Creating an Appropriate Computer Science and Computational Thinking Graduate Curriculum for K–12 Teachers: Context and Initial Results

K-12 computer science education has challenges related to content and to teacher expertise and comfort. This is further made difficult with inconsistent standards and teacher preparation from state-to-state. We describe a K-12 Computer Science Teaching certificate program, located at Montclair State University, aimed at providing current teachers in northern New Jersey with enhanced understanding of computer science concepts, capabilities, and skills, plus scaffolding of equitable and inclusive teacher practices for applied CS pedagogy. We discuss a brief history of the field, our curriculum and approach and then our first graduating cohort’s experiences and challenges. Finally, we discuss our future work.