validated and robust instruments that can support comparable investigations into the current state of K-12 CSED in schools around the world. Through a collaborative effort, this Working Group will develop a validated teacher survey instrument and collect data about CSED implementation and practice in K-12 classrooms. The authors will pilot the survey with K-12 teacher cohorts and analyse, compare and contrast survey findings across countries.