Providing quality computer science education (CSEd) in rural areas is essential for reducing computing disparities. Compared to teachers from non-rural areas, teachers in rural school face some unique challenges in teaching CS, such as limited access to professional learning resources. However, with close access to agriculture and farming land, rural teachers also have unique opportunities to integrate CS instruction into science or other subject areas in a way that is relevant to students' daily life. This study will share lessons learned from the implementation of an initiative to prepare rural teachers to integrate CS into their lessons through the context of agriculture. Teachers who participated in the initiative increased their preparedness to integrate CS into their classrooms and indicated that it would benefit their students' CS and agricultural learning. Some teachers noted that the initiative would ultimately contribute to the local community by increasing student awareness of CS-related career pathways and by expanding technology use in farming. Findings from the project's initial implementation highlight the value of a CS curriculum that connects to local agricultural industries and the importance of providing teachers with the materials and resources needed to implement it within their context. Initial findings also offered critical insights to inform expansion of the project and to strengthen its support of rural teachers and schools.

In recent years, there has been an increased recognition of the importance of professional development (PD) programs that prepare grade K-5 teachers to teach computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT), primarily through integrating these topics into core curriculum. Prior studies using quantitative and qualitative methods have examined outcomes of such PD programs, revealing important aspects to measure when evaluating teacher readiness and concerns about integrating CS and CT into their instruction, including individual capacity, network and resources, and barrier and concerns. The current study aims to fill in the gap of validated instruments to measure teacher readiness and concerns to teach or integrate CS and CT in the K-5 educational context. An instrument was developed based on existing validated measures and adapted for the K-5 teacher population. Pre-survey data from 641 K-5 teachers trained to integrate CS and CT into their instruction was used to validate the instrument. Internal reliability and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were conducted on two subscales: readiness and concerns to integrate CS and CT. Results suggested satisfactory psychometric properties for both subscales overall, but suggested the removal of one item on each subscale to further improve internal reliability and factor structure. Pearson correlation results suggested the readiness and concerns subscales were moderately correlated (r=-0.38), indicating readiness and concerns to be two correlated but separate aspects in teachers' preparedness to integrate CS and CT in K-5 classrooms. The development and validation of this instrument provide a reliable and valuable tool to assess future PD program outcomes in K-5 CS education.

Providing high-quality computing education to all students in primary school is essential for reducing computing disparities, by preparing students for success in secondary education. To impact the quality of computing education experiences for large numbers of diverse primary schools and students, a teacher professional development model must be designed for scalability from the outset. As many countries work to expand national access to computing education at the primary level and reach hundreds or thousands of teachers in the process, there is a need to understand effective systems-based strategies for scaling teacher professional learning across diverse schools and communities. This experience report will share lessons learned from the implementation of an initiative to prepare thousands of primary school (K-5) teachers to integrate computational thinking into their instruction.

In recent years, grade K-5 teachers have increasingly integrated computer science instruction into different subject areas. To identify strategies to support K-5 teachers in providing computer science instruction, it is crucial to understand the primary challenges and facilitators that they experience. This study surveyed 1,054 teachers from diverse Texas schools and identified key supports and barriers to integrating new state technology education standards in K-5 classrooms. Teachers completed a survey before participating in a professional development program. The teachers identified facilitators to integrating the standards into their instruction, such as access to technology, professional development, and administrator support. They also shared barriers such as time constraints, lack of curriculum and training, and insufficient technology infrastructure. The findings underscore the need for stronger teacher support systems, including improved resources, more targeted professional development, and enhanced administrator buy-in, to ensure all K-5 students benefit from comprehensive technology education.

Background and Context: Inequities in computing education have been identified based on gender, race, ethnicity, and economic status. However, extant quantitative research tends to treat demographics as siloed categories instead of accounting for the fact that many students are members of multiple minoritized groups. There is also a conspicuous lack of research that examines equity issues at multiple stages of the education pipeline. Objectives: Our research questions asked: 1) How are gender, race/ethnicity, and economic status related to the likelihood that students will enroll in computing courses in high school? 2) How are these factors related to the likelihood of enrollment in college computing courses? 3) How do these factors relate to wage earnings for students who majored in computer science in college? Method: This study analyzed education and workforce data in the United States using multilevel logistic and linear regression analyses to identify disparities among students from multiple minoritized groups at three stages of life: high school (N=135,961), college (N=199,230), and career (N=1,251). Findings: Compounding course enrollment disparities were present at the high school level for students who are Black or Hispanic/Latino/a and female, economically disadvantaged, or both. Similar results were observed at the college level. Only gender was a statistically significant predictor of wage earnings five years after college graduation, but results of this analysis may be attenuated by the fact that relatively few students who were members of multiple minoritized groups graduated with a computing degree. Implications: These findings demonstrate the importance of considering students’ intersecting identities when assessing equity in computing education. They also lay groundwork for understanding how early inequities persist across the education pipeline and how understanding disparities at one stage can inform interpretation of disparities at subsequent stages.

Most research on equity in access to and participation in computer science (CS) courses in high school has focused on general, siloed categories of students (e.g., ethnicity, gender). Using logistic regression, this study examines multiple student-, school-, and district-level predictors for access to and participation in CS. We found that the strongest predictors of whether a school offered CS were the racial/ethnic composition of the student population and the percentage of individuals in the community who hold a bachelor's degree. In examining participation in CS, we found significant differences between different intersections of race/ethnicity and gender. These results can inform interventions and policies to increase equity by signaling which factors should be taken into consideration, for whom, and in what situations.