The purpose of this session is to introduce participants to professional learning opportunities and K-8 OER resources, all focused on the integration of the Indiana K-8 computer science standards (one strand of the science standards) into K-8 content areas. In 2023-24, IUB began a Next Level Computing Grant partnership with IDOE, primarily focused on discovering if and how EPPs around the state were preparing preservice teachers to integrate CS and conceptual thinking standards and concepts, and growing their capacity to prepare preservice teachers for the future. Thanks to IDOE, we were able to design and deliver resources on these topics both to preservice teachers AND the instructors of preservice teachers around the state. We ran a cohort of 20 college professors this spring, upscaling their knowledge of CS teaching, so that they can better equip their students. We are currently building a web portal that will house the resources, and we will be beginning another cohort of EPPs soon. This year, we are expanding the grant work in several ways - primarily to in-service teachers - while still providing resources and professional learning to university faculty and students. This session will quickly share the rationale and goals of this work, but the majority of the time will be spent leading participants through exploration and discovery of resources to support their teaching and enhance student learning. Depending on the makeup of the group, I will highlight particular content areas and learning experience designs that they might want to use in their classrooms. All of these learning experiences (lessons) are of course aligned with both Indiana content area and computer science standards in grades K-8. This webpage is incomplete and DATED (we're building a new portal now) but at least you can look to get the idea of what's available: https://education.indiana.edu/research/centers/crlt/projects/building-indiana-computing-capacity/index.html Participants will leave with a better background of what it means to integrate CS and computational thinking into literacy, math, etc., and they will gather many practical ideas and resources for classroom implementation.
