On day 5 of #nationalcodingweek, expert computing teachers share the one piece of advice they would give to their former selves before teaching coding for the first time.
Two Computing at School leaders agree on their key time-travel message. Lecturer Miles Berry suggests you should “Make more time for reading code” to improve understanding. Sue Sentance recommends “Focus on reading and understanding, predicting what code will do, modifying programs”. Jon Witts also thinks it is important to “Make more time to read and play with different languages”.
Pacing your teaching is also important. Laura Sach advises “Don't rush through teaching the basics. Teaching a concept once != learnt.”
In terms of engendering the right attitude in the classroom, Donna Rawling would tell them the same as she does now to reduce the fear factor: “Don’t be afraid, you can't break it”. Sue sums this up as “Be less of a control freak: let them fail, make mistakes and not think I should know all the answers!” which will be reassuring to teachers new to programming. Jon J Williams backs up this view, that teachers should “Have a go don't be afraid to FAIL, it’s part of learning, as a teacher we expect to get things right and can find it discouraging”. Vicky Sedgwick agrees about the importance of failing in front of your students, and actually builds it into lessons to model problem solving.
There are some specific words of advice relating to tools that can be put to work. Eliot Williams recommends Raspberry Pi computers, "Great for all that stuff you can't do on the 'school computers'". "For a starter there’s loads of stuff online” says Ben Hall, but “If you really need software on your server get it done!” To give Scratch sessions more impact, Neil Rickus thinks you should “Give them specific time to design sprites, backgrounds, record sounds, give the Scratch cat devil horns etc before programming”
Crucially, for embedding skills, Claire Wicher instructs colleagues to “Experiment, break things, have fun & practice or you'll forget!” The need for sustained practice by anyone learning to program, in different contexts and using different combinations of tools, chimes with neuro-psychology research on effective learning that explains how experienced programmers can apply their skills to new problems.
Handy resource links:
Check out our computing CPD:
- Assessment in primary computing
- Teaching computing – free online CPD
- Leading the new primary computing curriculum
- New and aspiring heads of computing
More from this series...
- National Coding Week: how to teach programming when your confidence is low
- National Coding Week: what are your go-to resources when teaching programming for the first time?
- National Coding Week: when is the best time to move from blocks to text-based programming?
- National Coding Week: help! I don’t have the technology to teach programming!