Computer Science Connections for Middle School Teachers is a 4-day professional learning workshop and a followup community of practice. It is designed for all middle school teachers from all subject areas, including both public and private schools. We will be focusing on building connections between computer science and other subjects.

Whether you are new to computer science, intermediate, or advanced, this workshop is for you. We will support teachers in learning a variety of technologies, learning from each other, and integrating computer science into their subject-area teaching practices.

In order to participate, you must (1) be teaching middle school (grades 5–8) in Fall 2018; (2) be able to attend all four days of the summer workshop; (3) provide a letter of support from your school principal; and (4) contribute to the followup community-of-practice virtual (online) meetings.

The workshop and follow-up community of practice sessions will be provided at no charge thanks to support from a Google Educator PD grant. Travel support in the form of free lodging for three or four nights in a UMass Lowell residence hall will be provided to teachers who live more than an hour’s commute from UMass Lowell. Travel info is here.

Agenda. Over the first two days, you will be introduced to three different foundational platforms (MIT Scratch, MIT App Inventor mobile app development, and the BBC micro:bit with e-textile, maker and robotics activities). Then, you’ll have a day and a half for your own deep dive / design project. Throughout the workshop, we’ll have unplugged activities, mini-sessions on computer science topics, and share-out talks from experienced CS teachers.For the final afternoon, we’ll share out in a session where district administrators are also invited.

Hours. CS Connections meets 8:30 am to 3:30 pm each day Mon–Thu. Breakfast and lunch will be served each day. On Tuesday, there will be an evening dinner social.

PDPs. UMass Lowell is an authorized PD provider for Massachusetts. Teachers will receive 28 hours of PDPs.