- Year 2022
- NSF Noyce Award # 1660135
- First Name Rachelle
- Last Name Haroldson
- Institution University of Wisconsin-River Falls
- Role/Position Clinical Associate Professor
- Workshop Category Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends
- Workshop Disciplines Audience Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics
- Target Audience Co-PIs, Noyce Master Teachers, Other Faculty/Staff, Project PIs, Undergraduate and/or Graduate Noyce Scholars
- Topics Convergent Approaches: Teaching Across STEM Disciplines
- Session Length 75 minutes minutes
- Additional Presenter(s)
Earl Blodgett
Goals
Participants will describe the seven computer science practices. Participants will apply the computer science practices in hands-on activities, both plugged and unplugged. Participants will integrate computer science practices across STEM disciplines
Evidence
Computer science education is a national initiative through CS For All (Smith, 2016) with states determining their approach using the guidelines outlined by the nine policies from code.org’s advocacy coalition (Code.org Advocacy Coalition, 2019). States differ in their plan based on how their standards and licenses are structured. In states with a CS license, teachers in other STEM areas are encouraged to obtain this additional license while other states are integrating CS into updated STEM standards. For this reason there is an argument for all STEM teachers to be versed in CS whether they are called on to add licensure or incorporate into their existing courses. Finding ways to promote and develop CS skills across STEM subjects furthers the interdisciplinary mission of a STEM education.
Proposal
Participants will learn about the different computer science (CS) practices and ways to integrate them across all STEM disciplines. We believe that this is most effectively done during teacher preparation in order to support teacher candidates in understanding the different ways to integrate computer science, especially with regards to computational thinking (CT). During the workshop participants will engage in hands-on activities with Ozobots, small robots that can be coded to perform simple movements and functions. Participants will think about applications within their classrooms or teacher preparation programs and analyze samples from teacher candidates as they think about ways to implement across STEM. In addition, the presenter will share other ways to integrate CS/CT using unplugged resources like children’s literature.
