Collaboration is central to computer science (CS) learning, yet little is known about how different collaborative programming models support upper elementary students. Although pair programming with a single computer is well established, younger learners often struggle with enacting driver–navigator roles. Networked environments enable two-computer programming models, where each student uses their own device, with or without structured roles. This poster presents early teacher insights on the feasibility of such models in classroom settings. Teachers highlighted the promise of using two-computers with roles for promoting equitable participation and sustained engagement, while noting practical challenges such as role design, switching, and device availability. Findings underscore the importance of aligning collaborative structures with classroom realities and providing scaffolds and routines to support facilitation, offering implications for both research and classroom practice in elementary CS education.

The "Computer Science for All" initiative advocates for universal access to computer science (CS) instruction. A key strategy toward this end has been to establish CS content standards outlining what all students should have the opportunity to learn. Standards can support curriculum quality and access to quality CS instruction, but only if they are used to inform curriculum design and instructional practice. Professional learning offered to teachers of CS has typically focused on learning to implement a specific curriculum, rather than deepening understanding of CS concepts. We set out to develop a set of educative resources, formative assessment tools and teacher professional development (PD) sessions to support middle school CS teachers' knowledge of CS standards and standards-aligned formative assessment literacy. Our PD and associated resources focus on five CS standards in the Algorithm and Programming strand and are meant to support teachers using any CS curriculum or programming language. In this experience report, we share what we learned from implementing our standards-based PD with four middle school CS teachers. Teachers initially perceived standards as irrelevant to their teaching but they came to appreciate how a deeper understanding of CS concepts could enhance their instructional practice. Analysis of PD observations and exit surveys, teacher interviews, and teacher responses to a survey assessing CS pedagogical content knowledge demonstrated the complexity of using content standards as a driver of high-quality CS instruction at the middle school level, and reinforced our position that more standards-focused PD is needed.

The development of the CS content standards underscores the importance of curricula aligned with the standards, ensuring equitable coverage of CS concepts for all students. Because standards are broad, we emphasize the need for CS curricula to specify not only the standards they align with but also which aspects of the standards they align with and how. We map one common middle school CS curriculum to a few standards to demonstrate this need.

The current study compared American, Korean, and Indonesian middle and high school students’ CS attitudes. Concurrently, this study also examined whether the items in the CS attitudes scale exhibit country and gender measurement biases. We gathered data on CS attitudes from middle and high school students in the US, Korea, and Indonesia. The participating students took the same (translated) previously validated CS attitudes scale. We ran a unidimensional IRT, differential item functioning (DIF), a two-way ANOVA, and the Kruskal-Wallis H test. Despite the valid instrument, we found it inappropriate as is for international comparison studies because students from different countries interpreted some items differently. We then compared gender-based differences in CS attitudes across countries. The results revealed no significant differences between males and females in the Indonesian middle school data, whereas male students had significantly higher CS attitudes than female students in both American and Korean student data. Furthermore, we found the same pattern in gender differences in Korean and Indonesian high school students’ CS attitudes scores as in the middle school study. These findings underscore the importance of a country’s sociocultural context in influencing gap and diversity in secondary school students’ CS attitudes.

The lack of gender diversity in the computer science (CS) field and workforce is a well-documented challenge that many, but not all, countries face. Such a challenge may tie to socio-cultural issues that have impacted K-12 CS education, eventually creating a gender gap in CS performance and attitudes. The current study compared American and Indonesian middle school students' computational thinking (CT) skills and CS attitudes. Concurrently, this study also examined whether the items in the instruments we used exhibit country, gender, or prior CS experience measurement biases. A total of 592 American n = 242 and Indonesian n = 350 middle school students took a CT assessment and CS attitudes scale. Differential item functioning (DIF) was used to detect biased items, and a two-way ANOVA was utilized to examine the interaction effects of country and gender in the two constructs. The results showed some items were flagged as having country-specific DIF. The results also indicated that the American students had higher CT scores than Indonesian students. However, Indonesian students obtained higher CS attitudes scores compared to American students. Further results showed a significant gender difference in CS attitudes in the American samples; however, such a significant difference was not found in the Indonesian sample. These findings underscore the importance of a country's socio-cultural context in influencing gender diversity in the CS field.

Our work-in-progress paper explores students' role-changing patterns while working on science tasks in small groups. Grounded on the Collaboration Conceptual Model, we examined how members in 15 middle school student groups changed their roles throughout the entire collaborative activities. We annotated students' role changes at a one-minute segment, as well as the overall group collaboration quality at the individual task level for each student group. Our analytical approach involved hierarchical cluster analysis and non-parametric statistical tests to identify the relationships between students' role-changing patterns and collaboration outcomes. Preliminary results identified two distinct group types that showed different patterns of role changes and manifested different group collaboration qualities and performances. We discuss how this work is of interest to the [email protected] community in promoting effective collaboration at scale in authentic classroom settings.

The rapid expansion of K-12 CS education has made it critical to support CS teachers, many of whom are new to teaching CS, with the necessary resources and training to strengthen their understanding of CS concepts and how to effectively teach CS. CS teachers are often tasked with teaching different curricula using different programming languages in different grades or during different school years, and tend to receive different professional development (PD) for each curriculum they are required to teach. This often leads to a lack of deep understanding of the underlying CS concepts and how different curricula address the same concepts in different ways. Empowering teachers to develop a deep understanding of CS standards, and use formative assessments to recognize common student challenges associated with the standards, will enable teachers to provide more effective CS instruction, irrespective of the curriculum and/or programming language they are tasked with using. This position paper advocates supporting CS teacher professional learning by supplementing existing curriculum-specific teacher PD with standards-aligned PD that focuses on teachers' conceptual understanding of CS standards and ability to adapt instruction based on student understanding of concepts underlying the CS standards. We share concrete examples of how to design standards-aligned educative resources and instructionally supportive tools that promote teachers' understanding of CS standards and common student challenges and develop teachers' formative assessment literacy, all essential components of CS pedagogical content knowledge.

Use-Modify-Create (UMC) has gained recognition as a viable scaffolding approach for student programming activities, but little is known about how UMC could support CS learning in game-based learning environments. We designed and developed a game to teach middle grade students (ages 11-13) CS through block-based programming challenges. The game integrates a UMC pedagogical framework to promote successful student outcomes for a wide variety of student abilities, including those without prior programming experience. Utilizing a mixed-methods research design, we investigated how the game influenced student learning of CS concepts and the role of UMC on the problem-solving strategies students applied to complete the game. In particular, we were interested in how prior experience would moderate these outcomes. Results from a multilevel model of students' pre-and post-assessment scores (N = 77) on a CS concepts assessment indicated that all students, regardless of prior programming experience, showed significant learning gains from pre to post after playing the game. Qualitative results revealed that the UMC scaffolding progression provided students, particularly those with little to no prior programming experience, with the foundational knowledge needed to progress through the game levels and challenges. Specifically, we found that the Use phases of the game reduced novice students' cognitive load and facilitated the necessary CS conceptual understanding to solve the open-ended programming tasks encountered in the game's Modify and Create phases. Our findings demonstrate the efficacy of UMC to support the learning of novice programmers in a game-based learning environment while not to the detriment of those more experienced.

Pair programming is a popular strategy in computer science education to teach programming to novices. In this study, we examined the effect of three different pair programming conditions on upper elementary school students' CS conceptual understanding. The three conditions were one-computer with roles (1C with roles), two computers without roles (2C no roles), and two computers with roles (2C with roles). These students were engaged in four days of computer programming activities and took the CS concept assessment, CS attitudes, and collaboration perceptions before and after the activities. We used the validated E-CSCA (Elementary Computer Science Concepts Assessment) to measure elementary students' understanding of CS concepts. We tested the relationship of different pair programming conditions on the students' CS conceptual understanding and found that different conditions impacted students' CS conceptual understanding, wherein students in 2C roles demonstrated better CS learning than the other two conditions. The results also showed no changes in students' CS attitudes and perceptions of collaboration before and after the activities. Furthermore, the results indicated no significant impact of these attitudinal factors on students' learning CS concepts in pair programming settings. Our study highlights the importance of the roles and number of computers in pair programming settings, especially for elementary students.

Computer science (CS) is widely recognized as a field with a significant gender gap despite the growing prevalence of computing. Several factors including CS attitudes, exposure to CS, experience with computer programming, and confidence in using computers are understood to be correlated with the low participation of women in CS. These factors also play an important role in students' interest in CS careers and are particularly crucial during secondary school. However, there is a dearth of research that examines differences in how these factors are inter-correlated for younger students (ages 11-13). The purpose of this study was to generate and test a statistical model that demonstrates the inter-correlation amongst these factors with respect to gender. A total of 260 middle school students participated in this study. Four instruments measuring students' CS attitudes, confidence in using computers, CS conceptual understanding, and prior experience with CS-related activities were used. Structural equation modeling was utilized to test the hypothesized model. The findings showed that previous participation in CS-related activities had a significant direct effect on CS attitudes and confidence in using computers, but the effect on students' CS conceptual understanding was indirect. We also found that in a female specific model, previous participation had a significantly stronger direct effect on CS attitudes compared to its effect in a male specific model. The importance of providing more CS-related experience, especially to female students, as well as suggestions on activities that promote gender equity in the field are discussed.