Incorporating Cyber Principles into Middle and High School Curriculum

Although many practicing teachers have not experienced teacher preparation programs that teach cyber security (Pusely & Sadera, 2011) or are familiar with cyber principles (Author), embedding these ideas into instruction in a variety of content areas is essential for promoting cyber literacy and citizenship. This study explores a professional development program that provided middle and high school teachers across disciplines with opportunities to explore, first as learners and then as educators, cyber citizenship and programming concepts with explicit connections to the cybersecurity principles and concepts. Participating teachers experienced inquiry-based learning, focused classroom discourse, and collaborative learning that centered on GenCyber Cybersecurity First Principles and GenCyber Cybersecurity Concepts (GenCyber, 2019). Results indicated the professional development enabled teachers to iteratively reflect on best practices in cyber education while learning and applying the content of GenCyber Principles within the context of their own field of study.