Dec 20 2016
Sandwich Robot, Etchasketch, Scratch Polygons and Snowflakes
Here I outline how we have used a variety of resources to increase our Year 7 students’ understanding of sequencing and use of loops – as well as having fun and engaging with their learning.
Having reviewed our baseline test at the beginning of Year 7, our Year 7s showed better than expected eSafety, better Scratch understanding, but poorer computing programming and sequencing skills. I looked at several resources online and have used Phil Bagge’s Jam Sandwich making Robot, Stephen Howell’s Scratch Shape Drawing Activity for CoderDojo; Simon Haughton’s Etch-a-Sketch; and Barefoot Computing’s Crystal Flowers (pdf download) to create the following resources:
“Scratch Shapes” scheme of learning – jam sandwich making robot and Scratch Polygons and nested loops More
Jan 21 2017
Classroom Techniques, Examples and Research for Better Learning in Computer Science Talk at Bett17
Click here to go to slides. Thank you to Oliver and the Raspberry Pi Foundation for the opportunity to start to develop this strand.
Only 20% of current 9_1 Computer Science GCSEs are Python… 50% theory means we should be focussed on how to teach theory well and keeping up-to-date with latest techniques to do this underpinned with theory and a shared understanding of what works well.
I hope to make a contribution to this discussion. Please feel free to join in on #caschat and CAS forum in the next few weeks.
By Chris Sharples • Posts •