CSTransform: Transforming High School Computer Science Pathways Through Teacher Coaching

Arizona State University will investigate best practices for designing and implementing instructional coaching for computer science (CS) in the context of a large, urban school district: Clark County School District (CCSD), NV. Using a reciprocal learning approach, CSTransform seeks to advance progress in computer science education to benefit society by focusing on the overarching question: How does a large district leverage instructional coaching to develop the capacity of their high school CS teachers to teach CS in content-rich, and pedagogically engaging ways through a reciprocal learning approach? By expanding CS coaching resources and contextualizing and adapting the needs of a large school district, CSTransform will explore approaches to implement job-embedded CS coaching. The results of this study related to implementing a reciprocal lens to CS coaching and nurturing a coaching community of practice will be expanded to include professional development and implementation guidance. Moreover, this project team will co-construct a community of practice among CS coaches in CCSD while working in partnership with the Computer Science Teachers Association. Together, we will establish a national CS coaching community where instructional leaders and coaches can share their approaches, ideas, and resources with the larger community. This Small CSforAll High School Strand Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) explores the effectiveness of instructional coaching as a form of teacher professional development. Instructional coaching as a form of teacher professional development is just emerging within CS education. Research underpinning the design and implementation of CS coaching is in its nascent stage. Opportunities for CS teachers to refine their teaching and further develop their CS content, knowledge, and pedagogy beyond initial exposure is lacking. Preservice teacher programs dedicated to developing a future generation of CS teachers are also rare. This proposal will contribute to a critical domain of research to explore how a research-practitioner partnership can support and sustain job-embedded CS coaching for high school teachers and inform further scaling of such efforts. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.