Context. With the introduction of Computer Science (CS) into curricula worldwide, teachers’ adoption of CS pedagogical content is essential to ensure the long-term success of reform initiatives. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programs play a key role in this process. Unfortunately, adoption is seldom evaluated in CS-CPDs or CPDs in general. The result is a dearth of studies (i) modelling teachers’ adoption of CS pedagogical content or (ii) investigating factors influencing the uptake of this new discipline. Both aspects are crucial to design and characterize successful CPD programs. Objectives . We thus propose the Teachers’ Adoption of CS (TACS) model to investigate factors influencing the adoption of CS pedagogical content by teachers who are following a mandatory CS-CPD program. More specifically, the model proposes that contextual factors (e.g., age, gender, and general teaching experience), prior factors (e.g., experience, and CS perception), and acceptance factors (e.g., interest, and self-efficacy) may impact teachers’ adoption of CS pedagogical content. Methods. The study included 180 grades 5 and 6 teachers (students aged 9–11) that were following a mandatory CS-CPD program. The CS-CPD program involved participation in three-day-long sessions distributed over the 2019–2020 academic year. In between sessions, with the support of instructional coaches in the schools, teachers were encouraged, but not required, to adopt the CS pedagogical content. Therefore, during the CPD, and employing surveys based on the TACS model, we evaluated teachers’ adoption of the proposed content and investigated how the different factors influenced it. Results. At the PD-level, the results indicate that self-efficacy and interest queried during the CS-CPD are indicative of CS pedagogical content adoption. To shed more light on the relationship between these metrics, a more in-depth analysis was conducted with n = 92 teachers whose responses could be matched between sessions. While interest relates to how teachers adopt CS pedagogical content overall, both interest and self-efficacy are necessary to ensure the likelihood of a specific activity being adopted. Finally, individual teacher characteristics appear to impact adoption, with teachers with low experience with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) requiring onboarding, while middle-aged teachers require convincing to adopt CS pedagogical content. Conclusion. Three takeaways emerge from the study. First, the analyses confirm the foundation of the TACS model. Second, the findings establish the key role that interest plays in said model. Finally, the results support the relationship between the contextual, prior and acceptance factors on the adoption of primary school CS pedagogical content.

Context Introducing Computer Science (CS) into formal education can be challenging, notably when considering the numerous stakeholders involved which include the students, teachers, schools, and policy makers. We believe these perspectives should be considered conjointly, which is possible within Research Practice Partnerships (RPPs) . RPPs look to bridge research-practice gaps and have seen an increase in the field of education and CS-education. Unfortunately, RPPs are considered to be under-researched, in addition to presenting their own challenges. Objectives To the purpose of assessing how RPPs may support the successful introduction of CS into formal education, we investigate three perspectives (students, teachers, and RPP stakeholders) and their interplay within the context of a multi-institution RPP conducting a pilot program to introduce CS to secondary school students. Methods A mixed methods analysis was employed to triangulate data in a concurrent triangulation design. The data included (i) three surveys distributed over the semester to 106 grade 9 students (ages 12-14), (ii) four teacher-journals, (iii) two interviews and four focus groups with the teachers and representatives of the partner institutions. Findings From the students’ perspective , while their self-efficacy increased, their motivation decreased throughout the semester due to a miss-match between their expectations and the course. The findings also indicate that gender biases and heterogeneity are already present in grade 9. From the teachers’ perspective , co-constructing the study plan, having access to regular support and collaborating within a community of practice when starting to teach CS all facilitated the teachers’ experience. Finally, from the RPP’s perspective the collaboration between stakeholders and having researchers evaluate the program were considered to be key elements in the pilot program. However, there appears to be a research-practice gap, in large part due to limited interactions between researchers and curriculum designers, and researchers and the teachers in the field. Conclusions From the students’ perspective it appears relevant to introduce CS (i) prior to secondary school to address motivation and bias-related issues early on, and (ii) to all students to avoid participation being motivation-, stereotype-, or belief-driven, and risk broadening the gap between students, (iii) all the while being attentive to course format and content to ensure that the course meets students’ expectations and fosters autonomous motivation. From the teachers’ perspective , while the support provided met the teachers’ needs, it is essential to find means of scaling such approaches when looking to deploy CS-curricular reforms to entire administrative regions. Finally, from the RPP’s perspective (i) teachers’ should be given a voice in the RPP to better align with the field, and (ii) researchers’ roles should be reconsidered to move beyond being only evaluators, and towards having a more co-constructive role in setting up the curricular reform. Recommendations are provided for researchers and practitioners involved in CS curricular reforms.

Abstract Research has shown that Educational Robotics (ER) enhances student performance, interest, engagement and collaboration. However, until now, the adoption of robotics in formal education has remained relatively scarce. Among other causes, this is due to the difficulty of determining the alignment of educational robotic learning activities with the learning outcomes envisioned by the curriculum, as well as their integration with traditional, non-robotics learning activities that are well established in teachers’ practices. This work investigates the integration of ER into formal mathematics education, through a quasi-experimental study employing the Thymio robot and Scratch programming to teach geometry to two classes of 15-year-old students, for a total of 26 participants. Three research questions were addressed: (1) Should an ER-based theoretical lecture precede, succeed or replace a traditional theoretical lecture? (2) What is the students’ perception of and engagement in the ER-based lecture and exercises? (3) Do the findings differ according to students’ prior appreciation of mathematics? The results suggest that ER activities are as valid as traditional ones in helping students grasp the relevant theoretical concepts. Robotics activities seem particularly beneficial during exercise sessions: students freely chose to do exercises that included the robot, rated them as significantly more interesting and useful than their traditional counterparts, and expressed their interest in introducing ER in other mathematics lectures. Finally, results were generally consistent between the students that like and did not like mathematics, suggesting the use of robotics as a means to broaden the number of students engaged in the discipline.

This paper presents the design of a novel and engaging collaborative learning activity for handwriting where a group of participants simultaneously tutor a Nao robot. This activity was intended to take advantage of both collaborative learning and the learning by teaching paradigm to improve children's meta-cognition (perception of their own skills). Multiple engagement probes were integrated into the activity as a first step towards fostering long term interactions. As a lot of research targets social interactions, the goal here was to determine whether an engagement strategy focused on the task could be as, or more efficient than one focused on social interactions and participants' introspection. To that effect, two engagement strategies were implemented. They differed in content but used the same multi-modal design in order to increase participants' meta-cognitive reflection, once on the task and performances, and once on participants' enjoyment and emotions. Both strategies were compared to a baseline by probing and assessing engagement at the individual and group level, along the behavioural, emotional and cognitive dimensions, in a between subject experiment with 12 groups of children. The experiments showed that the collaborative task pushed the children to adapt their manner of writing to the group, even though the adopted solution was not always correct. Furthermore, there was no significant difference between the strategies in terms of behaviour on task (behavioural engagement), satisfaction (emotional engagement) or performance (cognitive engagement) as the group dynamics had a stronger impact on the outcome of the collaborative teaching task. Therefore, the task and social engagement strategies can be considered as efficient in the context of collaboration.