Governments worldwide are progressively introducing artificial intelligence (AI) concepts into schools through formal curricula to prepare young people for the impact of AI on society. Ghana is no exception. In 2020, the Ministry of Education revised the information and communication technologies (ICT) curriculum, introducing a computational thinking strand that includes AI as a sub-strand. Since the introduction of the revised ICT curriculum, now known as the computing curriculum, teachers have been mandated to teach about AI in school.

With K-12 CS Education being introduced globally, lessons can be learned from researching differences in implementation and drivers for curriculum change. This short paper describes an initiative to monitor developments in global K-12 CS education. To date we have developed an interactive map showing changes in CS curricula between 2019 and 2024. Next steps are to partially automate data collection in order to provide more up-to-date data. This work will be of interest to researchers and policymakers alike.

Computing education is not widely taught as part of many undergraduate computer science degrees. Learning the principles, philosophies of computing education can be beneficial to students regardless of their career pathway, but particularly to those wishing to enter academia or K-12 education. In this poster paper we describe two models for introducing computing education to undergraduates. By sharing these practices we hope to enable other researchers and practitioners to reflect on possible ways of introducing computing education into their own institutions. Further work will consider students' perspectives.

Physical computing, such as with the BBC micro:bit, has the potential to foster positive classroom experiences, both socio-emotionally and in terms of inclusivity.We investigated primary school teachers' views and experiences of delivering introductory physical computing lessons using the BBC micro:bit to 8 and 9 year olds in the UK.Through framework analysis of semi-structured interviews with ten individual teachers, we constructed themes around these ideas of positive learning environments and inclusivity.The teachers felt that a positive learning environment was realised through the children's enjoyment, their own modelling of excitement, and the cultivation of resilience.Teachers felt that the micro:bit lessons were inclusive, allowing all learners to feel a sense of achievement, particularly for those with additional needs.Our findings have implications for children's technological self-efficacy, creativity, and digital capital as part of our wider study exploring children's experiences of physical computing in the UK.

K-12 computing education research is a rapidly growing field of research, both driven by and driving the implementation of computing as a school and extra-curricular subject globally. Within discipline-based education research, it is a new and emerging field, drawing on fields such as mathematics and science education research for inspiration and theoretical bases. The urgency around investigating effective teaching and learning in computing in school alongside broadening participation has led to much of the field being focused on empirical research. Less attention has been paid to the underlying philosophical assumptions informing the discipline, which might include a critical examination of the rationale for K-12 computing education, its goals and perspectives, and associated inherent values and beliefs. The goals of this research project are to understand the implicit and hidden values, perspectives and goals underpinning computing education at school. This will be achieved through a critical examination of a wide body of literature leading to the development of a categorization and framework.

Teachers serve an invaluable role in facilitating student understanding of AI and awareness of related careers. Our understanding of teacher self-efficacy and careers awareness in the context of the growing field of AI education is limited. We adapted two existing instruments intended to measure teacher self-efficacy and careers awareness. The instruments were piloted first before being administered to 63 teachers. Our results showed excellent internal reliability and construct validity when used with this wider teacher sample.

Computer science (CS) is increasingly being made available to K-12 students around the world. Research in several countries has indicated that female, Black and ethnic minority learners may be less likely to study computing, particularly at university. Culturally responsive computing, drawing on culturally relevant pedagogy, can help us start addressing the diversity issue. Research and initiatives in this area have been evident in the US but less so elsewhere. This work-in-progress paper describes ten reflective prompts or Areas of Opportunity (AOs) for CS educators to use for reviewing and adapting the cultural responsiveness of their K-12 computing activities for their context. The AOs build on guidelines co-created with teachers. We describe each of the AOs, correlate them to literature, suggest what they might look like in practice, and how we are using them in the context of a wider study. We suggest the AOs may be useful for other researchers to investigate in their country's context and welcome discussion about the AOs.

In recent years, significant interest in AI has resulted in many K-12 learning resources being developed for teachers and students. However, a consensus on which concepts and skills should be developed has yet to be reached. In addition, there is limited research on how these resources can be used by teachers. As AI/machine learning is not currently mandated in many CS curricula, supporting teachers is an ongoing challenge. Analysing resources currently available to teachers provides us with a starting point to consider how resources could be designed to better support teaching and learning in this area. In this paper, we surveyed the landscape of resources available and categorised 307 AI/ML teaching resources based on their core learning focus. We devised and employed a learning content analysis framework, SEAME, to determine how resources covered AI at multiple levels: (i) Social & Ethical; (ii) Application; (iii) Model, and; (iv) Engine. We found that most resources focused on the Application level (80%) with many covering the Model level (60%) and fewer at the Social & Ethical (40%) and Engine (27%) levels. We found little consensus about what to teach and how with many resources failing to specify target ages. Similarly, we found few examples of resources with professional development opportunities or appropriate lesson documentation, indicative of the challenges teachers face in teaching about AI. We propose that the SEAME framework provides an innovative starting point for teachers and researchers to review resources and consider what a progression of AI concepts and skills might look like that is comprehensive and simple to use. Likewise, it provides a common language for articulating the learning focus of resources. In order to support teachers encountering a new strand of CS, we suggest that further work in developing age-appropriate curricula and better documentation for AI resources is needed.

Motivation. Historically, the field of computer science (CS) has maintained a low level of representation for women and ethnic minorities. Recent initiatives have focused on social equity and justice within CS, presenting culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and culturally responsive teaching (CRT) as approaches that incorporate students’ cultures and identities into learning, with the aim of reducing inequities and improving student engagement and participation. Much of the scholarship on CRP/CRT has been situated in the US, demonstrating a gap in literature for how this pedagogy may be used in the context of the UK. Objective: This paper strives to fill this gap by providing a review of teachers’ current practices that implement CRT into their CS classrooms in England, analysing data from teacher workshops using a sociological lens to inform how culturally relevant computing education can be developed. Method. We collected data from workshop transcripts with 19 K–12 educators of CS and developed themes to describe characteristics of their pedagogical approaches. We used Freire’s and Bourdieu’s sociological nexus to frame the analytic process. Results. We identified four overarching themes: adaptation of materials in terms of content and context; confidence building and maintaining rapport; integration of social justice issues into the curriculum; and reviewing practice utilising a reflexive approach to teaching. Discussion. This study draws on the work of Bourdieu and Friere to develop our understanding of unequal participation in the field of CS. The review of current practices can, to a certain extent, reveal the relationship between culture and computing education, demonstrating which mechanisms of CRP have been adopted by practising teachers.

Background and context. Non-formal learning for K-12 computing education enables young people to learn about computing outside the formal curriculum. Many studies have reported on non-formal initiatives but it is not always clear what children and young people have gained from their participation. Objectives. This study set out to investigate non-formal learning initiatives by means of a systematic literature review. The two research questions addressed by the study are: (1) What has been the focus of recent computing education research about K-12 initiatives for young people and (2) What is the impact of non-formal K-12 computing initiatives? Method. A systematic literature review of computing education research was conducted, focused on non-formal initiatives for young people. Research was included from any country, but must be published in English between January 2015 and April 2021. Searches using key terms were performed across three databases. 88 studies were synthesised from over 400 initial results. Findings. The vast majority of studies reported on immersive multi-day settings such as summer camps run by universities (n= 67), with fewer (n=21) reporting on regular ongoing after-school or weekend clubs. The most popular affective outcomes measured by studies were self-efficacy (n=25) and interest (n=22). Measurement of cognitive outcomes, such as knowledge (n= 13) and skills (n=17), was less prevalent. 22 different topics were identified from the studies, with most studies being programming-heavy. The majority of papers measured the short-term impact of these interventions, and generally there was an inconsistent or incomplete reporting of learner characteristics across the studies. Implications. The lack of papers investigating regular after-school initiatives suggests that the majority of non-formal learners are not being studied or that summer school findings are being wrongly extrapolated to this setting. More rigorous research is needed for regular after-school and short-term non-formal contexts to ensure that this set of learners’ experiences is understood and potentially improved.

We describe the development and trial of a survey based on self-determination theory to investigate the motivations of K-12 teachers to learn ML and AI. Our participants (n=28) were most motivated by personal enjoyment (an intrinsic motivator) and student benefits rather than extrinsic factors, such as external pressure. We will further investigate teacher motivation, as we suggest that this is an important aspect of ML and AI education research.

Motivation. In education, classroom talk is a vital aspect of a lesson, and programming education is no exception. While the role of language and dialogue has been researched in depth in other school subjects, there has been less research in the programming context. Sociocultural theory highlights the importance of language as a mediator for learning, alongside other tools. Objectives. Drawing on sociocultural theory and models of dialogic education, the purpose of the study was to investigate the ways in which programming teachers use classroom talk to support learning, and to propose a model to frame our understanding of this element of programming lessons. Method. The qualitative study used phenomenological methodology to investigate and interpret teachers’ ‘lived experiences’ of classroom talk. Interviews were conducted with 20 primary and secondary computing teachers about the content and effect of classroom talk in programming lessons. The context of the study was PRIMM, a lesson structure which highlights the importance of talk around a shared programming artefact. Results. Analysis of data revealed four main themes: how talk occurs in the classroom setting, how questioning is used to facilitate talk, how students are encouraged to explain, and why teachers feel it is important for students to use correct vocabulary. Discussion. Building on research into models of dialogue in education and our findings we suggest a model to frame talk in the programming classroom. We discuss the contribution of PRIMM to our understanding of talk in programming lessons. More research is needed to validate the proposed model and to investigate the impact of classroom talk on learning outcomes in programming.

There is a dearth of appropriate tools for young learners with mixed visual abilities to engage with computational learning. Addressing this gap, Torino is a physical programming language for teaching computational learning to children ages 7–11 regardless of level of vision. To create code, children connect physical instruction pods and tune their parameter dials to create music, audio stories, or poetry. Currently, the uptake of novel educational technologies to support inclusive education of children with disabilities continues to be limited at scale. We consider how the Torino Learning Environment supports non-specialist teachers to teach computational learning to children with mixed visual abilities in a UK-wide evaluation with 75 children and 30 teachers over a period of three months. We demonstrate how children can successfully learn with a novel physical programming language. We articulate how key design constructs such as persistent program overview and liveness supported non-specialist teachers to co-produce learning for children of different ages, visual and cognitive abilities. We conclude with reflective guidance on evaluating inclusive educational technologies at scale.CCS CONCEPTSHuman-centered computing → Accessibility → Empirical studies in accessibility

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 Use-Modify-Create progression (UMC) was conceptualized in 2011 after comparing the productive integration of computational thinking across National Science Foundation-funded Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (NSF ITEST) programs. Since that time, UMC has been widely promoted as a means to scaffold student learning of computational thinking (CT) while enabling personalization and allowing for creative adaptations of pre-existing computational artifacts. In addition to UMC's continued application, it has recently been utilized to scaffold student learning in topics as diverse as machine learning, e-textiles, and computer programming. UMC has also been applied to instructional goals other than "supporting students in becoming creators of computational artifacts." This panel will re-examine the UMC progression and refine our understanding of when its use is suitable, and when not, and share findings on evaluations and extensions to UMC that are productive in new and different contexts.

With the introduction of computer science into school curricular around the world in recent years, it is easy to forget the challenges that developing countries may experience in following suit. Here we describe a study carried out to investigate the challenges faced by teachers in Guyana relating to resources, student engagement and in-service teacher education. A small-scale mixed-methods study with 48 teachers was conducted in two areas of Guyana, accompanying a workshop covering a range of interactive activities. Teachers reported a desire to improve the opportunities for their students but described challenges including lack of computers, lack of subject knowledge, and lack of support. They also reported that they found programming hard to learn and teach, with computer architecture easier both to learn and teach.

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.

Computer programming is one of the most researched subjects within computer science education; within this much attention has been focused on exploring the difficulties and common misconceptions that students experience when learning to program. The study reported here has two aims: firstly, to investigate students' misconceptions around functions by setting up a programming test of advancing difficulty and complexity based on the Bloom and Solo taxonomies, and secondly, to explore the impact that misconceptions have on students' self-efficacy in programming, along with students' self-evaluation and self-efficacy in computer science. Our study revealed seven misconceptions in the area of functions, three of which have never before been reported in the literature, to our knowledge. Additionally, the results suggest that misconceptions do not only prohibit students' progress and learning but have a significant impact on students' self-efficacy in programming.

PRIMM is an approach to teaching programming at K-12 that facilitates the structure of lessons in a purposeful way. PRIMM stands for Predict-Run-Investigate-Modify-Make, and draws on recent research in programming education. In particular the PRIMM approach recognises that starting with existing code and being able to explain what it does gives novice programmers the confidence to write their own programs. Using the PRIMM approach, teachers can devise scaffolded and targeted tasks for students which helps engender understanding, particularly for those who may have previously struggled to understand programming concepts. In this techniques paper, we consider what PRIMM is, and the experiences that teachers have had of using the structure in the classroom. PRIMM materials have been trialled in schools in a study involving around 500 students aged 11-14. From interviews with nine participating teachers we have found that teachers particularly value the collaborative approach taken in PRIMM, the structure given to lessons, and the way that resources can be differentiated. We propose that PRIMM is an approach that could be adopted in all phases of programming education as well as in teacher training.

The Blackbox project has been collecting programming activity data from users of BlueJ (a novice-targeted Java development environment) for nearly five years. The resulting dataset of more than two terabytes of data has been made available to interested researchers from the outset. In this paper, we assess the impact of the Blackbox project: we perform a mapping study to assess eighteen publications which have made use of the Blackbox data, and we report on the advantages and difficulties experienced by researchers working with this data, collected via a survey. We find that Blackbox has enabled pieces of research which otherwise would not have been possible, but there remain technical challenges in the analysis. Some of these -- but not all -- relate to the scale of the data. We provide suggestions for the future use of Blackbox, and reflections on the role of such data collection projects in programming research.

The introduction of Computing to the national curriculum in England has led to a situation where in-service teachers need to develop subject knowledge and pedagogical expertise in computer science, which presents a significant challenge. Professional learning opportunities can support this; these may be most effective when situated in the teachers’ own working practices. This article describes a project to support Computing teachers in developing pedagogical skills by carrying out classroom-based research in their schools. A group of 22 primary (Grades K--5) and secondary (Grades 6--10) teachers from schools across England planned, designed, and implemented research projects either individually or in small groups, supported by a team of university colleagues. Inter and intra group progress was shared online and face-to-face within a distributed community of inquiry. Data collection included surveys, video data, and the projects completed by the teachers. The findings from the project are analysed using Clarke and Hollingsworth’s Interconnected Model of Teacher Professional Growth (IMTPG), which enables an identification and exploration of teacher change. Results of the analysis demonstrate that the approach can foster “growth networks”—the construct used within IMTPG to indicate teacher change which is likely to be sustained and fundamental to teachers’ understanding. The individual nature of this change indicates that the approach supports personal change related to each teacher’s specific situation. Although there is a huge literature on action research as part of teacher professional learning, we believe this to be the first time this has been carried out in the context of computer science education. We conclude by critically reflecting on the lessons that we have learned in leading this project.

In the context of rapid curriculum change, teaching computer science in school requires new skills and knowledge that existing teachers may not have. As well as a programme of teacher professional development (TPD), certification can be used to provide recognition to in-service teachers who have made the transition to computer science. The BCS Certificate in Computer Science Teaching has been designed and developed to give teachers professional recognition of their competence in teaching the computer science elements of the Computing curriculum. In this paper we describe the innovative design of this national certification and our experience over the last two years of its implementation; we are not aware of any similar scheme to offer professional recognition to in-service K-12 computer science teachers.

The recent introduction of computer science (CS) education into schools in many countries has led to a surge in interest in programming tools and approaches which make CS concepts and tasks engaging, motivating and accessible to all. There is renewed interest in supporting learning through physical computing, which has been shown to be motivational whilst offering opportunities for collaboration and creativity. Within this context the BBC recently led a collaborative venture in the UK to develop a portable and low-cost programmable device. The consortium funded and produced one million devices, enough for every 11-12 year-old in the UK. In this paper, we report on what we believe to be the first study to investigate the usability and affordances of the BBC micro:bit. We interviewed 15 teachers and 54 pupils in schools in England about their experiences with the device who were, in general, enthusiastic about the potential of the BBC micro:bit. We describe pupils' experiences in terms of usability, creativity, the tangibility of the device and their learning of programming, and analyse their experiences in the context of previously reported benefits of physical computing.

Computer science in UK schools is undergoing a remarkable transformation. While the changes are not consistent across each of the four devolved nations of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), there are developments in each that are moving the subject to become mandatory for all pupils from age 5 onwards. In this article, we detail how computer science declined in the UK, and the developments that led to its revitalisation: a mixture of industry and interest group lobbying, with a particular focus on the value of the subject to all school pupils, not just those who would study it at degree level. This rapid growth in the subject is not without issues, however: there remain significant forthcoming challenges with its delivery, especially surrounding the issue of training sufficient numbers of teachers. We describe a national network of teaching excellence which is being set up to combat this problem, and look at the other challenges that lie ahead.

Computer science in UK schools is a subject in decline: the ratio of Computing to Maths A-Level students (i.e. ages 16--18) has fallen from 1:2 in 2003 to 1:20 in 2011 and in 2012. In 2011 and again in 2012, the ratio for female students was 1:100, with less than 300 female students taking Computing A-Level in the whole of the UK each year. Similar problems have been observed in the USA and other countries, despite the increased need for computer science skills caused by IT growth in industry and society. In the UK, the Computing At School (CAS) group was formed to try to improve the state of computer science in schools. Using a combination of grassroots teacher activities and policy lobbying at a national level, CAS has been able to rapidly gain traction in the fight for computer science in schools. We examine the reasons for this success, the challenges and dangers that lie ahead, and suggest how the experience of CAS in the UK can benefit other similar organisations, such as the CSTA in the USA.

In this paper we present the features of a new physical device prototyping platform called Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer along with our initial experiences using it to teach computer science in high schools. Gadgeteer makes it easy for newcomers to electronics and computing to plug together modules with varied functionality and to program the resulting system's behavior. We believe the platform is particularly suited to teaching modern programming concepts such as object-oriented, event-based programming and it could be a timely addition to established teaching tools given the current interest in improving high school computer science education in some regions. We have run a number of pilot studies in the US and in the UK with students of varying age and ability. Our results indicate that the tangible and expressive nature of Gadgeteer helps to engage and motivate a diverse set of students. We were also pleasantly surprised by the level of polish and sophistication of the devices which were built. We hope to further explore the potential of Gadgeteer for teaching in future work and we encourage others to build on our experiences.