Educating Educators: Training Teachers to Teach Computer Science

Abstract

Half of American secondary schools lack computer science classes due to the shortage of teachers in the field. In order to solve this problem, more people need to be trained to teach computer science. In this paper, I explore the idea of creating an in-person computer science professional development course to train current teachers who lack a background in computer science. I design four lesson plans for this potential course. These lessons use a dual approach that integrates both coding skills and pedagogical strategies specific to computer science. This approach has not been previously pursued in computer science professional development courses. In developing this material, I first interview, and then solicit quantitative feedback on my lessons from, administrators of current computer science professional development programs, computer science teachers, and teachers of other subjects.