Early Findings on the Impacts of Developing Evidence-Based Practice Briefs on Middle School Computer Science Teachers

Abstract

Problem. K-12 teachers face many challenges when teaching a new subject like computer science (CS). They are often far removed from the research being conducted to identify evidence-driven solutions to these challenges. Likewise, researchers are also often removed from the challenges of classroom practices that teachers face when teaching CS. Research Questions. To create a collaborative process for teachers and researchers outside of a research practice partnership, we piloted a facilitated process in which CS middle school teachers and CS education researchers collaboratively created CS teacher practice briefs. Our research question for this study was: In what ways are teachers impacted by the process of creating teacher practice briefs in collaboration with researchers? Methodology. We conducted a qualitative study, using a semi-structured interview protocol to interview five teachers and three researchers to gain an understanding of how this process impacted the participants. We used thematic content analysis to identify several subthemes across our pre-established themes: motivation for teachers to participate, impacts on teachers, perceived impacts on students, and impacts on researchers. Findings. We found that the impact on teachers mirrored impacts found on teachers who engage in Research Practice Partnerships, including increased self-efficacy, expanded professional networks, and changed classroom practices. Implications. By bringing researchers and educators together with a clear focus on equity-based problems of practice in CS education, the results display a multitude of positive impacts. Teachers indicate that they are are positively impacted, researchers develop a clear understanding of realistic practices, and students are peripherally impacted through changed practices in the classroom. Therefore, the most significant contribution to advance the disciplinary understanding is the potential for this new process to decrease the gap between research and practice.