Computational thinking (CT) is being utilized within project-based learning (PBL) as a problem solving skill, building on the problem solving toolkits that students bring with them to these learning opportunities. Our research-practice partnership supports teachers in the Eastern Kentucky in Central Appalachia to develop and implement PBL units that focus on a community challenge and integrate content connections, heritage inspiration, and CT. This poster examines these PBL projects to explore the mechanisms teachers leverage to engage students in CT within these heritage-connected PBL units. We found that teachers used six mechanisms to engage students in algorithmic thinking/automation and data practices. By understanding these mechanisms, researchers and educators supporting teachers to develop PBL units can create guidelines and guardrails that more effectively support them through the PBL development process. Hopefully this will increase the frequency and meaningfulness of CT integration within content and heritage connected PBLs.

Teachers are increasingly integrating computational thinking (CT) into subject-area learning opportunities with the aim to meet both subject-area and CT learning goals. While prior work has identified CT practices synergistic to subject-area learning, less is published about pedagogical frameworks for instructional practices when integrating CT into content area teaching. This poster presents data from educators (teachers and professional developers) about what they find to be crucial factors for designing and implementing CT integrated lessons. Preliminary analysis indicates educators advocate for twenty practices including creating reflection opportunities, actively using CT vocabulary, opportunities for students to practice CT skills, meaningful real-world connections, utilizing scaffolding strategies, explicitly introducing CT practices, clear connections between CT and curricular content, using multiple modalities, and encouraging student discourse.

Based on work in an ongoing research-practice partnership, we share teacher-designed project-based learning (PBL) units that sought to integrate Appalachian heritage and CT. We offer reflections on the lessons learned in the design and implementation of PBL units in addition to making recommendations for future PBL units that integrate CT and cultural heritage. This work has implications for improving computing education in rural contexts and in PBL settings.

This SIGCSE poster presents a landscape study of six school districts across six different states in terms of their individual teachers' and administrators' capacity to integrate and implement computational thinking (CT) into their own schools and classrooms. This landscape evaluation represents the baseline start of a wider, four-year national study around district capacity to collaboratively develop consistent and comprehensive K-12 computing pathways for their students and schools. The early landscape work we present here not only represents a starting point for comparing district educators' comprehension of CT (and computer science [CS]), but also acts as an early indicator as to what extent K-12 computing is a school and district-based priority, and to what degree teachers feel they have the capacity to meaningfully implement it. This poster relies on two data sources in a mixed-methods design: Districtwide surveys of teachers and administrators on their familiarity and prioritization of CT, coupled with subsequent hour-long focus group discussions with educators to expand upon their respective district landscape survey responses. Results point to all districts perceiving the broad applicability of CT as a skill set and its integrative potential in a range of subjects. Yet in terms of classroom implementation, teachers find such CT integration decidedly less clear, recognizing it to be a priority but also reporting as less confident about creating their own curricular materials, where CT situates with their district's ongoing initiatives, and where they can find curricular resources and tools specific to their own areas of curricular integration.

Computational thinking (CT) provides opportunities for students to build the skills they need for everyday life, future academic success, and careers. Increasingly, districts are integrating CT into K-12 disciplinary subjects and a growing number of teachers need the knowledge to lead CT learning opportunities. CT is still nascent in teacher education, however, and not all teachers are receiving professional learning on the job. Teachers need effective methods of support to ensure they are providing students with high quality CT learning opportunities. We present methods of support for integrating CT into schools. The poster highlights four methods to support teacher professional learning: allowing ample time for collaboration, a school-based advocate championing CT integration, posting and promoting curated resources, and a foundational person anchoring the work as the initiative expands. In doing so, this poster provides interrelated examples of teacher support and highlights methods of continuous support for teachers integrating CT across content areas.

We live in an increasingly computational world where youth are impacted by computing technologies and algorithms whether they are using them directly or not. The omnipresence of technology and the impacts it has on society lead to Threats to Techquity, or the aspects of computing and technologies that cause or could cause inequity, especially inequity based on marginalized identities. We partnered with youth and teachers to co-design the Talking Techquity curriculum, a middle school curriculum introducing Threats to Techquity alongside computer science skills. After co-designing the curriculum, the teacher partners taught it to sixth grade students. This paper introduces the Talking Techquity curriculum and explores the successes and challenges of teaching it using data from teacher interviews. This work expands efforts to teach students about the social justice and equity impacts of computing and offers an example of how Threats to Techquity can be brought into the classroom.

As states move to adopt computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) standards to prepare students for an increasingly technological world, school districts are integrating curriculum with CT skills and practices, building the capacity of their teachers and administrators through professional development, and increasing the knowledge infrastructure to support CT opportunities for students. One challenge that districts face when scaling new initiatives occurs when the work becomes siloed to one ''champion'' teacher or a singular motivated department. This poster presents Broward County Public Schools' use of an interactive infographic to build awareness of their CT initiative, including considerations for utilizing an infographic tool and the design decisions made to engage various stakeholders. The poster provides examples of methods to build knowledge of an emerging initiative and adds to the growing body of work in supporting districts as they scale their CS/CT initiatives.

North Salem Central School District (North Salem) has worked with researchers as part of a larger Research Practice Partnership (RPP) to design and implement an inclusive PK-12 computing pathway in their district. This poster describes how teachers used Generative AI (GenAI) tools in three areas: (1) the development of sample computational thinking (CT) lesson plans; (2) initial brainstorming; and (3) professional learning.

Computational thinking (CT) is playing an increasingly relevant role within disciplinary teaching in elementary school, particularly in science. However, many teachers are unfamiliar with CT, either because their education occurred before the popularization of CT or because CT instruction was not included in their pre-service coursework. For these teachers, CT professional development (PD) becomes a primary mechanism to close their CT knowledge gap. While CT PD has demonstrated success at increasing teacher's CT understanding, researchers have reported varied outcomes in supporting teachers to write CT-integrated lesson plans. To explore how we might support teachers to integrate CT into elementary science, we employed design-based research (DBR) in a dual-track design of in-class CT instruction for pre-service undergraduates within an elementary science methods class paired with a collaborative, multi-month PD opportunity for pre- and in-service teachers. In this article, we reflect on our 5-year period of DBR and present our design insights and implications for CT instruction and curriculum design from each iteration. Our findings on best practices will inform both teacher educators and PD providers within CT education. Our work will also be of interest to researchers considering DBR for technology-based educational projects.

To promote inclusion of students with marginalized identities, districts need to develop comprehensive inclusive computing pathways across grade levels. Working in a Research Practice Partnership (RPP), we have co-designed a district-facing toolkit to support the creation of these pathways. In this poster, we present both the CT Pathways Toolkit and results from four districts piloting it. We examine the experiences of the pilot districts and analyze trends in the toolkit's use. This work expands knowledge about building inclusive computing pathways and computational thinking (CT) integration within K-12 schools.

Talladega County Schools (Talladega) is working to design and implement an inclusive K-12 computing pathway in their district as part of a larger Research Practice Partnership (RPP). This poster describes the reflections of a district leader in Talladega who led an inclusivity in computing initiative related to the pathway. The Talladega committee reflected on their pathway within the context of their district equity goal and centered conversations around how to support young women and students from low socio-economic households to participate in computing. After reflecting and discussing, the group designed equity-centered formative assessment tools for the three overarching competencies: Algorithmic Thinking; Data Collection and Analysis; and Creating Models and Simulations. This work builds on literature about designing equitable computing learning environments for students.

There is a need for more K-12 computer science (CS) teachers. The need to scale teacher professional development (PD) points the CS education community towards virtual learning, and prior work shows that in-person PD with a diffuse schedule is more successful than condensed schedules. There is currently little research about virtual K-12 CS PD with a diffuse schedule. The pandemic served as a forced opportunity to explore the design and implementation of a diffuse-scheduled virtual PD for two small, equally-sized cohorts of middle school (grades 5-8) teachers; one from a metropolitan school district and another from across the United States.

Technology is expanding worldwide and, in conjunction, so are opportunities for creative computing to aid communities and the need for an expanded workforce. Yet, there is a global disparity in where youth are learning programming, with the majority of computing instruction occurring in developed countries and urban areas, if it occurs at all in developing countries. In this work, we sought to counteract this trend by bringing computing, specifically physical computing in the form of robotics, to youth and young adults in rural El Salvador. In this paper, we present the robotics activities completed with youth in a small, Salvadoran community. Based on field notes of the activities and interviews with the youth who participated, we present both the successes and difficulties we faced carrying out this educational outreach program. We further explore the challenges faced due to this unique environment and lessons learned that can help inform the expansion of computing opportunities in developing nations.

Given the importance of broadening participation in the field of computing, goals of supporting personal expression and developing a sense of belonging must live alongside the goals of conceptual knowledge and developing disciplinary expertise. Integrating opportunities for students to be creative in how they enact computing ideas plays an important role when designing curricula. We examine how student creativity, as expressed through theme and the use of costumes, backdrops, and narrative in Scratch projects, is affected by using a themed starter project. Starter projects are Scratch projects that include a set of sprites and backdrops aligned to a theme (e.g. baseball), but no code. Using within-group and between-group comparisons, we establish a baseline of what students do when they are given a starter project and explore how their projects differ in the absence of a starter project. This work contributes to our understanding of the impacts of structured elements within open-ended learning tasks and how we can design computer science learning experiences for students that promote opportunities for self-expression while engaging them in computing.

Three districts representing unique contexts and challenges from across the United States have been iteratively designing and implementing inclusive computing pathways for K-12 students. In this paper, we identify barriers to inclusivity within each districts? K-12 computing pathway. Through a research practice partnership (RPP), we seek to develop a shared understanding of inclusiveness and apply that understanding to the development of targeted supports in the design and implementation of K-12 computing pathways. We analyze existing structures and systems for gaps in order to create new opportunities and resources for students, teachers, schools and districts.

Iteratively building and testing machine learning models can help children develop creativity, flexibility, and comfort with machine learning and artificial intelligence. We explore how children use machine teaching interfaces with a team of 14 children (aged 7–13 years) and adult co-designers. Children trained image classifiers and tested each other's models for robustness. Our study illuminates how children reason about ML concepts, offering these insights for designing machine teaching experiences for children: (i) ML metrics (e.g. confidence scores) should be visible for experimentation; (ii) ML activities should enable children to exchange models for promoting reflection and pattern recognition; and (iii) the interface should allow quick data inspection (e.g. images vs. gestures).

Boredom is a universal phenomenon: everyone has experienced the sense of disengagement and apathy that comes when there's nothing to Children are especially quick to grumble, I'm bored!, despite an increase in pre-scheduled activities and interactive technologies designed to capture their attention. Are today's children losing an ability to generate their own antidotes to boredom, instead growing more dependent on external sources of increasingly digital and ubiquitous forms of entertainment? Current research indicates that young minds benefit from learning strategies to overcome feelings of boredom. How do children conceptualize boredom and find ways to transform feeling bored into creative play? We conducted five cooperative inquiry sessions with youth (7-13 years old) to explore the role that boredom plays in their lives and techniques to spark imagination and enhance their efforts to overcome boredom. Our findings suggest that boredom in children includes (1) a time dimension, (2) the sense that they lack control or agency, and (3) tangible interactions that prompt transitions from boredom to a more engaged, not-bored state.

As computer science instruction gets offered to more young learners, transitioning from elective to requirement, it is important to explore the relationship between pedagogical approach and student behavior. While different pedagogical approaches have particular motivations and intended goals, little is known about to what degree they satisfy those goals.

While several introductory computer science curricula exist for children in K-8, there are few options that go beyond sequence, loops, and basic conditionals. The goal of this project is to not only fill this gap with a high-quality curriculum supported by complete instructional materials, but to also do so with an equity-balanced curriculum. That is, a curriculum that values advancing equity equally with student learning outcomes. In this paper, we introduce barriers to equity in public school classrooms, pedagogical approaches to culturally-relevant curricula, and how our Scratch Encore curriculum is designed to support equity-balanced learning. Finally, we present results of our pilot year, including early evidence of students taking advantage of the culturally-relevant design aspects.

School systems globally have begun to integrate computational thinking (CT) practices into elementary teaching and learning standards to provide young students with a comfort for and foundational understanding of computer science. This integration requires educating teachers to develop and implement CT learning opportunities. Our work contributes to best practice by exploring the role language plays in elementary teachers' discussions and development of CT-infused science lessons. To do this, we captured and analyzed the language used by elementary teachers as they spoke and wrote about CT in a multi-week professional development experience during which the teachers created and delivered CT-infused lessons to their students. We determined that teachers exhibited differing CT conceptualizations, which we categorized from broad to narrow. These differences were not, however, observed in either their spoken or written language. While there were instances of teachers using language that mirrored how the facilitators discussed CT, this use did not align with how they conceptualized CT. Our work analyzing connections between CT language use and CT conceptualization suggests that in order to understand how teachers are conceptualizing CT, professional development designers and teacher educators should focus on creating opportunities for teachers to employ CT practices in context rather than relying only on language. We feel this will support a more precise and nuanced engagement with CT.

In response to the growing call to bring the powerful ideas of computer science to all learners, education decision makers, including teachers and administrators, are tasked with making consequential decisions on what curricula to use. Often, these decision makers have not been trained in computer science and are unfamiliar with the concepts taught and tools used. This is especially true in K–12 contexts where computer science expertise is less prevalent. To aid in the decision-making process around computing curricula, this article introduces the TEC Rubric. The TEC Rubric is composed of three main categories: Teacher Accessibility, Equity, and Content designed to support educational decision makers and designers when it comes to computing instruction. Along with presenting the full rubric and the process used in its creation, this article describes two examples of the rubric in action. First, the TEC Rubric is used to evaluate two widespread computer science curricula to demonstrate its evaluative capacity highlighting differences between the two curricula. Second, we show how the TEC Rubric can be used to help inform the design of new K–12 computing curricula. Overall, the TEC Rubric is designed to serve as a useful resource in the ongoing quest to bring effective, equitable, and engaging computing instruction into schools around the world.

Stories are powerful tools to share life, culture, and experiences with others while promoting learning and engagement in the storyteller. Working with a group of high school Alaska Native youth, this project will guide students through the process of designing and creating digital stories to promote Indigenous voices and encourage reflection. Twenty Southeast Alaska Native youth will create digital stories sharing their experiences with culture and language revitalization on an immersion trip. The final products and materials used for designing will be analyzed to identify the affordances of digital storytelling tools the youth use, the level of reflection present within their final products, and the cultural connections the youth make.

Participatory design is an essential design strategy for creating artifacts and experiences that reflect the voices of the population being designed for and with. The participatory design process can serve not only to research resulting artifacts but also as an empowering activity for those who participate. This paper explores how participatory design can serve as a context for young participants to enact and voice their emerging identities and reveals how different participatory design activities have unique affordances for supporting this identity enactment. Focusing on a group of 12 and 13-year-old African American girls, this paper presents a case study showing how participatory design activities served as venues for the girls to reflect characteristics of their current identities, project future identities, and apply aspects of their identities to shape materials for others. In doing so, we contribute a case study showing how participatory design allows participants to enact their identities, helping researchers gain insight into characteristics of those they are designing with and for. This paper advances our understanding of participatory design as a design approach for youth, especially as it relates to issues of broadening participation, identity, and equity.

The underrepresentation of women and minorities in the field of computer science is well documented. Due to this lack of representation, efforts to broaden participation in computing abound. One manner with which to do this is through the development of culturally relevant curricula. Education literature encourages the use of culturally relevant techniques and topics to teach school content through the knowledge of diverse groups as well as teach about culturally diverse populations. In addition, partnering with the students who will learn with the curriculum is encouraged in order to co-develop ideas and learn more about students' interests and experiences. This poster describes the outcomes from a series of participatory design sessions with a diverse group of stakeholders (students, teachers, parents, and administrators) to design an intermediate computing curriculum for 5th - 7th grade students. Specifically, we examine the topics developed by the participants that are being utilized as themes for curricular units. Preliminary analysis shows that participants of all ages brainstormed and utilized themes related to both cultural heritage and contemporary culture, but more focus was placed on youth culture and pop culture topics. The poster will describe the design methods used during the participatory design sessions as well as the themes developed and an overall analysis of the categories from which the themes are drawn.