2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This research paper examines a Community of Practice (CoP) for high school teachers integrating microelectronics, computer science, and engineering concepts into their classrooms. While efforts to integrate microelectronics (ME) into K-12 education are gaining traction, there remains a lack of research on how teachers are prepared and on the outcomes of professional development (PD) programs focused on emerging technologies, such as ME. Specifically, in the areas of teacher self-efficacy (instructional readiness & self-doubt) and content knowledge (content understanding), there is a need for closer attention. The research team recruited five local high school teachers to participate in a three-day workshop hosted by a university. Each day concentrated on a specific lesson within the unit involving simple circuits, breadboarding, logic gates, and other foundational concepts. Teachers engaged in each lesson to strengthen self-efficacy and content knowledge in preparation for future classroom implementations. The teachers followed an engineering design approach by designing, building, testing, and refining their circuits. Data for this study included open-ended responses from pre- and post-workshop surveys, daily reflections during the summer workshop, reflections collected during two additional PD sessions in the fall 2025 semester, and a post-implementation survey. The surveys were guided by the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) framework and by additional open-ended questions developed by the research team. Responses were analyzed qualitatively to examine teachers’ perceptions of instructional self-efficacy and content knowledge. The objective of the study is to conduct a multi-method qualitative analysis to evaluate how participation in the workshop and additional PD sessions influenced teachers’ perceptions of their instructional self-efficacy and content knowledge when preparing to implement microelectronic lessons. Preliminary findings suggest that teachers with limited background in microelectronics reported increased self-efficacy and content knowledge following participation in the curriculum workshop. These findings highlight the importance of structured, practice-based professional development. This study contributes to faculty development research by examining how structured, practice-based PD models can build teacher self-efficacy and content knowledge, thereby informing professional learning frameworks that help educators implement and integrate new technologies in their classrooms. In turn, this allows teachers to incorporate new content into their classrooms, encouraging students to learn more about microelectronics. This paper will be presented to facilitate discussions on teacher professional development regarding their self-efficacy and growth in content knowledge in microelectronics education.