This guide is for teachers preparing for the New York State Teacher Certification Examinations (NYSTCE) Computer Science Content Specialty Test (CST), Field 194. It was written with one group in mind: teachers completing the University at Buffalo's advanced certificate in computer science education. Others are welcome to use it, but Part 3 assumes our courses.

The CST asks you to recognize a broad body of knowledge and to read code in a typed pseudocode that you will probably not have used. UB's Computer Science teacher preparation programs and the CST are both based on New York's Computer Science and Digital Fluency (CS&DF) Learning Standards, but their priorities are different: UB's courses emphasize pedagogical content knowledge, introducing content while also modeling how it can be taught in primary and secondary contexts. As part of this pedagogical modeling, we prioritize collaborative inquiry and personally-meaningful, open-ended projects over content coverage. This guide is designed to fill in the gaps for the purpose of passing the CST.

The guide has four parts. Part 2 describes the test, its official resources, its format, and its written response. Part 3 is a study plan for graduates of our program, comparing what our courses taught with what the test expects. Part 4 is a content summary, a reading on the knowledge the test covers, written for someone meeting much of it for the first time.

This guide was written by Chris Proctor for candidates in UB's program. It is not affiliated with, reviewed by, or endorsed by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) or Pearson, which administers the NYSTCE. Official information about the test, including its framework and reference sheet, comes from NYSED and the NYSTCE website, and where this guide and those sources disagree, follow the official advice. The practice items that accompany this guide were written by Chris Proctor. They are not official test items, and do not contain any copyrighted or confidential testing information.