Readings: CS Professionalism

Summary

I am going to argue that one of the most important aspects of being an educator is treating our jobs professionally and staying current with ideas and research in the discipline. 

• We need to be open to new ideas and methods. 
   
• We need to be a "reflective practitioner" who is willing to think about what we are doing, why we do it, and how we feel it translates to better learning for our students.
   
• We need to be willing to make mistakes with our students but then learn from those mistakes and make it better the next time.
   
• We need to ask ourselves if what we believe about teaching and learning is anecdotal or backed by facts (research) and evaluate how we respond as this information changes.
   

But, of course, to do this requires us to not only reflect on what is going on in our classroom, but in classrooms all around us.  It requires us to be professionals who participate in the process with other professionals. 

This week I am going to ask you to consider several ways in which you can address the ideas above

Your activities for this Competency are:

• Explore CSTA
• Read about the CSTA CS Teacher Standards
• Apply this material in a "Competency Demo" activity.

Explore CSTA

Most teaching disciplines have professional organizations that help people connect with like-minded professionals. In K-12 CS teaching there are several, but the arguable leader in the group is CSTA (Computer Science Teacher's Association).

https://csteachers.org/

I know that many of you are familiar with CSTA and some of you are even members of both the national organization and the Iowa Chapter. Even if you are already a member, when was the last time you actually took a few minutes to explore the website?

I would like you to explore the CSTA website.

• Find a resource that looks interesting to you.
• Consider joining. It is worth the annual fee of only $50 for the benefits that you receive.

Readings

While most people know that there are standards for teaching our CS Students, not everyone knows that there are also standards for CS Teachers themselves. Please explore the following documents

• Main Standards for CS Teachers website
  • https://csteachers.org/teacherstandards/
• Two page standards document
  • A local copy
• Glossary of Terms used in the standards
  • https://csteachers.org/teacherstandards/glossary
• Additional Standard Resources
  • https://csteachers.org/teacherstandards/resources/