«Teacher Development: Content Knowledge and Pedagogy in Computational Thinking Education»
Siu-Cheung KONGProfessor of the Department of Mathematics & Information Technology and Director of the Centre for Learning, Teaching and Technology, The Educational University of Hong Kong
Abstract
The implementation of effective professional development courses for K-12 teachers on CT in relation to programming remains a challenge. This speech will share two teacher development programs on CT. The first program consisted of two 39-h courses, with the focus on coding knowledge for teachers and coding for CT development. The results indicated that teachers developed a better understanding of CT concepts and practices and improved in three of the four content knowledge related dimensions of TPACK. The second program was redesigned from the former. It comprised of four 12-h courses, with a higher emphasis on the pedagogy of “to play, to think, to code” and “7-Step Guide” to guide teachers in the classroom. The change of structure offered higher flexibility to teachers to enroll courses according to teaching needs, and was more cost-effective in scaling up the program to larger number of teachers.
Bio
Professor Siu-Cheung KONG is Professor of Department of Mathematics & Information Technology and Director of Centre for Learning, Teaching and Technology at The Education University of Hong Kong. His research expertise covers pedagogy in digital classroom and online learning, policy on technology-transformed education and professional development of teachers, and computational thinking education. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning and the Journal of Computers in Education. Professor Kong is the winner of 2019-2020 HKSAR University Grants Council Teaching Award (Team Award). He also won The Education University of Hong Kong President’s Awards for Outstanding Performance in Knowledge Transfer (Team Award) in 2020 and Outstanding Performance in Administration (Team Award) in 2021.
