Chelsea McClure
(She/her)
Adjunct · M.S, M.A.T
Department of Secondary and Middle School Education, Towson University
How did you get into CS?
Integrating technology into the classroom and supporting students in developing 21st-century skills has always been an area of importance to me as an educator. I started my education career as a middle school science teacher with a passion for STEM education and teaching students reasoning, problem-solving, communication and transferable skills as connections between learning disciplines. As I transitioned into teaching pre-service teacher education courses at Towson University in the Department of Secondary & Middle School Education, I continued this mission by integrating those skills into my teaching and building capacity in our future teachers to do the same in their classrooms.
Computational thinking emerged as an area of focus for me, as it was a framework that many of my pre-service teachers had not been exposed to yet but was being integrated more and more in K-12 classrooms through initiatives such as CSforall and the Maryland Center for Computing Education (MCCE). I was inspired to dive deeper into the topic of computational thinking and integrate skills that focus on reasoning, problem-solving, communication and transferable skills into teacher education.
After seeing the response from pre-service teachers, I decided to expand the dissemination and learning opportunities for computational thinking through in-service professional development opportunities for Teacher Academy of Maryland (TAM) educators. TAM is a Career and Technology Education (CTE) program of study in the Education and Training Services Pathway designed for high school students interested in future careers as elementary, middle or high school teachers. Because of the early impact that TAM teachers have on future educators during their high school years, TAM teachers have a unique opportunity to build capacity for computational thinking in their students and, in turn, these future teachers. Expanding this project to provide TAM in-service teachers with computational thinking professional learning was made possible through an MCCE grant. MCCE and its leadership team have been integral in providing mini-grant opportunities such as the TAM Computational Thinking Professional Learning Community.
What are some stories you can share from your work?
I continue to integrate computational thinking as a skill to infuse into the teaching and learning across content areas for my pre-service teacher education courses and in-service professional learning offerings. For both audiences the goal is to instill the ideas of computational thinking as a lens to what they are already doing. As teachers prepare their instructional plans, they are purposeful in how they frame the components of computational thinking to be cultivated and applied across content areas. These are the components of decomposing problems, recognizing patterns, abstracting through identifying steps, and using algorithms by creating step-by-step instructions to solve a problem.
In my pre-service teacher classroom, I recently applied computational thinking and Scratch programming to a course at Towson University where students develop an ethical dilemma and then communicated that dilemma through a Scratch visual programming animation. Scratch was new to many students; therefore, the idea of a growth mindset and productive struggle was introduced at the start of our lessons, which focused on the process of encountering challenges and working to overcome them through problem solving and perseverance. I presented them with a new challenge, introduced Scratch, and let them learn through doing by making mistakes, reflecting on the process, and trying again. Of course, as the classroom teacher, I was there to support and provide resources as needed, but the goal was to promote those lasting skills of a growth mindset through productive struggle. A primary example of how an instructional plan can unfold differently for each learner was demonstrated in this activity, as none of the Scratch animations were the same, but all represented the learning outcome. The Scratch program empowered students to explore and customize their projects, tailoring them to their unique skill levels and imaginations. Some students had animals, some created their own characters and backgrounds, and some used their own voices to narrate, but each one told a story through programming. At the end of the activity, students reported that it had been challenging but that they overcame different roadblocks and were able to develop a product in the end. An essential part of this activity was to demonstrate that computational thinking and Scratch programming have a place not just in the computer science classroom but can be infused across disciplines to allow for creativity while promoting a growth mindset and 21st century skills.
What’s going well in your recent work? What are you looking forward to?
What is going well most recently is my MCCE grant-funded project focused on TAM in service teacher professional learning. Both myself and my co-facilitator, Dani Affinito, were elated by the capacity-building of our TAM teacher participants. Due to the positive feedback from TAM teacher participants, we have been able to facilitate two cohorts, reaching 7 in-service TAM teachers from 5 different Maryland school systems (figure 1). Each professional learning series goal is to support in-service TAM teachers with the infusion of computational thinking (CT) practices and 21st-century skills into their classrooms.
The TAM computational thinking professional learning series was a five-month experiential learning opportunity that included professional development, collaboration with a professional learning community, and reflective practice (figure 2). Throughout the five month professional learning, TAM in-service teacher participants developed and applied a lesson activity that infused computational thinking and Scratch programming into their existing TAM curriculum. After application to their classroom, teachers reflected on student responses and their own experiences with the new additions to their courses. For what is going well in my work right now, I am sharing some of the teacher participant reflections (figure 3) because, as a facilitator, it is essential not only to provide opportunities for professional learning but also to foster an environment that encourages participants to embrace new challenges, flourish, and take charge of the topic for their own classrooms. Therefore, participant feedback is an indispensable component of my professional practice as a learning facilitator. We were glad to see that our participants found the professional learning not only meaningful to them as in-service teachers, but also viewed the experience of applying CT and infusing Scratch programming into their current curricula as an enhancement to their lessons. I am looking forward to continuing to engage with CT communities and promoting the application of 21st-century skills to the classroom. I hope to see continued support for the integration of computational thinking across disciplines and professional learning experiences for pre-service and in-service teachers.
