The Georgia Research Corporation proposes to create a new distance-learning medium for computing education especially for in-service high school teachers based on ideas from instructional design and educational psychology. In-service high school teachers are particularly time-constrained (and thus need efficiency) and they are more metacognitively aware than other students (and thus able to better inform the project design). The new medium will combine multiple modalities, worked examples, and structure based on cognitive models of designers' knowledge. The research questions are (1) Will the teachers learn CS knowledge in this on-line setting? (2) Will the teachers will be more efficient at programming activities? and (3) Will the teachers will find the materials useful and satisfying? Because of its focus on teachers, the project can potentially have broad impact, in particular on the strategies for training the 10,000 teachers envisioned in the CS 10K Project. The project will establish models and design guidelines that can be used for the creation of other learning materials, including materials for students, for example, in the proposed new CS Principles AP course.
