Building Early Elementary Teacher Confidence in Teaching Computer Science Through a Low-Cost, Scalable Research-Practitioner Collaboration

Justin Lee Clough; Patricia Chaffey; Gautam Salhotra; Colin G. Cess; Rey Pocius; Katie Mills

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: Developing Technological Literacy in Students
Tagged Division: Technological and Engineering Literacy/Philosophy of Engineering
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 15
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--34238
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/34238
Download Count: 559

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Paper Authors

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Justin Lee Clough University of Southern California

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Justin L. Clough is a PhD student at the University of Southern California studying Mechanical Engineering; his advisor is Assad A. Oberai. He received his Bachelors of Science from the Milwaukee School of Engineering and Masters of Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, both in Mechanical Engineering. He holds a DOD:SMART scholarship and works closely with the AFRL/RQHV teams at Wright-Patterson AFB.

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Patricia Chaffey University of Southern California

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Patricia Chaffey has had a passion for studying and designing interaction between humans and technology since her undergraduate career at Mount Holyoke College, and continues to pursue this interest at the University of Southern California. Some of her notable work includes developing a robotic learning companion and designing a simulation to study how people interact with swarms of robots using a virtual agent as an intermediary. Patricia has received awards to support her travel to conferences and leadership workshops, which include, but are not limited to, the 2018 ELIS Expanding Horizons award, and the 2017 Computing Research Association – Women Grace Hopper Celebration Research Scholar award. Patricia has participated in a number of publications across the different labs she has been active in. When not in the lab, Patricia enjoys volunteering with BOTS (Building Opportunities with Teachers in Schools), where she works with elementary teachers and their students on robotics.

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Gautam Salhotra University of Southern California orcid.org/0000-0003-2201-9303

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Gautam Salhotra is a PhD student in the Computer Science department at the University of Southern California. He works with Dr. Gaurav Sukhatme at the Robotics and Embedded Systems Lab (RESL). His research focusses on machine learning, robotic manipulation, and techniques for robot task planning.

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Colin G. Cess University of Southern California

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Colin G. Cess is a PhD student in the Biomedical Engineering department at the University of Southern California. His advisor is Stacey D. Finley. He received his Bachelors of Science from the University at Buffalo in Pharmaceutical Sciences. His research focuses on interactions between tumor cells and immune cells.

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Rey Pocius University of Southern California

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I am a PhD student at the University of Southern California, where I am working with Stefanos Nikolaidis in the ICAROS (Interactive and Collaborative Autonomous Robotic Systems) lab. My research spans human-robot interaction, haptics, and decision-making under uncertainty. My research is on shared autonomy for human-robot collaboration.

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Katie Mills University of Southern California

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Abstract

In a world increasingly impacted by artificial intelligence and computer systems, there is an urgent need to target under-resourced districts where early elementary in-service teachers may not have had exposure to teaching computer science. These teachers benefit from support to develop computer science literacy in students, especially when robotics is used as physical computing in first- and second-grade classrooms. Studies show that students as young as four years old can build and program simple robots; furthermore, exposure to robotics improves both students’ computational thought and creative ability. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Tech Force identified teacher intervention as its target; this prompted a research practitioner collaboration between nine teachers in three elementary schools and University of Southern California called Building Opportunities with Teachers in Schools (BOTS) to address this challenge. BOTS is a low-cost, scalable solution that focuses on improving the teachers’ confidence in teaching computer science through robotics, in a partnership between nine teachers from the Latinx Boyle Heights area, USC K-12 outreach professionals and Ph.D. students. BOTS organized the tools and support useful to integrate robotics into teachers’ in-school curricula in regular professional development workshops spanning multiple years. Using coding curricula from Code.org, Sphero robots as hardware, and several non-computer-based logical activities, the teachers have developed their own activities based on the needs of their students. Combining their teaching experience with the diverse technical knowledge of USC Viterbi School of Engineering students allows for a novel approach in increasing the technological literacy of elementary school students by targeting their teachers. Results from the pilot year show that 100% of the participating teachers agree BOTS increased their confidence in teaching coding, and 75% agree that BOTS added value to their classroom instruction. Additionally, 100% reported that coding improved their students’ problem-solving, communication, and creativity. All of the teachers have continued into the second year of BOTS. BOTS provides educators with (i) the opportunity to continually expand their own self-efficacy in teaching robotics and (ii) long term support ensuring that the teachers remain self-assured in integrating new material.

Citation
Format

Clough, J. L., & Chaffey, P., & Salhotra, G., & Cess, C. G., & Pocius, R., & Mills, K. (2020, June), Building Early Elementary Teacher Confidence in Teaching Computer Science Through a Low-Cost, Scalable Research-Practitioner Collaboration Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34238

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - In a world increasingly impacted by artificial intelligence and computer systems, there is an urgent need to target under-resourced districts where early elementary in-service teachers may not have had exposure to teaching computer science. These teachers benefit from support to develop computer science literacy in students, especially when robotics is used as physical computing in first- and second-grade classrooms. Studies show that students as young as four years old can build and program simple robots; furthermore, exposure to robotics improves both students’ computational thought and creative ability. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Tech Force identified teacher intervention as its target; this prompted a research practitioner collaboration between nine teachers in three elementary schools and University of Southern California called Building Opportunities with Teachers in Schools (BOTS) to address this challenge. BOTS is a low-cost, scalable solution that focuses on improving the teachers’ confidence in teaching computer science through robotics, in a partnership between nine teachers from the Latinx Boyle Heights area, USC K-12 outreach professionals and Ph.D. students. BOTS organized the tools and support useful to integrate robotics into teachers’ in-school curricula in regular professional development workshops spanning multiple years. Using coding curricula from Code.org, Sphero robots as hardware, and several non-computer-based logical activities, the teachers have developed their own activities based on the needs of their students. Combining their teaching experience with the diverse technical knowledge of USC Viterbi School of Engineering students allows for a novel approach in increasing the technological literacy of elementary school students by targeting their teachers. Results from the pilot year show that 100% of the participating teachers agree BOTS increased their confidence in teaching coding, and 75% agree that BOTS added value to their classroom instruction. Additionally, 100% reported that coding improved their students’ problem-solving, communication, and creativity.  All of the teachers have continued into the second year of BOTS. BOTS provides educators with (i) the opportunity to continually expand their own self-efficacy in teaching robotics and (ii) long term support ensuring that the teachers remain self-assured in integrating new material.
AU  - Justin  Lee Clough
AU  - Patricia Chaffey
AU  - Gautam Salhotra
AU  - Colin G. Cess
AU  - Rey Pocius
AU  - Katie Mills
CY  - Virtual On line 
DA  - 2020/06/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Building Early Elementary Teacher Confidence in Teaching Computer Science Through a Low-Cost, Scalable Research-Practitioner Collaboration
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/34238
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--34238
ER  -