Assessing the Development of Computer Science Pedagogical Content Knowledge in the TEALS Program (Abstract Only)

One of the critical barriers to increasing pre-collegiate computer science course offerings in the U.S. is a lack of qualified computer science teachers. Programs such as TEALS, a teacher preparation program pairing high school teachers with computing professionals to offer CS courses, provide opportunities for in-service teachers to gain experience teaching computer science. However, it is not clear whether the high school teachers develop sufficient pedagogical expertise to sustain high-quality computer science course offerings at their schools. Furthermore, the field of computer science education lacks valid and reliable ways of measuring pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), a construct that describes the knowledge teachers need for effective instruction. In this poster, the authors present these results from the first year of a three-year NSF grant to study how TEALS participation influences novice computer science teachers' PCK: 1) a theoretical framework describing the critical components of CS PCK, 2) the results of the first field test of a CS PCK assessment, including the psychometric properties of the assessment, and 3) a comparison of how teachers performed on the assessment at the beginning and end of their first year of computer science teaching and how they performed relative to their computing professional mentors.