Course | iCS4ALL Art

Course Development Team

Laura Albrecht
Laura Albrecht previously served as a Digital Innovation Coach on the Professional Learning and Leading Collaborative at The Friday Institute at NC State University. Laura serves school districts across North Carolina to design, develop, and deliver professional learning to teachers and administrators. Prior to joining The Friday Institute, Laura was a Senior Administrator in a large school district as the coordinator of a STEM grant focused on bridging underserved populations of students from middle school to high school. Laura is a Science Teacher by training, having taught 8th Grade Science.

Emmy Coleman
Emmy Coleman is a Senior Research Scholar at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University, where since 2008, she has managed multifaceted projects centered on North Carolina’s growth in the area of digital teaching and learning. She has specifically led work to integrate technology into rural schools across North Carolina. Additionally, she supports educators and leaders with strategic planning resources designed to implement innovative learning strategies and approaches. Current project topics include innovative assessments, personalized and blended learning, and equity in education.

Before arriving at the Friday Institute, she taught high school English, was an assistant principal and district administrator, and served as the designer and founding director of Warren New Tech High School, promoting a curriculum focus on project based learning and STEM engagement.

Sam Morris
Sam Morris was previously the Program Manager for Computer Science for All at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation. In his role, he led a statewide effort to create computer science educational opportunities for all students by bringing together constituents from within the private sector, the educational systems, and the policy leaders. He led the Friday Institute’s Regional Partnership with Code.org and managed a team of 12 facilitators in delivering professional development for educators teaching computer science for the first time. He consulted with the NC Department of Public Instruction and the Board of Education and led the initial drafting of the first NC K12 Computer Standards. Prior to working at the Friday Institute, he was a classroom teacher of Mathematics and Computer Science for 20 years and also worked at Lenovo as Global Education Solution Architect.

Jaclyn Stevens
Jaclyn Stevens is a Research Scholar, Coach, and curriculum designer with the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University. In her work, she supports and coaches, educators, and leaders in adaptive student-centered approaches to provide concrete, quality, purposeful, reflective, and on-the-ground personalized learning supported through technology to work towards equity for all learners. Her mantra is to adapt, not adopt. Jaclyn is currently licensed and certified as an Instructional Specialist, an Instructional Technology Facilitator, a Secondary Media Arts educator, a Secondary Language Arts educator, and holds a special endorsement in Computer Education.

This learning experience has been designed by the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at NC State University as an outcome of a research grant study and multi-year collaboration among faculty and students at East Carolina University.

Together, educational leadership, computer science, music, visual arts, community members, and performing arts educators collaborated to design the Integrating Computer Science for All (iCS4All) project and this professional learning module. Our aim is to equip teachers with the background knowledge, digital technology, and support to integrate activities inspired by the concept of computational thinking, the newly adopted NC K-12 Computer Science Standards, and the North Carolina Standard Course of Study curriculum for the Arts. However, you don’t need to teach in the arts to benefit from this module. The strategies, content, and resources have cross-curricular applications appropriate for all content areas and grade levels.

This course is designed to get you thinking about computer science and computational thinking strategies that apply to your content area and teaching practice. Resources, examples, and strategies are provided. Additionally, this unique course also invites you to decide just how deep your learning will go with an extended pathway designed to foster the creation of your own computer science and computational thinking lesson for implementation.

While this online professional learning is open to individuals, we welcome, when possible, participation by teams from schools, districts, or other organizations. Having local colleagues work together to apply the lessons and strategies makes this module even more valuable. If a team is not available, individuals are welcome to participate on their own.

Course Objectives

To foster well-situated, practical enactment of computational thinking and computer science integration into curriculum and instruction by teachers.
Focus on portraying curriculum content by stimulating insights through the provision of knowledge.
Increase instructional knowledge and implementation practices, leading to higher levels of student achievement.

Course Outline

UNIT 1: Activating Connections and Engagement
UNIT 2: Foundational Content: Computational Thinking and Computer Science
UNIT 3: Personalized Exploration Experience
UNIT 4: Personalized Immersion Experience
UNIT 5: Authentic Implementation Challenge
UNIT 6: Purposeful Practice Reflection
For further information, please visit Friday Institute website.

Credit

Credit may be available for this course and may vary by country or institution. Please verify eligibility with Friday Institute.