Andrew Paul Csizmadia

Computing in the curriculum: Challenges and strategies from a teacher's perspective

Computing is being introduced into the curriculum in many countries. Teachers’ perspectives enable us to discover what challenges this presents, and also the strategies teachers claim to be using successfully in teaching the subject across primary and secondary education. The study described in this paper was carried out in the UK in 2014 where teachers were preparing for the mandatory inclusion of Computing into the curriculum. A survey was conducted of over 300 teachers who were currently teaching Computing to elicit their perspectives on challenges and strategies. From the analysis of the data, extrinsic and intrinsic challenges were identified for both teachers and students. In addition, a variety of pedagogical strategies were recommended by teachers from their own practice. In categorising approaches taken by teaching to support students five key themes emerged: unplugged type activities, contextualisation of tasks, collaborative learning, developing computational thinking, and scaffolding programming tasks. Further investigation could support whether these strategies can alleviate the challenges of teaching and learning of Computing for students and teachers. In particular developing student resilience in Computing is seen as a challenge while not many strategies are suggested. The results of this study will be useful for teachers who are new to the teaching of Computing.

New Horizons in the Assessment of Computer Science at School and Beyond: Leveraging on the ViVA Platform

A revolution is taking place across Europe and worldwide in how we teach our children about computing, in primary and secondary school. Out goes ICT and how to use Microsoft Office; in comes coding and computer science. Assessment has a crucial role to play in this revolution. If teachers use low-quality assessment instruments we will end-up teaching the wrong subject; and viceversa. This paper reviews the state of the field, and makes concrete, achievable proposals for developing shared, high quality assessments for computer science. Central to this proposal is the collaborative platform VIVA (the Vilnius collaboratively coded and Validated computer science questions/tasks for Assess- ment). Two requirements are key to VIVA: 1) support for multiple competency frameworks, so that the contributors can meta-tag resources with respect to the framework they are most familiar with; and 2) support for crowdsourcing the validation of each question/task and its mapping to competencies. The use of a taxonomy of questions/tasks type that has been mapped to computational thinking concepts and to a competency framework is proposed. Some seed questions are already available in the online platform prototype, and various supporters have granted permission to use large questions banks. The design requirements of a full implementation of the VIVA platform for a modern and effective approach to assessment including support for digital badges, are outlined; and some preliminary results from a survey administered to the initial contributors to VIVA are presented.

Professional Recognition Matters: Certification for In-service Computer Science Teachers

In the context of rapid curriculum change, teaching computer science in school requires new skills and knowledge that existing teachers may not have. As well as a programme of teacher professional development (TPD), certification can be used to provide recognition to in-service teachers who have made the transition to computer science. The BCS Certificate in Computer Science Teaching has been designed and developed to give teachers professional recognition of their competence in teaching the computer science elements of the Computing curriculum. In this paper we describe the innovative design of this national certification and our experience over the last two years of its implementation; we are not aware of any similar scheme to offer professional recognition to in-service K-12 computer science teachers.

Master Teachers in Computing: What have we achieved?

Recent changes to the teaching of Computing in all schools in England have been profound and wide-ranging, changing the subject from one focussed on the use of ICT products to one focussed on the understanding and creation of computing systems. This change in the curriculum has created a strong demand for professional development of in-service teachers, to develop their skills and expertise to deliver this new curriculum. One approach to developing in-service teachers to deliver the new computing curriculum has been through the Computing At School Master Teacher programme, appointing and training experienced in-service teachers to deliver continual professional development (CPD) peer-to-peer. However, many potential Master Teachers require additional training before they can take up this role. In this paper, we describe how we have trained two cohorts of Master Teachers in two successive years. Evaluation of the first cohort informed revisions to the second cohorts training. The diverse needs of the individual trainees, identified through semi-structured interviews and analysis of completed tasks, led to a variety of CPD being delivered, but almost all required training and practice with programming. Before and during the programme, the trainers shared resources and had online meetings to discuss their work. This was useful in terms of establishing and maintaining consistency between different providers. The use of many teaching strategies that provided collaborative working and discussion opportunities were highly rated by the trainees. The first cohort of teachers has already delivered a significant amount of CPD in their first year after training. The second cohort are well placed to start their CPD delivery, with a better appreciation of where they need to develop their own skills.

Classroom-based research projects for Computing teachers: facilitating professional learning

The introduction of Computing to the national curriculum in England has led to a situation where in-service teachers need to develop subject knowledge and pedagogical expertise in computer science, which presents a significant challenge. Professional learning opportunities can support this; these may be most effective when situated in the teachers’ own working practices. This article describes a project to support Computing teachers in developing pedagogical skills by carrying out classroom-based research in their schools. A group of 22 primary (Grades K--5) and secondary (Grades 6--10) teachers from schools across England planned, designed, and implemented research projects either individually or in small groups, supported by a team of university colleagues. Inter and intra group progress was shared online and face-to-face within a distributed community of inquiry. Data collection included surveys, video data, and the projects completed by the teachers. The findings from the project are analysed using Clarke and Hollingsworth’s Interconnected Model of Teacher Professional Growth (IMTPG), which enables an identification and exploration of teacher change. Results of the analysis demonstrate that the approach can foster “growth networks”—the construct used within IMTPG to indicate teacher change which is likely to be sustained and fundamental to teachers’ understanding. The individual nature of this change indicates that the approach supports personal change related to each teacher’s specific situation. Although there is a huge literature on action research as part of teacher professional learning, we believe this to be the first time this has been carried out in the context of computer science education. We conclude by critically reflecting on the lessons that we have learned in leading this project.