Five Ways to Support CS Teachers

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Introductory computer science (CS) teachers completed a questionnaire in Spring 2015 that, among other things, asked them to describe their most important supports for teaching computer science (with Exploring Computer Science curriculum). These are the most frequently cited support categories from teachers (N=101) in five different cities – Ft. Lauderdale, Chicago, District of Columbia, Los Angeles, and New York City.

Most Important Supports for Teaching CS:

People

What Education Leaders Can Do to Help:

Direct CS teachers to resources to provide them with Professional development opportunities via ongoing webinars in the Computer Science For All Teachers virtual community of practice csforallteachers.org, information for middle and high school teachers in Google’s CS4HS online community cs4hs.com, and through the National Science Foundation (NSF) list serve for NSF-funded teacher opportunities (subscribe to csteachers-subscribe-request@listserv.nsf.gov).

Highlight online teaching resources for CS at Google CS Education google.com/edu/cs/explore.html, those specific to students in CS with disabilities from AccessCS10K washington.edu/accesscomputing/accesscs10k/resources/
promising-practices and general CS teaching tips from csteachingtips.org.

Suggested Citation: Outlier Research & Evaluation (2016). Five Ways to Support CS Teachers. Retrieved from http://outlier.uchicago.edu/basics/findings/Supports-TeachngCS/

Download Five Ways to Support CS Teachers

Help teachers find ways to connect with other CS teachers through the Computer Science Teachers Association community csteachers.org and the Computer Science For All Teachers community of practice for PreK – HS teachers csforallteachers.org/groups.

Teachers are a support for each other, even when they teacher different subject areas. Provide opportunities for teachers to connect with, and learn from each other (e.g., edutopia.org/blog/teacher-collaboration-strategies-ben-johnson).

Make sure introductory CS teachers know where to look to learn more about the ECS curriculum and related resources exploringcs.org/curriculum, and where to find curricula for the new CS course, called AP Computer Science Principles advancesinap.collegeboard.org/stem/computer-science-principles/curricula-pedagogical-support.