Chapter 3: Professional Development Supporting Middle School Teachers to Integrate Computational Thinking into their Science Classes

We describe a professional development (PD) model that supports teachers to integrate computational thinking (CT) into middle school science and STEM classes. The model includes the collaborative design (co-design; Voogt et al., 2015) of storylines or curricular units aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) that use programmable sensors such as those contained on the micro:bit. Teachers spend several workshops co-designing CT-integrated storylines and preparing to implement them with their own students. As part of this process, teachers develop or modify curricular materials to ensure a focus on coherent, student driven instruction through the investigation of scientific phenomena that are relevant to the students and use sensor technology. Teachers implement the storylines and meet to collaboratively reflect on their instructional practices as well as their students’ learning. Throughout this cyclical, multi-year process, teachers develop expertise in CT-integrated science instruction as they plan for and use instructional practices that align with three dimensional science teaching and foreground CT. Teachers alternate between wearing their “student hats” and their “teacher hats,” in order to maintain both a student and teacher perspective as they co-design and reflect on their implementation of CT-integrated units. This chapter illustrates two teachers’ experiences of the PD process over a 2-year period, including their planning, implementation, and reflection on two co-designed units.