In our district there has already been a shift over the past few years to utilize integrated, problem-based or STEM units of study to make the most of a teacher’s academic day. Using this established method of instruction, we are hoping to build on existing foundation to integrate the newer CS curriculum into the elementary day.

All our teachers (control and treatment) are being offered professional development from Code.org to improve their understanding of computer science and computational thinking. This training will be available throughout the school year.

They are also being offered multi-day professional development on integrated units of curriculum for their grade level. The control schools will focus on their existing standards curriculum and how to create units while the treatment schools will be given direct instruction on the methods and use of the CS integrated units. This training will take place at the beginning of the academic year for the first module.

The treatment schools will receive a second training before implementing Module 2 in the middle of the school year.

Throughout the year, my co-coordinator and I will visit the schools several times to, observe, support and continue planning with the grade levels. We believe that a strong support structure must be implemented to make the modules successful.

Thank you for viewing our video and your wonderful question. I hope my response was clear and welcome any feedback.

Thanks, Annmargareth. This response is thorough and helpful.

What additional challenges do you think you might face if you attempted something like this in a district that wasn’t already shifting to problem-based units?

I’d invite others not involved with the project to comment on this as well. What challenges would you face if you tried to implement integrated modules like this into schools in your district?

If you were in a district that did not use integrated units, then the first Professional Development would need to be centered around the purpose, use and simple creation of an integrated unit. Although some liken this model to thematic units, the main difference is that these units require an understanding of standards from various subjects and how they might work well together. With that thought, a professional development portion that included “unwrapping the benchmarks” might be needed to understand the standards before you can begin manipulating them.

The integrated literacy block model that you are referring to shows that 180 minutes is available to the teacher to use for a dedicated reading block and integrated units. It really is about half the academic day.

During 90 minutes of the 180-minute time block, teachers will instruct in science, social studies and/or computer science, as focused by the module. Literacy skills are integrated throughout the lessons because, in all honesty, isn’t literacy the tool we use to learn a concept?

We are using CS as part of standards-based learning, such as in lessons that ask students to create an algorithm to help a sailor navigate from the main land to an island on a grid map layout. Also, we will have lessons that are strictly CS such as programming an Ozobot to move from one place to another as part of a lesson on the systems of the human body.

By using both approaches, we hope to get teachers as exciting about CS and its place in their curriculum as their students will be. We want CS to be a visible, integrated part of the curriculum.

Thank you for viewing our video and your question. We will be documenting our progress and likely will share next year if we make another video. Stay tuned! :0)

So far everyone seems very supportive and enjoys the idea that it will not be an “additional” subject but rather one that works within the existing curriculum. We plan to document and respond to pushback as it occurs. I think the pushback might actually help generate a more effective program.

Our initial teacher PD is a 1/2 hour treatment school introduction so they can start processing expectations and generate questions. We will then move into a 3 day PD with 1 day focusing on computer science & computational thinking in general and days 2-3 focusing on the specific module and implementation planning by the teachers. During the implementation of the modules, we will meet with the teachers to tweak and plan continuation. We are viewing our PD as dynamic and responsive to the teacher needs. I think the most important aspect of our PD is that we are willing to support informally as well as formally throughout the implementation of the modules. I truly believe that our PD will be shaped by the needs of the participants and our ability to create a support structure and open lines of communication.

Next year’s video (if we make one) will document our PD experience and choices especially since it seems to be a reoccurring question from many areas. Of course, feel free to contact us during the upcoming academic year and we’ll share our success and learning opportunities.