Proposing, Planning, and Teaching an Equity- and Justice-Centered Secondary Pre-Service CS Teacher Education Program

Abstract

Teachers are essential to equitably broadening participation in computing in schools, but the creation of CS teacher education pathways faces many challenges. In this experience report, we share the many political, administrative, institutional, and sustainability barriers our institution faced in creating a secondary CS pre-service pathway. Throughout, we discuss the particular design choices we made in order to center equity and justice, both in the content of the program, but also in its structure, policies, and resources, which were often in tension with state standards and policies. We also describe our experience teaching and supporting the inaugural cohort of graduates as well as the graduates' experiences, which revealed tension between utopian and dystopian futures of computing and their role in helping students navigate them. We end with a reflection on key factors that we believe led to its successful first year launch, including leadership, interdisciplinarity, capacity, timing, and funding, and on sustainability concerns, including tuition subsidy and instructional capacity.