Using backwards design process for the design and implementation of computer science (CS) principles: A case study of a colombian elementary and secondary teacher development program

This paper describes the outcomes of a three-day teacher professional development workshop aimed at introducing concepts, principles and practices of computational thinking. The guiding research question for this study was: How teachers implement the backwards design process embodying elements of CS Principles (i.e., computational thinking big ideas and computational thinking practices) in the context of their classrooms? The participants of this study included 15 elementary, high school and college level teachers who are also graduate students from a master program in engineering. As part of the workshop participants developed a learning activity that included a set of learning objectives, the design of computational thinking related activities considering appropriate pedagogical strategies, and the integration of mechanisms to evaluate students´ performance. Here we describe (a) how participants embodied the CS Principles in the design of learning activities to be integrated into their classrooms, (b) how they used the backwards design process as a tool to implement elements of the CS Principles and (c) what is teachers´ performance in integrating CS Principles to the design of learning activities as evidenced by their peer evaluations. Finally, we propose the use of backwards design process together with the CS Principles as a framework for the design of computing learning activities and the development of teacher professional development programs in computing education.