The Computer Science Teachers Association has asserted that computational thinking equips students with essential critical thinking which allows them to conceptualize, analyze, and solve more complex problems. These skills are applicable to all content area as students learn to use strategies, ideas, and technological practices more effectively as digital natives. This research examined over 200 elementary students' pre-and posttest changes in computational thinking from a 10-week coding program using adapted lessons from code.org's Blockly programming language and CSUnplugged that were delivered as part of the regular school day. Participants benefited from early access to computer science (CS) lessons with increases in computational thinking and applying coding concepts to the real world. Interviews from participants included examples of CS connections to everyday life and interdisciplinary studies at school. Thus, the study highlights the importance of leveraging CS access in diverse elementary classrooms to promote young students' computational thinking; motivation in CS topics; and the learning of essential soft-skills such as collaboration, persistence, abstraction, and creativity to succeed in today's digital world.

One instrumental step in promoting overall children's academic success across the trajectory of early childhood, elementary, middle, and secondary grades is purposefully establishing positive linkages for families and schools through a shared partnership. By facilitating an ongoing collaborative approach to sustain family engagement practices both in and out of the classroom, schools can help to build parents' capacity to effectively support their children's academic development. This article is an overview of the literature based on research from the last two decades on the effects of family involvement and home to school partnerships to student academic achievement within a US context. It addresses the sociocultural implications for establishing home and school partnerships with school-wide pedagogical recommendations in supporting diverse families and K-12 educators in the collaborative work for the educational success of all children. Finally, the article identifies methods to proactively engage all families with a paradigm shift on rethinking traditional methods to skills of cultural competence that honors family backgrounds, validates cultural strengths, and corroborates with the contributions that families make to engender academic success for their children.

The development of elementary-aged students' STEM and computer science (CS) literacy is critical in this evolving technological landscape, thus, promoting success for college, career, and STEM/CS professional paths. Research has suggested that elementary-aged students need developmentally appropriate STEM integrated opportunities in the classroom; however, little is known about the potential impact of CS programming and how these opportunities engender positive perceptions, foster confidence, and promote perseverance to nurture students' early career aspirations related to STEM/CS. The main purpose of this mixed-method study was to examine elementary-aged students' (N = 132) perceptions of STEM, career choices, and effects from pre-to post-test intervention of CS lessons (N = 183) over a three-month period. Findings included positive and significant changes from students' pre-to post-tests as well as augmented themes from 52 student interviews to represent increased enjoyment of CS lessons, early exposure, and its benefits for learning to future careers. Keywords Elementary STEM education • Motivation • Computational thinking • Careers education and to improve workforce development (Barr and Stephenson 2011), the field of CS has included CT with existing K-12 content and curriculum (Jona et al. 2014; Israel et al. 2015; Wilensky et al. 2014). Moreover, embedding CT concepts, its tools and practices into interdisciplinary contexts especially in math and science promotes students' understanding of the fields, equips them with foundational STEM knowledge, increases career aspirations in STEM, and creates students who are more productive STEM citizens (Augustine 2005; Weintrop et al. 2016). 2.1 Essential Computational Thinking in the Early Years Elementary-aged students need exposure to interdisciplinary STEM/CS content to collaborate , explore, create models, analyze, and draw conclusions. These skills are applicable to many areas of students' lives, thus, promoting their development is essential in today's classrooms. Past research has suggested improved cognitive benefits such as problem-solving, mathematics, and reasoning for children who participated in computer programming as compared to children who did not participate in similar learning experiences (Clements et al. 2001; Liao and Bright 1991). Other benefits included long-term effects such as increased enjoyment with inquiry-based learning, sustained attention, and self-direction, (Clements 1987). Contemporary programming literature emphasized ongoing support for children to engage in innovative programming environments and languages such as Scratch, Kodu, Etoys, and Lego We-Do since they provide age-appropriate materials for children to apply core CT concepts such as abstraction, automation , analysis, decomposition, and iterative design (Bers and Horn 2010; Mioduser et al. 2009; Resnick 2006). Existing benefits indicated that inquiry-based science, numeracy, and literacy activities during preprimary and primary years provide elementary-aged students approp...

Increasing numbers of English Language Learners (ELLs) in U.S. classrooms have prioritized to building quality teacher education programs so that all teachers have the tools necessary to support their students. National, state, and local mandates have also enacted certain requirements to ensure that ELLs are receiving quality instruction with new language proficiency and content standards. Pressure has pervaded into teacher education programs working to immerse teacher candidates with good pedagogical practices for working with ELLs. This mixed method study on 144 PK-12 teachers with five or less years of experience highlighted the importance of teachers' perceptions and efficacy beliefs in working with ELLs. Findings revealed a statistical significance in efficacy beliefs for teachers with an ESL certification as opposed to teachers without the credentials. Five in-depth cases augmented the finding to support how individual classroom practices exemplified specific ESL pedagogy learned from pre-service contexts to promote more efficacious behaviors.

The increasing numbers of ELLs (English Language Learners) in U.S. classrooms has prioritized into building quality teacher education programs for teachers so that they have the pedagogical tools necessary to support their students. A continued focus with professional development at the local, state, and national level has gained momentum to ensure that mainstream teachers have appropriate cultural competence skills and research-based practices to meet students' diverse linguistic and academic needs. This mixed method study on 144 PK-12 teachers with five or less years of experience highlighted the importance of teachers' perceptions and efficacy beliefs in working with ELLs. Five in-depth cases illustrated a support for professional development in creating high efficacious behaviors for teaching ELLs. Additionally, a quantitative finding augmented teacher narratives to reveal a statistical significance in efficacy beliefs for teachers who received adequate inservice professional development as opposed to teachers who were not afforded those opportunities.