TECt: Preparing Northeast Florida's Secondary Teachers to Foster Computational Thinking in Computer Science

The University of North Florida (UNF) will implement Teachers Enhancing Computational Thinking (TECt): Preparing Northeast Florida's Secondary Teachers to Foster Computational Thinking in Computer Science -- to build on current collaborative initiatives to prepare 30 teachers to teach computer science (CS) courses through professional development (PD) and coursework leading to state certification in CS. TECt will engage multiple partners from UNF, Duval County Public Schools, and the Northeast Florida STEM2 Hub, along with CS teachers and experts in education, CS and business in addressing the gap in the availability and access to CS courses.

High school students in Duval County in northeast Florida typically graduate without any CS instruction. Although a state certification exists for CS K-12 instructors, no local colleges or universities offer teacher certification programs. As a result, few teachers can become fully prepared CS educators, and few students are exposed to meaningful computer science instruction. TECt will change that, using a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) Ecosystems framework within a Research-Practitioner Partnership (RPP) to prepare and support these teachers in teaching rigorous CS courses. The RPP will define the problems of practice, address equity throughout the partnership, and implement research to determine the effectiveness of the TECt structure in preparing high school CS teachers.

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.