Professional Development

Professional Development

Most teachers are not prepared to integrate computational thinking into their classrooms without professional learning and support. Based on your competency map and curricular resources, identify what the specific needs will be for your teachers. These professional development efforts should provide hands-on learning experiences and be sustained over several sessions in order to provide opportunities for implementation and reflection. Wrap-around supports including individual coaching, professional learning communities, resources and materials and structured planning time are also necessary to support teachers to design and implement powerful learning experiences for their students. As you identify professional learning opportunities, it is important to also ensure that teachers are recognized for their CT knowledge and the learning that they have done and provide opportunities for teachers to support others as computational thinking expands in your district. 

As you design professional learning opportunities, ask yourself:

• What support might teachers need to integrate computational thinking in addition to the professional learning systems already in place?
• What professional learning communities exist or could be created to sustain teacher engagement in computational thinking? 
• Do district personnel have the capacity to design meaningful hands-on learning experiences for teachers? If not, should we engage an outside provider? 
• How can we make explicit connections between professional learning and classroom practice?
• How can we intentionally include educators that teach students that experience marginalization in computing as leaders of our professional learning?