Supporting Teachers’ Follow-through to Use Professional Development Content: Adjusting Instruction to Develop Interest and Confidence

Background &amp; Context: A problem for computer science (CS) professional development (PD), and for PD more generally, is that teachers do not always follow through to make use of PD content in their teaching. Based on prior research, we adjusted instructional practices used in entry-level PD workshops designed to support teachers to develop interest and confidence in integrating CS with mathematics.<br><br>Objective: We examined the potential of four instructional practices: social support, time to practice, self-related (personally-meaningful) content, and multiple entry points. We also considered the possibility of differences of teacher participation in PD based on their interest in integration (II). <br><br>Methods: Using mixed-methods, we studied the efficacy of adjusting instructional practices to support teachers to develop interest and confidence in PD content. We studied teachers’ reported interest and confidence in math, CS, student learning and integration, specific confidence in four categories of PD tasks. We also conducted a separate assessment of the teachers’ II. Analyses were conducted for the teacher group as a whole, and also by II.<br><br>Findings: Study findings showed that use of the adjusted instructional practices resulted in increases in teachers’ interest and confidence; moreover, all of the participating teachers followed through to use the new CS tools in their classroom teaching.<br><br>Implications: This research establishes the merit of promoting interest and confidence in PD content using adjusted instructional practices, and the likelihood that with developed interest and confidence teachers will follow-through to use what they learn during PD in their teaching. <br>