Thanks, Pauline. I love hearing the voices of these students and am so glad they were able to persist, with the help of their teachers and the Mobile CSP curriculum, and succeed in earning college credit in spite of the upheaval of the 2019-20 school closures and remote learning due to the pandemic.

I also have this question!  Also, I'm wondering if teachers used the material differently (more or less individual flair?) due to the pandemic and their teaching circumstances over the year. 

This course did not really change for me due to the pandemic. Pair programming and group work took a little bit of figuring out, but this course was basically "keep doing what we do". For the new cohort of teachers trained over the summer, they learned the course in a distance environment, which transitioned well to their classrooms without any change really other than adjusting to schedules of school buildings and such.

I think the biggest change was developing norms for a zoom environment for students, but that was across all classes and this curriculum really was as seamless as possible for the transition. The course was already completely online and familiar to students in their home environments. 

The biggest thing I will continue to use is the remote operation of a computer in the zoom environment. Student pairs can effectively pair program at home and had a lot of fun doing that.

I ditto Ryan's comments. I really did not change much in the curriculum. The biggest obstacle was trying to sustain teaching in-person and online teaching simultaneously. Or as I like to say, I was a 911 operator and policeman at the same time. I took care of people's issues who were remote and with me in person. It was not always effective. Especially when school wifi dropped. 

Other teachers I have interviewed as part of the research side of this project have also noted that they did not have to change much, as the curriculum and teacher resources exist in an online platform so could easily shift formats. For some, getting students engaged in collaborative work while they were learning remotely was challenging. Others, like Jim, were faced with having to teach students live in the classroom while simultaneously live-casting to students learning from home. (I don't think any would recommend continuing that mode.) For a few, they had to adapt the pacing to fit in all the content due to some school closures or reduced instructional time. But the Mobile CSP curriculum allows for flexibility when the teacher needs that.

Ryan noted above that at least some of the students worked in pair programming or groups. I have a personal interesting in collaboration, so I'm curious about how this worked remotely. Unless I've misunderstood, this occurred over zoom or some similar technology. Were there zoom break out rooms, or did students arrange their own collaborations? When pair programming did they have a shared working (programming) environment? I realize that it is getting into the weeds, but it is of interest.

In zoom, the students figured out you can give control of the screen to someone viewing. They then could have app inventor open on one computer, but then take turns in the operator seat. The students just worked off of one person's app inventor account. The students passed on the knowledge to others and we also did this for robotics after school, as the main programmer was distance. I am at a small school, so only 8 in the class. I think it worked in breakout rooms, but the students also just set up their own zoom meetings. Groups were generally 2 or 3 rotating every 5 minutes or so.

Thanks, Nathan. One of the outcomes we are tracking is students' success in the CSP-CE course, defined as completing the course at the level required for college credit.  Among the 178 students enrolled in 13 schools across 2 states in 2019-20, we saw high percentages of students (81% in one state and 95% in the other) successfully complete the course. This show us that, even in challenging circumstances, high school students (with trained and dedicated teachers) can succeed in college CS coursework, even without having to go to a college campus.  In fact, students in the CSP-CE classrooms completed this course at a slightly higher rate than the AP CSP students in the same states passed the AP CSP exam!

Thanks for your response, Renee. Those are impressive statistics.