Effective professional learning communities (PLCs) are important in supporting teacher learning. This study investigated computer science (CS) teacher leaders' perspectives on the lessons and the challenges in supporting CS teachers through local PLCs. We purposefully selected ten CSTA chapters and conducted focus group interviews with the chapter leaders between 2020 and 2022. Our findings indicated that these PLCs offered social-emotional support, continual networking opportunities, and rich professional learning resources. Also, they amplified teachers' voices and supported CS teachers' professional identity building. To engage CS teachers, the teacher leaders built trust, collaborated with other PLCs or organizations, and set an inclusive PLC culture. These PLCs had challenges in recruitment, leadership development and transition and building group identity.

The recent pandemic has resulted in challenges to the prioritization of CS curriculum and strained the structures that support and grow the professional development and identity building of the teachers who implement it. In this poster we examine how local chapters of a national CS teacher advocacy organization (the CSTA) support their members during a time of transition and change. Using focus group data collected from an ongoing multi-year longitudinal research project, we tried to better understand the challenges that these entities faced as their normal structures of communication and outreach were closed off, and how such challenges might affect the perceptions of the role that local chapters play in supporting the continued development of their members, including their identity as CS teachers.

Motivation: Recent efforts to expand K-12 computer science education highlight the great need for well-prepared computer science (CS) teachers. Teacher identity theory offers a particular conceptual lens for us to understand computer science teacher preparation and professional development. The emerging literature suggests that teacher identity is central to sustaining motivation, efficacy, job satisfaction, and commitment, and these attributes are crucial in determining teacher retention. While the benefits associated with a strong sense of teacher identity are great, teachers face unique challenges and tensions in developing their professional identity for teaching computer science.

This paper reports a study of CSTA chapter leaders' percep-tions of their chapter's roles in supporting computer science (CS) teachers. Intent on understanding the impact of member-ship in a professional organization on the development of teacher professional identity, our research revealed that in the chapter leaders' perceptions local CSTA chapters had an im-portant role in supporting the development of their mem-bers' professional identity as a CS teacher.

Current efforts to expand K-12 CS education highlight the great need of well-prepared CS teachers with a strong sense of professional identity. This study proposes the CS teacher identity scale, a quantitative instrument for measuring CS teachers' sense of professional identity. The survey was piloted through a national teacher survey and tested for its reliability, dimensionality, and validity. The analysis reveals a four-factor solution for the CS teacher identity scale.

The Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC) is a CS Principles course developed at UC Berkeley for high school juniors through university non-majors. Together, UC Berkeley, the Education Development Center, and NC State have brought BJC to 700+ teachers nationwide. Since 2011, NC State has developed regional partnerships and a train-the-trainer model to offer nationwide PD to 600+ high school teachers. Our guiding philosophy is to meet students where they are, but not leave them there. BJC covers the big ideas and computational thinking practices in the AP CSP curriculum framework using Snap!, an easy-to-learn blocks-based programming language, and powerful computing ideas like recursion, higher-order functions, and computability. Through BJC, students create beautiful images, and realize that code itself can be beautiful. Having fun is an explicit course goal. BJC takes a "lab-centric" approach, and most learning occurs through guided programming labs where students explore and play. In this workshop, we will provide an overview of BJC, share experiences as instructors at university and high school levels, and share details of summer PD opportunities. Laptop needed.