Programming Pedagogy in Secondary Schools: Inspiring Computing Teaching

Transform your teaching by developing your pedagogical approach

In the first two weeks of this course, you’ll be introduced to a range of pedagogical approaches suitable for Key Stage 3. You’ll look at a range of pedagogies aimed at developing your students’ computational thinking skills, from unplugged approaches to PRIMM, and more. You’ll also investigate worked examples and targeted tasks such as Parson’s Problems.

In the final week of this course, you’ll see several of these pedagogies in action as you work on a rock-paper-scissors game, and think about how the teaching could be adapted for use with your students.

This course is aimed at teachers of computer science and programming who teach 11- to 14-year-olds (KS3 in the UK).

You will need either a Python Integrated Development Environment (IDE) downloaded to your computer, such as Mu, or to use an online Python service such as Trinket.

• Programming Pedagogy
• Introduction to the course
• Pedagogy Unplugged
• Use, Modify, Create
• Reflection
• More programming pedagogy
• Welcome to Week 2
• Practical Pedagogy
• Encouraging students in the classroom
• Reflection
• Applying Pedagogy to Programming Rock Paper Scissors
• Rock, Paper, Scissors Unplugged
• Developing Rock Paper Scissors
• Testing and extending the project
• Course Assignment - plan a project
• End of the course