Supporting students on placement: developing observational skills using mobile technology.

Trainee teachers spend only a fraction of their course time in university with the majority of the year (120 days) spent in placement schools. Therefore, there is always the need to maintain close links with trainees and to enable them to link the theory learned at university to their practice in the classroom. A key aspect of developing as a practitioner is learning from experts in the field, known as cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, 2006). Our trainees spend most of their time at the beginning of their placement observing and taking notes while observing experienced teachers delivering lessons. Training is needed to gain the maximum amount from observation (Borich, 2011) and mobile technology can help in providing some scaffolding to this training. Mobile technology has many uses in education and we describe a bespoke mobile application we have developed called Standards Tag to enable trainee teachers to tag key events observed in the classroom. The application has two major features: audio clips for key theoretical concepts behind aspects of teaching and learning, linked to the Teacher Standards (DfE, 2013); and a tag feature for noticed observations which are then sent by email to the student’s email address

K-5 Teachers' Uses of Levels of Abstraction Focusing on Design

Recent research with middle school and university students highlights two factors that contribute to programming success: 1) understanding the level of abstraction that you are working at, and 2) being able to move between levels. In this qualitative study, we explored levels of abstraction, and particularly the design level,with five K-5 teachers. Here we outline 11 main findings. The teachers interviewed use the design level for both programming and writing. However, the two expert computing teachers have a far greater depth of understanding of the opportunities for the use of the design level, supporting pupils to understand the level they are working at and helping them move between levels of abstraction by using designs in novel ways. Further work is needed to investigate whether our results are generalisable. Further exploration of levels of abstraction and particularly how the design level helps K-5 learners learn to program, in the same way, that planning supports novices learning to write, is warranted

Abstraction in action: K-5 teachers' uses of levels of abstraction, particularly the design level, in teaching programming

Research indicates that understanding levels of abstraction (LOA) and being able to move between the levels is essential to programming success. For K-5 contexts LOA levels have been named: problem, design, code and running the code. In a qualitative exploratory study, five K-5 teachers were interviewed on their uses of LOA, particularly the design level, in teaching programming and other subjects. Using PCK elements to analyse responses, the teachers interviewed used design as an instructional strategy and for assessment. The teachers used design as an aide memoire and the expert teachers used design: as a contract for pair-programming; to work out what they needed to teach; for learners to annotate with code snippets (to transition across LOA); for learners to self-assess and to assess ‘do-ability’. The teachers used planning in teaching writing to scaffold learning and promote self-regulation revealing their insight in student understanding. One issue was of the teachers' knowledge of terms including algorithm and code; a concept of ‘emergent algorithms’ is proposed. Findings from the study suggest design helps learners learn to program in the same way that planning helps learners learn to write and that LOA, particularly the design level, may provide an accessible exemplar of abstraction in action. Further work is needed to verify whether the study's results are generalisable more widely

Comparing K-5 teachers' reported use of design in teaching programming and planning in teaching writing

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Abstraction and Common Classroom Activities

In popularizing computational thinking, Wing notes that ‘abstraction is described as underlying computational thinking and computational thinking is described as fundamental to computing.’ Emerging curricular now require educators to incorporate computational thinking and abstraction into their teaching. Many refer to Piaget’s work as evidence of an age-related ceiling preventing younger pupils from being able to abstract. However, more recent evidence suggests that pupils use elements of abstraction in their general process of learning, and that the skill of abstraction can be explicitly taught. We draw on personal classroom experience to illustrate the points made in the literature. Common classroom activities such as using labelled diagrams, concept maps and storyboards are aligned to features of abstraction. We argue that abstraction can and should be taught to young pupils

A university-based model for supporting computer science curriculum reform

Computer science curriculum reform in the United Kingdom has been subject to substantial scrutiny—as it has in many other countries around the world—with England introducing a radical new computing curriculum from September 2014. However, in Wales—a devolved nation within the UK—political, geographical and socio-cultural issues have to date hindered any substantive educational policy or curriculum reform for computer science. In this paper, we present the activities of Technocamps, a national university-based schools outreach programme founded in 2003, and consider its wider impact on computer science education, schools, pupils and teachers in Wales. In contrast to successful interventions elsewhere in the UK in building and sustaining communities of practice, certain political and cultural challenges in Wales have largely prevented these successful models from being adopted. Through the consideration of the national case study presented in this paper, we demonstrate the necessity of the nation-wide school- and student-focused Technocamps model in building resilient and scalable practitioner-led support networks. Furthermore, with emerging curriculum reform in Wales, we frame the wider opportunity for computer science education and sustainably embedding cross-curricular digital competencies—along with changing the wider public perception and perceived value of computer science as an academic discipline—as a prospective replicable case study of a national engagement model for nations with similar aspirations of developing digitally confident and capable citizens. To this end, we conclude by drawing out the important lessons learnt for consideration when embarking on a programme of national curriculum reform and associated professional development

How the UK economy weathered the financial storm

Prior to the global financial crisis of 2008, the UK had the largest banking sector asset to GDP ratio among large countries, and had experienced rapid real property price increases as well as a persistent current account deficit in the preceding decade. These factors, together with its role as an international financial centre, made the UK economy particularly vulnerable to the onset of the global financial crisis. Although the initial drop in real GDP was steep, we provide evidence that the economy has weathered the financial storm better than many feared, and has fared no worse than its peer group of major economies. In this paper we assess the reasons underlying this outcome, including the possibility of exaggerated vulnerabilities, global economic recovery, the flexible supply side of the UK economy, as well as fiscal, financial and monetary policy interventions. Our analysis suggests that all of these factors played a role in cushioning the impact on the UK real economy, leading to a more benign outcome than most observers expected