Publications
2026
Storymaking: An Innovative Multimodal Approach to Early Literacy Instruction Assaf, L. C., & Justice, S. (2026). . Language Arts, 103(6), 425–429.
A year of learning: Early childhood teachers’ computational learning and implementation while participating in a yearlong professional development project Assaf, L.C., & Justice, S. (2026). Computer Science Education, 1–31.
2025
An Expressive STEM Approach to Computational Thinking Teacher Professional Development Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2025, April 23–27). [Conference presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, United States.
Expressive STEM Storymaking with KIBO!: Teaching and Learning with Robotics in Elementary School Classrooms Justice, S.B. & Assaf, L.C., Austin Texas. (February 4, 2025).
2024
Expressive STEM storymaking: Art, literacy, and creative computing. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2024). In A. Lai & Y. Cooper (Eds.), STEAM education: Intersections and thresholds (pp. 210-226). Brill.
Asset-based Computational Thinking in Early Childhood Classrooms: Centering Students’ Expertise in a Community of Learners Assaf, L. C., & Justice, S. (2024). Asset-based computational thinking in early childhood classrooms: Centering students’ expertise in a community of learners. Early Childhood Education Journal.
Early Childhood Teachers’ Use of Asset-based Computational Thinking Pedagogy: Centering Students’ Expertise and Life Experiences Assaf, L. C., & Justice, S. (2024, April 12). An asset-based approach to computational thinking in early childhood teacher education [Conference presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
Playful Literacies in a Hybrid Mentoring Project: Rethinking Literacy Teacher Education Assaf, L. C., & Justice, S. (2024, December 4–7). [Title of paper] [Conference presentation]. Literacy Research Association Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA, United States.
2023
Make it Move! Arts & Inquiry Approaches to Computational Thinking in Teacher Professional Learning. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2023, October 19–21). Make it move! [Conference presentation]. Art Education Research Institute Symposium, Tucson, AZ, United States.
PreK to 2nd Grade Teachers Noticing, Naming, & Connecting Computational Thinking to Literacy Learning. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2023, June 16). [Conference presentation]. WeTeach_CS Summit, Houston, TX, United States.
ScratchJr Explorations: Noticing, Naming, and Connecting Tech App TEKS to Curriculum. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2023, July 19). [Workshop]. K-5 PD Extravaganza, WeTeach_CS, University of Texas at Austin, Round Rock, TX, United States.
EPK-2: Exploring Early Childhood Teachers’ Abilities to Identify Computational Thinking Precursors to Strengthen Computer Science in Classrooms. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2023, June 28–30).[Conference presentation]. Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) Principal Investigator Meeting, Washington, DC, United States.
Everyday Choreographies as Pathways for Building Computational Literacies: Noticing, Naming, and Connecting CT Precursors To Curriculum. Justice, S. & Assaf, L.C. (2023, June 13). Everyday choreographies as pathways for building computational literacies: Noticing, naming, and connecting CT precursors to curriculum [Guest lecture]. CUNY CS-in-6, College of Staten Island, New York, NY, United States.
Expressive STEM Storymaking: Art, Literacy, and Creative Computing Justice, S.B. & Assaf, L.C. (2023, June 25–28). Expressive STEM storymaking: Art, literacy, and creative computing [Conference presentation]. ISTELive Conference, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
2022
Computational Thinking and Literacy: Understanding Teachers’ Approaches to Leveraging CT and Literacy Across Early Childhood Classrooms. Assaf, L.C. & Justice S.B. (2022, November 28–December 2). [Conference presentation]. Literacy Research Association Annual Conference, Phoenix, AZ, United States.
Multimodal Approaches to Literacy: Exploring Precursors to Computational Thinking with Primary Grade Teachers. Assaf, L. C. & Justice, S.B. (2022, July 4–6). [Conference presentation]. European Conference on Literacy, Dublin, Republic of Ireland.
2021
Thinking and making in tandem: An expressive STEM model for early childhood teacher education. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2021, November 29–December 3). [Roundtable session]. Literacy Research Association Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA, United States.
ESC Research Collective
The ESC Research Collective is an NSF-funded research project investigating how families, youth, and community members learn, make, and imagine together.