FINAL REMINDER: pre-registration for workshops closes on Dec. 13

The "Problems of Practice: Keeping the Focus on Equity in your RPP" workshop and the "Achieving CSforAll: Starting early by developing elementary teacher competencies in computing education" workshop have gotten enough pre-registrants to run.

If you are interested in either of the other two workshops (“Finding the Right Look” or ECS shared data, shared instruments”) please pre-register by December 13th. Without your support, these workshops will not run.

Final registration will continue to run through January, but you will only be able to attend those workshops that get enough support by the end of this week.

CLICK HERE to register. 

Finding the Right “Look”: Charting the Capacity of “Look For” Documents to Discern CT Integration in Elementary and Middle School Classrooms - Kelly Mills, Pati Ruiz, & Quinn Burke


ECS: Shared Research, Shared Data - Monica McGill, Alan Peterfreund



Achieving CSforAll: Starting early by developing elementary teacher competencies in computing education - Aman Yadav


Problems of Practice: Keeping the Focus on Equity in your RPP - Florence Sullivan, Jill Denner, Jean Ryoo, Sneha Veeragoudar
 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS ON THE WORKSHOPS. 
Register HERE by December 13 

Date: Tuesday, March 10 in Portland, OR

Time: Afternoon, depending on projected duration of the workshop. The earliest start time would be 1pm PST, allowing for same day travel to the workshop

REMINDER: we will meet as a community first thing in the morning of Weds so we have no conflict with the RESPECT agenda (which is where many of us will likely be presenting)

As in past years, we are providing funding to help defray costs associated with attending the RPPforCS Community Meetup and RESPECT registration. This year we will be providing additional funding to attend one of our pre-RESPECT workshops. 

• Community Meetup: up to $400 per person, up to 2 people per project
  Special note for Cohort 3: As with past cohorts, funding for Cohort 3 attendees is contingent on your project providing RPPforCS with information that we will use in our research.
   
• Pre-RESPECT Workshop: up to $150 per attendee (no limit per project)

RPPforCS Workshop and Community Meetup Reimbursement Information

On November 20th we held a community call that took up issues of accessibility. The panel discussion included voices from researchers, a developer, and a teacher working with students requiring various accessibility accommodations. The conversation was rich and we generated many useful resources to use not only with students, but in our projects more generally. The RPPforCS leadership team also shared about one of the changes we plan to make within our project to make our materials more accessible. This resource page includes links to the recorded webinar and provides links to the resources discussed, suggestions for further reading, and the Zoom chat history from the call.

If you haven’t yet watched Amy Ko’s keynote address from Koli Calling 2019, the RPPforCS team highly recommends it. Equity continues to be a major focus for our community and Amy challenges us to take a more political stance. Yes, let’s fight for equitable access to tools, curricula, and resources, but let’s not forget that there are real-world implications for computing itself. She challenges the research community to take up research and teaching in four new areas: “the limits of computing, social responsibility, data literacy, and diversity literacy.”

Continuing along our pursuit of equity, we found this EdWeek blog post on valuing teachers’ knowledge and expertise as evidence to be great food for thought. What counts as evidence in your RPP? 

We all know that doing sustainable equity work requires involvement and commitment at all levels of a system. This Administrator Equity Implementation Guide can be a helpful resource for practice-side partners as you work as an RPP to make meaningful change.

As we move into the theme of Pedagogical Content Knowledge, or PCK, we thought we would ask Dr. Colleen Lewis, PI of csteachingtips.org for a definition of PCK. Here’s what she told us:

RPPForCS: How is PCK for CS different from the content knowledge teachers get in PD, or the pedagogical expertise they have from years of teaching other subjects?

Dr. Lewis: The CS PCK (or Pedagogical Content Knowledge) that teachers need relates to effective methods of teaching CS content. This CS PCK definitely relies on content knowledge that teachers might have (or learn during PD). Additionally, it builds on top of teacher's other pedagogical expertise! When I first started teaching I knew the CS content well, but had so much to learn about pedagogy and CS PCK! Luckily I had friends who were teachers who coached me on developing my pedagogical skills -- and I'm continuing to develop both my pedagogical skills and CS PCK as I teach. 

RPPforCS: Do you have any references or links that would accompany this answer?

Dr. Lewis: Here's a more recent article by the creator of the term PCK: Shulman, L. S. (2015). PCK: Its genesis and exodus. In Re-examining pedagogical content knowledge in science education (pp. 13-23). Routledge.
 

Dr. Colleen Lewis is the McGregor-Girand Associate Professor of Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College. She is the principal investigator for the many grants that resulted in CSTeachingTips.org and (in her words) is always looking for ways to make CS more teachable and relatable.

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