Collecting Participation Data Across NSF CS10K-Funded Professional Development Providers (Abstract Only)

Computer Science (CS) is a rapidly growing and evolving field, with many secondary teachers participating in professional development (PD) to offer CS courses in their schools as the entry point to a CS education pipeline. In 2014 the Evaluator Working Group (EWG) formed to address the issue of common data collection across NSF CS10K projects in order to capture the number of teachers being trained across CS10K projects and locations. The EWG goals are twofold: First, the EWG seeks to test the feasibility of a diverse group of projects collecting and reporting on common data. The lessons learned through this effort will inform the CS education professional development community as the field matures and data collection is more broadly supported. Second, the EWG hopes to have an accurate count of the number of teachers trained through CS10K, some demographic and descriptive information about teachers, information about the students enrolled in teachers' classes, and information about the schools in which the teachers are offering courses. To accomplish these goals, the EWG has developed a common data collection tool and process for projects to report aggregate-level participation data. To date 100% of projects submitted at least partial data. The results show that 1,538 new teachers have participated in PD through these 29 CS10K programs; taught in at least 909 public and private schools in 43 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This poster will provide a visual display of both the process of data collection and the results.