Preparing Pre-Service Teachers for the Future

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore how our team of professors at East Tennessee State University integrated computational thinking into elementary education courses for pre-service teachers. We lean on current research to understand the definition, purpose, and culture surrounding computational thinking and consider how it may develop students' analytic skills and critical. Because of our particular context, we are interested in the play of gender and socioeconomic status in the development of technological and computational abilities. We share ideas we experimented with in Science and English language arts pre-service methods courses, as well as faculty and pre-service teacher perspectives on the developing experience.