Uncovering Opportunities for K-12 CS Professional Development in West African Schools.

Computer science education in Africa is gaining momentum as computer science skills give employees a competitive advantage in an increasingly globalized labor market. Researchers and educators have addressed this demand by making CS instructional materials more accessible, creating professional development (PD) resources, and designing online courses targeted at undergraduate CS education settings. However, there is limited research on what types of support African teachers need to improve pedagogy in K-12 settings, which is critical for fostering foundational interest in CS. To address this, we interviewed fourteen CS teachers in nine K-12 schools in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana to uncover opportunities to design interventions that address challenges they experience with teaching CS in schools and support their professional development. We found that most CS teachers lack formal CS training and therefore taught students self-taught topics from their personal education or work experiences, regardless of the requirements of the government curriculum. We also found that CS teachers are by default assigned computer-based school administration responsibilities, such as grade administration and managing school websites, further limiting time for professional development. We propose solutions for creating professional development tools considering these teachers' CS experience, limited computing resources, professional development time, and curriculum requirements.