Background and Context: As computer science (CS) education expands and the need for well-prepared CS teachers grows, understanding what motivates teachers to teach CS can help address challenges to recruiting, preparing, and retaining teachers. Objective: The goal of this work was to develop and validate a scale that measures teachers' motivation…

Background and Context: Integrating computer science (CS) and math in classrooms is an increasingly recognized way for schools to address national CS mandates. There is a need to understand how professional development (PD) can support teachers to integrate. Objective: We examined math teachers' interest, and confidence, in math, CS, and student…

Background and Context: A key challenge in advancing computer science education in K-12 schools is teacher preparation and support. School-university partnerships and service-learning programs where undergraduates assist teachers represent one promising approach to supporting K-12 computer science teaching. Objectives: In this work, we examine the…

While there has been a remarkable interest to make computer science a core K-12 academic subject in the United States, there is a shortage of K-12 computer science teachers to successfully implement computer sciences courses in schools. In order to enhance computer science teacher capacity, training programs have been offered through teacher…

Background and Context: in this paper, we argue that integrating Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) into K-12 computing education can present learners with opportunities to develop human-centered design skills as well as higher-order thinking skills. Objective: to address the issues related to the development of HCI forms of expertise, we introduce…

Background and Context: Vygotsky's sociocultural theory emphasises the importance of language, mediation, and the transfer of skills and knowledge from the social into the cognitive plane. This perspective has influenced the development of PRIMM (Predict, Run, Investigate, Modify, Make), a structured approach to teaching programming. Objective:…

Due to a program reform in Israel, experienced CS high-school teachers faced the need to master and teach a new programming paradigm. This situation served as an opportunity to explore the relationship between teachers' content knowledge (CK) and their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). This article focuses on three case studies, with emphasis…

This paper reports on a qualitative study that examined how pair programming shapes the experience of secondary school girls taking IT as a subject, with respect to their enjoyment of programming and the subject itself. The study involved six Grade 11 girls who were doing solo programming in Grade 10 and pair programming in their following Grade.…

Abstraction is a major concept in computer science and serves as a powerful tool in software development. Pattern-oriented instruction (POI) is a pedagogical approach that incorporates patterns in an introductory computer science course in order to structure the learning of algorithmic problem solving. This paper examines abstraction processes in…

Recursion is a central concept in computer science, yet it is difficult for beginners to comprehend. Israeli high-school students learn recursion in the framework of a special modular program in computer science (Gal-Ezer & Harel, 1999). Some of them are introduced to the concept of recursion in two different paradigms: the procedural…