COMPUTATIONAL THINKING IN THE ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM: HOW TEACHERS APPROPRIATE CT FOR SCIENCE INSTRUCTION

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorClegg, Tamaraen_US
dc.contributor.advisorJass Ketelhut, Dianeen_US
dc.contributor.authorCabrera, Lautaroen_US
dc.contributor.departmentEducation Policy, and Leadershipen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2022-06-20T05:30:31Z
dc.date.available2022-06-20T05:30:31Z
dc.date.issued2021en_US
dc.description.abstractResearchers and policymakers call for the integration of Computational Thinking (CT) into K-12 education to prepare students to participate in a society and workforce increasingly influenced by computational devices, algorithms, and methods. One avenue to meet this goal is to prepare teachers to integrate CT into elementary science education, where students can use CT by leveraging computing concepts to support scientific investigations. This study leverages data from a professional development (PD) series where teachers learned about CT, co-designed CT-integrated science lessons, implemented one final lesson plan in their classrooms, and reflected on their experience. This study aims to understand how teachers learned about CT and integrated it into their classroom, a process conceptualized as appropriation of CT (Grossman et al., 1999). This dissertation has two parts. The first investigates how teachers appropriated CT through inductive and deductive qualitative analyses of various data sources from the PD. The findings suggest that most teachers appropriated the labels of CT or only Surface features of CT as a pedagogical tool but did so in different ways. These differences are presented as five different profiles of appropriation that differ in how teachers described the activities that engage students in CT, ascribed goals to CT integration, and use technology tools for CT engagement. The second part leverages interviews with a subset of teachers aimed at capturing the relationship between appropriation of CT during the PD and the subsequent year. The cases of these five teachers suggest that appropriation styles were mostly consistent in the year after the PD. However, the cases detail how constraints in autonomy to make instructional decisions about science curriculum and evolving needs from students can greatly impact CT integration. Taken together, the findings of the dissertation suggest that social context plays an overarching role in impacting appropriation, with conceptual understanding and personal characteristics coming into play when the context for CT integration is set. The dissertation includes discussions around implications for PD designers, such as a call for reframing teacher knowledge and beliefs as part of a larger context impacting CT integration into schools.en_US
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13016/cwsw-pztu
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/28862
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledTeacher educationen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledEducational technologyen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledSecondary educationen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledcomputational thinkingen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledcomputingen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledelementaryen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledprofessional developmenten_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledscience educationen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledteacher educationen_US
dc.titleCOMPUTATIONAL THINKING IN THE ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM: HOW TEACHERS APPROPRIATE CT FOR SCIENCE INSTRUCTIONen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Cabrera_umd_0117E_22177.pdf
Size:
2.19 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

UMD Theses and Dissertations
Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership Theses and Dissertations