The rapid pace of technological advancement and its immersive impact on our society underscores the need for all students to acquire fundamental knowledge and skills in computer science. Teachers are critical to the efforts to expand access and equity in computer science education. Developing teachers' knowledge, practice, and professional…

Background and context: We address the question of what computer science students take the discipline to be. How students conceive the discipline can influence whether a student pursues computer science, what particular area within computer science they focus on and whether they persist in the discipline. In this paper, we examine the epistemic…

Because of the rapid expansion of computer science (CS) education, educational leaders must consider how to recruit, prepare, and support teachers who typically do not have a background in CS. This study examines two professional development (PD) approaches used to introduce CS education to non-CS teachers. We aim to understand if/how each model…

The study examined the Advancing Rural Computer Science (ARCS) program, a professional development initiative designed to improve elementary teachers' computer science (CS) content knowledge, pedagogical practices, and self-efficacy, with the goal of enhancing K-5 students' interest in and knowledge of CS. ARCS was funded through USED EIR…

Motivation: Students learning to program often reach states where they are stuck and can make no forward progress--but this may be outside the classroom where no instructor is available to help. In this situation, an automatically generated next-step hint can help them make forward progress and support their learning. It is important to know what…

Background and Context: Self-regulated learning (SRL) skills are critical aspect of learning to program and are predictive of academic success. Early college students often struggle to use these skills, but can improve when given targeted instruction. However, it is not yet clear what skills are best to prioritize. Objective: We seek to create a…

Context: With the introduction of Computer Science (CS) into curricula worldwide, teachers' adoption of CS pedagogical content is essential to ensure the long-term success of reform initiatives. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programs play a key role in this process. Unfortunately, adoption is seldom evaluated in CS-CPDs or CPDs in…

Research Questions: While community college transfer (i.e., upward transfer) represents an important mechanism for advancing equity across STEM fields, existing studies of gender and women's participation within computer science have largely excluded the perspectives of upward transfer students. We address this gap in the literature by exploring…

Background and Context: Professional development (PD) programs for K-12 computer science teachers use surveys to measure teachers' knowledge and attitudes while recognizing daily sentiment and emotion changes can be crucial for providing timely teacher support. Objective: We investigate approaches to compute sentiment and emotion scores…

For computing to serve humanity, computing spaces must be safe for all individuals. While prior work has surfaced how hegemonic racial and gendered expectations manifest in computing, it has only indirectly attended to expectations surrounding neurodivergence. As computing stereotypes largely align with stereotypes of some neurodivergent…

Reflective practice is an essential catalyst through which the benefits of teaching and learning can be reaped. Through it, weaknesses and strengths can be identified in a way that helps raise the level of addressing challenges that may arise as well as overcome them. This paper presents the critical reflective practices among computer science…

The purpose of this study was to explore how elementary school teachers think about equity in relation to their goals in their computer science instruction, and to explore the strategies they articulated to make their practice more equitable. States are mandating computer science standards and instruction and requiring schools to teach the content…

Because K-12 teachers have access to private educational data, they are increasingly at risk of being affected by cybersecurity threats. Examining how teachers conceptualize cybersecurity is vital so that cybersecurity training can be tailored to teachers' understanding of cybersecurity. This study examined K-12 teachers' (n = 255) personalized…

In a nationwide initiative to increase computer science Education in K-12, many teachers were recruited to CS teaching positions but without adequate preparation, which can lead to lack of confidence and feelings of isolation [35, 54]. In response to these issues, the purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a newly developed…

Gamification is a teaching strategy often praised for its effectiveness in the classroom. The problem was the lack of information regarding teachers' perceptions regarding gamification in high school Advanced Placement (AP) computer science courses. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of computer science teachers…