The other part of it that I really appreciate is the collaboration…I'm used to working by myself and now I'm getting used to collaborating and bouncing ideas off people and using it with a slight modification. That to me has been very useful.

—Faculty Interview

We will take whatever framework they gave us and we will rework it the way that will work best. Every session will run differently. Everyone will play on their strengths and we will do just that. We will take what we like and what we are enthusiastic about we will run with it. If something is not working that we like, we have no reservations about dropping things.

—Faculty Interview

Definitely one of the most enjoyable and rewarding things I've done since I've come into education and I know it could be again…if I went through it again, it would be the second most rewarding!

—Faculty Interview

It's intriguing to think about working with Google on a full time basis to develop some of this stuff. I'm getting excited about my classroom and they've come back to say hi. I'm excited about what Google is doing with CS education.

—Faculty Interview

Not only is it empowering students, but teachers as well. So often I feel like I've seen what I feel like are really good teachers leave – not that they would say it in this way – they feel underappreciated; they feel their efforts have gone unnoticed…I've seen other corporations do similar things – treat teachers like a rock star and give them a sense of what they are…really valuing what teachers do. I think about this CAPE experience and they have done such a great job of valuing teachers input…they treat me amazingly well and say you are the expert and you come up with things for kids to do…you are going to solve this problem…. That is so cool because so often teachers are like the system is broken but they feel powerless to make change but I really feel like they have given a lot of us the confidence that we can be difference makers. That is a great feeling for me.

—Faculty Interview

I really appreciated them really investing and believing in us. That is something that is intangible but it's nice because I don't necessarily feel like they do that in the school district. I don't think they are doing anything bad – there are budget constraints and everybody in the education field feels like there is not enough money to do anything so for Google to come in and one of the things I really liked was the first session where they asked us to brainstorm our dream classroom. That was the first time I was like ‘I could dream about it' – as silly as it is, I could dream about doing something new and exciting. So I really appreciate what Google did there. And then really the PD collaboration that came about just getting to be with twelve other…fifteen other computer science teachers who are passionate about this. And I feel like I'm in in the middle of it. In that, there are some outstanding people who have taught longer and done really cool stuff. And I'm not at their level, and there are some people who know less than me so for me, I enjoy being at the middle because I know I have something to offer some people and I know I have a chance to just be in awe.

—Faculty Interview

I have a better understanding of what Google wanted and what the outcome was than of five years in the district – that makes a really big impact on the way you handle situations when they come up and the way you plan your activities.

—Faculty Interview

In terms of faculty development, they do want us to realize that there is a community that we can be part of partly to value the experience and to attract the best teachers and partly because if they do hire us again, it's in their best interest that we grow as instructors from year to year.

—Faculty Interview

One of the most difficult parts? Restraining myself from just being a Google superfan at every meeting. It's such an exhilarating culture; it's hard for me not to get swept up with creative thinking. Having to stay grounded and do solid work…I want to dream, and the culture aids and assists in dreaming and imagining- it's the actual doing that I need to make sure I do. The actual hard part- the building.

—Faculty Interview

The faculty members and the programs team…I really feel way closer to them than I ever could have imagined. I thought I'll get to know the two other teachers in my session and the others will just be names or pictures and I …was amazed at how close I feel like I am with them.

—Faculty Interview

I'm very pleased to have a community we didn't have before.

—Faculty Interview

Most of the other instructors are older…most have more formal background in CS than I do – so I found myself in this group of people and was surprised at how amazing they all were…they made it very clear that everybody has something to contribute.

—Faculty Interview

…The first summit did such a good job…a better job than any other organization of creating a strong culture within the group and as a teach I could see that as a teacher – that is the number one thing – creating that culture where the students feel appreciated and you feel that you know them and they know each other and it creates that solid foundation for being able to motivate and grow those relationships that can be so useful when you are trying to motivate and shape. For me, that whole weekend and that activity was so impactful in creating that culture…you can see it in the 12 of us were happy to have a four hour meeting on a Sunday yesterday. But for the most part, I was so happy to see these people and work with them again and partially because of the culture that was created.

—Faculty Interview

One thing that I've found to be pretty remarkable is the community that the staff and the Google people have really emphasized and made a great community of the CAPE instructors to get together between the two summits in person and the virtual summit and the interaction we've had has built a really cool rapport with the teachers and I loved the emphasis of supporting one another.

—Faculty Interview

I suppose just being exposed to new things and having new requirements put on us that force me to learn things, which is really handy.

—Faculty Interview

It's made me think a lot about my classroom environment and my school. Here we are face to face with each other [teacher and students in school] every day and the students know each other pretty well, but with how comfortable I was…just really impressed by how comfortable with this group and with… students that's a huge issue...in the classes that I teach kids don't feel comfortable. It's tough for them to take risks; it's tough for them to try doing things in different ways or presenting something from their peers…I've given that a lot of thought. How could, really, in four days of us being together and how we were able to build those relationships…how could we become that close in that kind of team. I don't know what that means for my classroom or exactly what I will do but I'll consider a lot more exercises about sharing and trying to develop that rapport in my classroom.

—Faculty Interview

I would love to have App Inventor in my class. I want with my advanced class to do a final project and the design thinking process and interviewing people and coming up with a story about them and developing a prototype. I love that process. I didn't know how to structure that before. This will lead to students being investing in their project.

—Faculty Interview

Google has a mindset of Why Not? They let me dream again about what's possible. I appreciated the App Inventor because I didn't think high school students could do mobile apps. It pushed the limits of Why Not?

—Faculty Interview

I could look at the world, a piece that I didn't know existed. I thought about how I could incorporate these ideas into my curriculum or a school I start in the future. It was refreshing. It made me feel more whole as a person instead of just seeing things in my bubble.

—Faculty Interview

I feel like the biggest thing that comes to mind right away is a sense of possibility. I think that…I've had a different experience than the other teachers in my own preparation to be a teacher so for me, I was kind of taught this is they way that you teach a math lesson…and all the work that I've done for the past two years has been kind of working to teach the best possible math lesson in that way and then other things that support the experience in the classroom which is really the most important thing because it's the time that I'm physically with them. So more important than me experimenting with homework for example…things that may or may not be inspiring for the kids. This is just my personal experience – I felt very confined to this model of a math classroom and I don't know, I think for some reason CAPE has given me this feeling of permission or the sense of possibility of…what ideas do I have about what a classroom should look like or what are the ideas that I have about how math could be taught to its' totally affected [how] my classroom is going to be 100% different next year…

—Faculty Interview

Probably the biggest thing on my mind about CAPE is….it is really shaping my classroom. Those values are really shaping my classroom I'm just so excited and another thing that I'm really excited about and curious to hear about is the alumni teacher corp …I don't know if the other teachers have been as inspired or if their classrooms are going to transform as much as mine is going to, but I think that's really powerful and having the community around it will be pretty cool.

—Faculty Interview