The document discusses the unique needs and challenges faced by computer science (CS) teachers compared to software developers, emphasizing that CS teachers focus on pedagogical content knowledge and student learning rather than solely on coding. Successful CS teachers utilize various teaching strategies, including assessments and collaborative community support, to improve student recruitment and retention in CS courses. Additionally, fostering a sense of identity and community among CS educators is crucial for enhancing their effectiveness and confidence in teaching the subject.

1. PREPARING TEACHERS IS DIFFERENT THAN
PREPARING SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS
Mark Guzdial
6 November 2014

2. Do CS teachers need a CS degree?
What do they need that’s different?
2
• Four stories:
1. CS Teachers do different things.
2.CS Teachers know different things.
3.CS Teachers code to teach,
not always about programming.
4. Identity and community are intertwined.

3. #1: CS Teachers do different things
3
What do successful CS teachers do?
What makes a CS teacher successful?
• Recruits more students into CS
• High pass rate
• Confident and satisfied with teaching CS

4. How do you prepare your students for
the AP CS exam?
“Everything in that class is more or less an
assessment. They’re supposed to read certain
sections in the book, and then they have quizzes
over the reading. After they do the reading
assignments, they have Gridworld case study
quizzes and also Gridworld case study segments of
code that they will go in and manipulate to change
to get the things in the Gridworld case study to react
different ways. Those are pretty much graded as
labs or programs or quizzes.”
4

5. How do you prepare your students for
the AP CS exam?
“Everything in that class is more or less an
assessment. They’re supposed to read certain
sections in the book, and then they have quizzes
over the reading. After they do the reading
assignments, they have Gridworld case study
quizzes and also Gridworld case study segments of
code that they will go in and manipulate to change
to get the things in the Gridworld case study to react
different ways. Those are pretty much graded as
labs or programs or quizzes.”
5

6. How do you prepare your students for
the AP CS exam?
6
And then if I read these [student quizzes], I can see any
misconceptions or gaps in what I’ve done. I get a picture in
my mind of where the current class is. Making them do the
explaining is new this year. I’m seeing them do a lot better
there. I‘ll do like little code (assignments) that they’ll write
once a week. They have to write it by hand away from the
computer, and I’ll read that and write them comments on
what they’re doing and help them grade it with a rubric, and
also pass them back after I’ve read them for them to grade,
too, and have them look at what was catching it or where it
didn’t quite get to it.

7. How do you prepare your students for
the AP CS exam?
7
And then if I read these [student quizzes], I can see any
misconceptions or gaps in what I’ve done. I get a picture in
my mind of where the current class is. Making them do the
explaining is new this year. I’m seeing them do a lot better
there. I‘ll do like little code (assignments) that they’ll write
once a week. They have to write it by hand away from the
computer, and I’ll read that and write them comments on
what they’re doing and help them grade it with a rubric, and
also pass them back after I’ve read them for them to grade,
too, and have them look at what was catching it or where it
didn’t quite get to it.

8. A successful CS teacher…
8
• Writes assignments and comments, not code.
• Guides students through rubrics, not syntax.
• Is interested in learning (coding away from the
computer, explaining), not productivity.
• Is not all that focused on assessment.

9. #2: Teachers want and need CK and PCK
Pedagogical Content Knowledge
What are the learning difficulties that teachers might anticipate?
What are useful techniques for teaching this?
9

10. Teachers feel a need for more CK training
[Becky]: “I struggle with giving everyone the material and
being able to explain it to everyone… I struggle with how to
be creative with the programming. I have a problem with
trying to make the programs have meaning to them... It is
hard to teach. It’s hard knowing how to teach it, how to give
it to them… It’s hard to explain. When I look at kid’s codes,
they think I should know it… They think that I should know
it as soon as I look at it. For the longest time I thought I
should, but I don’t have to. I have to study it just like they do.
So, I would like some training.”
From Lijun Ni’s 2011 thesis
on CS teacher identity

11. They may find CS inaccessible
[May]: “I think, computer science is more for
really, really smart people. I’m not saying I’m
smart, but I’m thinking that if I have to go
take this Computer Science degree, that it’s
going to be really hard, because it’s going to
ask a lot of programming questions, syntax
questions. I think computer science is a much
higher level…”

12. Phillip Sandler:
Measuring Science PCK
What do the
most successful
science teachers
know?
12

13. Students Pre-test on
science knowledge
Post-test on
science
knowledge
Course

14. 14
Students Pre-test on
science knowledge
Post-test on
science
knowledge
Teachers
Pre-test on
science knowledge
Pre-test predicting
what students would
get wrong
Course

15. 15
Students Pre-test on
science knowledge
Post-test on
science
knowledge
Teachers
Pre-test on
science knowledge
Pre-test predicting
what students would
get wrong
Course
Students who had the
greatest pre->post
differences had teachers
who (a) got the knowledge
right and (b) predicting the
most common wrong
answers

16. Students find CS-simple things
complex
16
• Brian Dorn found that end-user
programmers (CHI 2010) found
assignment difficult to learn.
• Dehnadi and Bornat tested
understanding of assignment to predict
CS1 success.
• Test result couldn’t be replicated (MEC).
• The predicting variable was consistent use
of model of assignment.
• Re: Quintin’s talk yesterday.

17. Common Misconceptions about Assignment
17
number1 = 14
number2 = number1
• Assignment is a move.
• number1 is now empty.
• Assignment is a swap.
• Assignment is a relationship.
• If we later change number1,
number2 will automatically change.

18. Common Misconceptions about Assignment
18
number1 = 14
number2 = number1 This is not where
• Assignment is a move.
• number1 is now empty.
• Assignment is a swap.
• Assignment is a relationship.
• If we later change number1,
number2 will automatically change.
software
developers focus.
This is exactly
where teachers
focus.

19. #3: CS Teachers Code to Teach
But not always about programming.
19

20. Long history of teaching with programming
Seymour Papert’s Logo was a
“mathland.”
Turtle Geometry could be used to
learn about biology, physics, and
even Einstein’s special theory of
relativity.
Bootstrap, EarSketch, and
Performamatics are all examples
of a cross-disciplinary approach.
20

21. How sound works:
Acoustics, the physics of sound

22. Let’s take Susan’s advice:
Visualize this in a responsive manner
22

23. Digitizing Sound: How do we
get that into bytes?
Remember in
calculus,
estimating the
curve by creating
rectangles?
We can do the
same to estimate
the sound curve
with samples.

24. Live coding here
24
Now let’s play with this.

27. What’s going on here?
27
• Inquiry-based
• Peer instruction and making predictions
• Learning about psychophysics and
information and computing…and
programming
• Imagineered

28. Value of live coding
Not the musical form (though
that’s cool, too).
Best practice for engaging
women (Lecia Barker & NCWIT)
– Shows the details of coding that are
often unspoken.
– Shows that even the teacher makes
errors.
– Shows how the teacher figures out
errors.
Reduces fear of programming
and imposter syndrome.
Programming as performance.
28

29. #4: Identity and Community
We need our teachers to have a sense of
identity:
• More professional learning
• Greater retention
• (See ExploringCS retention report.)
Where does that sense of identity come
from?
• For CS teachers, from community and role
models. (Lijun Ni, 2011)
29

30. Teachers need their Communities
“I’m a better Math teacher, just because I’ve
had so much support. Whenever I have
problems, I can talk with the people that I
work with, most of who have taught for many
years in Math.…Every day, I’m eating lunch
with Math teachers.
With Computer Science, I’ve got nobody to talk
to.”
30
From Lijun Ni’s 2011 thesis
on CS teacher identity

31. Disciplinary Commons
Group of educators from diverse
institutions who teach within the same
subject area meeting monthly over an
academic year.
In monthly increments, the
participants prepare a course
portfolio.
Goals
1. To document and share knowledge about student
learning in Computer Science classrooms.
2. To establish practices for the scholarship of teaching
by making it public, peer-reviewed, and amenable for
future use and development by other educators. [1]
[1] Tenenberg, J. and Fincher, S. Opening the door of the computer science classroom: the Disciplinary
Commons. SIGCSE Bull., 39, 1 2007, 514-518.

32. DCCE in Georgia
Disciplinary Commons for Computing Educators
Adaptation – High School teachers AND university
Goals
1. Creating community
2. Sharing resources and knowledge of how things are taught
in other contexts
AND…
3. Supporting student recruitment within the high school
environment
Work by Briana
Morrison, Lijun Ni, Ria
Galanos, Allison Elliott
Tew

33. A High School DCCE
Mtg Month Original DC Topic DCCE Schedule
1 Oct
Institutional Context &
personal trajectory into
teaching
Personal trajectory into
teaching
2 Nov Curricular Context
Institutional Context,
Recruiting
3 Dec Course Content
Curricular Context,
Course Content
4 Jan Instructional Design Instructional Design
5 Feb Student Assessment
Teaching Philosophy,
Reflection Log
6 Mar Evaluation
Student Assessment,
Grading Rubrics
7 Apr
Delivery (including
debrief of peer
observation)
Peer Observation Debrief
8 May
Complete “first draft”
overview
Student Feedback
9 June Portfolio Presentations Portfolio Presentations
GA specific:
GA university
computing
curricula, HS
competitions,
field trip
possibilities

34. Building Community
Partnerships Before (PRE) DCCE Partnerships After (POST) DCCE
Overcoming isolation (comments)
Feedback, diversity in environments

35. Improving Recruiting
302% increase in number of AP CS students in the year
following their participation in the DCCE
Year of participation – 122 students enrolled
Next year – 491 students pre-registered
One teacher 700% increase (3 to 24 students)
Reason?
1. Platform to share recruitment ideas
2. Sense of community (keep up morale during recruiting)

36. Conclusions
Computer science teachers’ needs are different from software
developers.
• Computer science teachers comment and read, but do little
coding.
• Focus is on students, not producing code.
• Computer science teachers know content knowledge, and
pedagogical content knowledge, including student
misconceptions.
• Computer science teachers care about student learning, and
about more than just code.
• Computer science teachers need a sense of identity which
often comes from community.
36

37. Many thanks!
Colleagues: Barbara Ericson, Tom McKlin,
Lijun Ni, Briana Morrison, & Brian Dorn
Our Funders:
US National Science Foundation
– Statewide BPC Alliance: Project “Georgia Computes!”
http://www.gacomputes.org
– Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance,
http://expandingcomputing.org
– CCLI and CPATH Grants, and now CE21 to produce new media
Georgia’s Department of Education
GVU Center, and Institute for People and
Technology (iPaT) at Georgia Tech

38. Thank you!
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~mark.guzdial
Lab: http://home.cc.gatech.edu/csl
Institute for Computing Education at
Georgia Tech:
– http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt
For more on MediaComp:
http://www.mediacomputation.org

39. They may find CS inaccessible
[May]: “I think, computer science is more for really, really
smart people. I’m not saying I’m smart, but I’m thinking
that if I have to go take this Computer Science degree, that
it’s going to be really hard, because it’s going to ask a lot of
programming questions, syntax questions. I think computer
science is a much higher level… When I say computing, I
think of computing as being able to operate the computer, …
I believe that most students can successfully take and
complete Computing in the Modern World, but it takes a
little higher level of intelligence to complete the Introduction
to Programming “