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Master Teachers in Computing: What have we achieved?

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Andrew Paul CsizmadiaAuthors Info & Claims

WiPSCE '15: Proceedings of the Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

Pages 21 - 24

https://doi.org/10.1145/2818314.2818332

Published: 09 November 2015 Publication History

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Abstract

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 cohort's 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.

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Cited By

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Li XZhang Jvan Braak J(2022)Reflection on Value and Function of Information Technology Curriculum from the Reform of the British ICT CurriculumEducation Sciences10.3390/educsci1301000713:1(7)Online publication date: 21-Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010007
Sullivan AStrawhacker A(2021)Screen-Free STEAM: Low-Cost and Hands-on Approaches to Teaching Coding and Engineering to Young ChildrenEmbedding STEAM in Early Childhood Education and Care10.1007/978-3-030-65624-9_5(87-113)Online publication date: 29-May-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65624-9_5
Venn-Wycherley MKharrufa ABrewster SFitzpatrick GCox AKostakos V(2019)HOPE for Computing EducationProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300729(1-13)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290605.3300729
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Index Terms

Master Teachers in Computing: What have we achieved?
1. Applied computing
  1. Enterprise computing
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

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Published In

WiPSCE '15: Proceedings of the Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

November 2015

149 pages

ISBN:9781450337533

DOI:10.1145/2818314

Conference Chairs:
Judith Gal-Ezer
The Open University of Israel
,
Sue Sentance
King's College London & Computing At School
,
Jan Vahrenhold
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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King's College London: King's College London
ACM: Association for Computing Machinery

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 09 November 2015

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WiPSCE '15

WiPSCE '15: Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

November 9 - 11, 2015

London, United Kingdom

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Overall Acceptance Rate 104 of 279 submissions, 37%

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Cited By

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Li XZhang Jvan Braak J(2022)Reflection on Value and Function of Information Technology Curriculum from the Reform of the British ICT CurriculumEducation Sciences10.3390/educsci1301000713:1(7)Online publication date: 21-Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010007
Sullivan AStrawhacker A(2021)Screen-Free STEAM: Low-Cost and Hands-on Approaches to Teaching Coding and Engineering to Young ChildrenEmbedding STEAM in Early Childhood Education and Care10.1007/978-3-030-65624-9_5(87-113)Online publication date: 29-May-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65624-9_5
Venn-Wycherley MKharrufa ABrewster SFitzpatrick GCox AKostakos V(2019)HOPE for Computing EducationProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300729(1-13)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290605.3300729
Bell TVahrenhold J(2018)CS Unplugged—How Is It Used, and Does It Work?Adventures Between Lower Bounds and Higher Altitudes10.1007/978-3-319-98355-4_29(497-521)Online publication date: 9-Aug-2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98355-4_29
Heintz FMannila LFarnqvist T(2016)A review of models for introducing computational thinking, computer science and computing in K-12 education2016 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2016.7757410(1-9)Online publication date: Oct-2016
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2016.7757410

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Recommendations

The network of teaching excellence in computer science and master teachers

Advancing Opportunities for CS Teachers: How To Best Support Professional Development for Experienced Teachers in K-12 CS Education

Artificial Intelligence in Compulsory K-12 Computer Science Classrooms: A Scalable Professional Development Offer for Computer Science Teachers