Hello World
How to develop as a computing educator?
Explore the keys skills and attributes that successful computing educators have in common and how to go about developing them in this episode of the Hello World podcast.
The computer science curriculum is much bigger than just programming.
Sway Grantham:These fears you had of what would be really challenging are different to the realities of being in the classroom.
Daljit Shoker:What can you quickly do to adapt that lesson?
Katy Barber:I look back at where I was this time last year and it's been an absolute whirlwind.
James Robinson:Hello, and welcome back to Hello World a podcast for educators interested in computing and digital making. I'm James Robinson computing educator and overly enthusiastic trainer of educators too.
Sway Grantham:Hello, I'm Sway Grantham a senior learning manager at the Raspberry Pi Foundation and former computing teacher. I lead the educator development team here. So I'm very excited to be with James today exploring this topic. As ever, we really value your comments and feedback, which you can share at helloworld.cc/podcastfeedback.
James Robinson:This week we're discussing how we as CS educators can grow and develop our teaching and learning skills. First though Sway, what do you think are the important characteristics that make a successful CS educator?
Sway Grantham:Well, I think there are lots of great characteristics that we can lead into but my first one is resilience. If you haven't had to teach computing in a power cut you are luckier than me because that is definitely an obstacle that I have had to deal with. And there are many many things that can go wrong and that change as a computing educator. So being ready to change the plans and be very flexible about that, it's one thing that's a really great characteristic to develop. Another one I would say is continuing to learn. Our subject is very new which is exciting and it's one of my favourite parts about it. But it means we have to prepare for change and we have to keep learning new things and our subject probably changes more often than some other fields. And finally really keeping an awareness of what's going on in the computing field. Life experiences are really important in computing. We get a lot of difference in education of what our learners have experienced at home and in their worlds and computing education gives us an opportunity to broaden their horizons and give them access to it, but we need to be aware of what's out there so that we can talk about how to use those things safely and give them those opportunities. These are lots of kind of long-term traits and ongoing traits though. So I'm curious James what characteristics do you think are most useful to get you started on your computing educator journey?
James Robinson:I mean, I think one that you've struck on their, the resilience point I think, you know. Early in your career particularly as a CS educator, I think you're going to make so many mistakes, and there's no two ways about it. You're going to make mistakes and you've got to kind of be able to sort of roll with those punches and and adapt on the fly and so I think that is a really important skill. I think curiosity is also really important particularly if you're kind of transitioning in from another subject discipline. Where computing maybe isn't your first, your first sort of love or first passion. I think being curious about the subject is really important and I think also understanding your learners is really important. You know, I think particularly with computing where they will, many of them, most of them will have some lived experience or understanding of computing because they'll engage with technology all the time. So understanding where they're coming from what their interests are how you can engage them in the learning is, is one of the things that I perhaps learn to little bit later in my teaching career than would have been, you know it would've been really useful from, from the outset. So, yeah, and I think just I'm going to return to that resilience point as you reminded me of delivering a two-day training experience in Cambridge and we'd rented out a hotel for it because it was a really big training. Within 20 minutes of us starting the day which was full of physical computing and all sorts. We had a power cut across the whole hotel and, and the whole area in fact of Cambridge which lasted for a good hour. So we were like "Err what do we do?" But thankfully came back on and we were able to kind of proceed. But yeah, we very nearly had to cancel a whole event. But there we go. Joining us today is Jonny Usherwood, he's the subject lead for computing at Teach First and has 15 years of experience teaching ICT and computing in UK secondary schools. He is passionate about research based teaching as well as developing new computing teachers. Jonny, welcome to the podcast it's great to have you with us.
Jonny Usherwood:Thank you very much and thank you for having me here today.
James Robinson:So how do you at Teach First prepare educators for the classroom?
Jonny Usherwood:So we're a very unique position at Teach First in the fact that our trainee teachers have intensive training before they get into the classroom. So that's what's known as our Institutes that's either the Summer Institute or it's the Autumn Institute depending on when they decide to start their teaching journey. And part of that training is intensive sessions with what we call practice development leads and subject development leads, where we, first of all with the practice development leads we constrain everything that is focused with general teaching. But then our subject development leads they focus on specific computing training. As part of that we'll cover things like the computing pedagogies, planning, assessment, accessible and inclusive computing, delivering excellent lessons in computing. And then as part of their Institute, they'll also have something called School Centered Learning. So School Centered Learning is where they will get placed into a school which is close to where they, where they live. And they get a chance to just practice all the things that we've done with them during The Institute. What's great about that is it's not going to be the school that they're going to be based in. So it's a great opportunity to kind of have a play around with things, experiment with you know, build up that resilience that you've spoken about and then when they get into the classroom in September, they could almost hit the ground running. And that's when they're in their employment schools so they've almost had this opportunity to have a go at it all and they're much more confident when they get into the classroom in September. Again, we're really unique at Teach First in the fact that our trainees have their own classes. So they're not attached to a class. They actually have their own timetable with their own pupils. And the training that we give is a bit of a hybrid approach between synchronous and asynchronous learning. So they'll have the learning that takes place in self study sessions, but also they'll go into sessions that are run by our subjective development leads and our practice development leads where they can practice with their peers. Really great environment, again for kind of testing things out and having a go at it again before they get into the classroom when they start with us and that'll either be in September or later on in the year.
Sway Grantham:It's great to hear the breadth of development opportunities offered through the Teach First computing program Jonny. We also have Daljit Shoker with us today who works alongside Jonny at Teach First. She is the subject development lead for computing and comes from a background of 18 years teaching ICT and computing across UK secondary schools. Daljit, I'm interested in how important you think subject knowledge is for these computing educators when they first start on the Teach First program.
Daljit Shoker:So in terms of their subject knowledge, I think it's really important that they review their own subject knowledge to start off with. Which is something that we do at Teach First. That when trainees come into the program they will complete a subject knowledge audit and what that allows them as trainees, and us as their development leads to review is what they know and what they don't know and where those knowledge gaps are. So we have some trainees for example who are computer science graduates and we'll have other trainees for example who haven't done computing from GCSE, potentially they might have done it A level they may not have done. So what's really important is for them to identify their strengths and weaknesses and they communicate that with us. But really in, really crucial is that they're then willing to learn and develop those knowledge gaps that they have. What's really important is computer science educators are aware of how to teach qualifications that are suitable for exam classes, which could be GCSE's for example, the age 14-16 and post-16 qualifications. And then what we do as computer science development leads is we will support those computer science educators with resources, with appropriate CPD, and support them on that journey. As well as having conversations with their support roles that are in school and within Teach First as well to develop that subject knowledge.
James Robinson:I've got a sort of a follow-up question to that and I wonder. So I think like Sway, you know you and I we've probably got like slightly different sort of subject knowledge kind of levels. Right you know, I, my background is as a computer science, I've got a degree in computer science that's my background. Sway you've sort of come to the subject slightly new. But I think actually there's, there's room for both. I think there's some real value sometimes in not having that subject knowledge like, or explored it in depth because maybe it means you have to question things a lot more. And Sway I don't know if I've described that correctly or maligned your subject knowledge there but maybe you could articulate that slightly better. Would you, do you find that in your experience Sway? And then we'll maybe ask our guests.
Sway Grantham:Yes, I think like I come, I have some computer science background knowledge, but I taught in primary phase. So the extent to which I needed robust level of subject knowledge was that little bit simpler than maybe a secondary teacher and definitely not at the qualifications end of things. But what I've found is really useful is I can probe and ask questions that I don't understand and it really helps you to recognise how learning is built because you're starting on that back foot and you're looking kind of where it goes and where it goes next. It does come in to what we're saying about knowing that you've got gaps, and knowing when you need to read up on something, or who you need to ask because you're not sure. But I think there's a lot of value in being able to support a range of learners if you can understand both perspectives.
James Robinson:And Jonny and Daljit do you have a view on that question? Whether, like, how important it is where there is almost value in not having that subject knowledge sometimes. I don't know whether that's...
Jonny Usherwood:I think from my experience of being an educator of new teachers to the subject, sometimes and this is not always the case, but if a trainee teacher has not got a background in computer science, sometimes as you've mentioned then and you've touched on there James. They're sort of willingness to go and find out and go and research and go and look at the best way to teach something. Almost because they have to as opposed to you know, they have to do it as part of their teaching. And actually quite more often than not that makes them better at teaching that particular skill. Obviously, it can help having the background and just sometimes the confidence. So a lot of our trainees come in really worried about teaching programming and sometimes they often forget that there's the computer science curriculum it's much bigger than just programming and they really worry about that. And again if they've got a background in that, that just builds their confidence, but actually what they found is once they've gone and taken some courses and they've actually practiced it themselves that programming is not the biggest worry in the world. And once you can grasp the basics, it's quite straightforward then to move that onto the next phase in terms, or whether that be the next skill that they need to teach, or whether it's the next key stage in a school, or the next year group up in a school. Actually once you've grasped those basics, it's fairly straightforward to jump to the next, the next point in that.
Sway Grantham:This kind of leads nicely to, is this idea of theoretical understanding and practical. So Jonny touched on it a bit where you start with this understanding and then you start to put into practice in the classroom. And actually these fears you had of what would be really challenging are different to the realities of being in the classroom and finding out not that everything is really easy because there's then a lot, a whole host of challenges you find in a different area you didn't expect. But I wonder if there's something to explore their on how do we transition, or support the journey from this theoretical knowledge into putting it in practice in the classroom and ensuring that that journey is as smooth as possible?
Daljit Shoker:Do you know actually, I recently watched a trainee teacher teach a lesson, a practical lesson on how data is transferred through a network. And they were teaching pupils the idea of packets being transported across the network and then reassembled at the other side. And what was really interesting is that although it was a physical activity, like physical unplugged [...] So meaning that they were away from the computers, they were up in groups. We had, there were some pupils who were acting as the data packets, there were pupils acting in the role of a router in a web server. So that was really nice to see pupils all engaged and having their roles. But in terms of when I was watching that lesson and speaking to the trainee afterwards I questioned as to how much actual knowledge, the theoretical knowledge those pupils learned from that. That was what I, so I, what kind of my feedback to that trainee was to really allow pupils to get that understanding of the key concepts of what actually does a router do? What do you actually mean by the IP protocol, and the role of the web server? So that, yeah it's made me think of that when you were talking about the practical and theoretical. I said, that's really important although it's great to do activities away from the computer and have pupils up and about working in groups and pairs, but it's really important that if you decide, educators do also question and probe to check pupils understanding.
Jonny Usherwood:So going back to when I spoke about earlier. I spoke about our Institute Training. One of the key pedagogies that we focus on is semantic waves and I think linking to what Daljit was just discussing there in terms of the theory and the practical semantic waves are so important in terms of taking that, that difficult and complex concept that people really struggle to understand. Going through the semantic wave and starting to unplug and unpack the meanings and then repacking them again. And having seen this in practice both through my teaching, but also through observing other other teachers, it's sort of that lightbulb moments with pupils when they understand the concept and go "Ohh okay, so that's what a variable is. That's what an algorithm is." And they've taken this word that they didn't really understand looked at something and broken something down and played around with it, and then they understand that concept. And then you can see that you know, if it's a 14-16 year old qualification, you might see that in their exam questions as well that they write and they start to understand and really understand that concept.
James Robinson:It's really interesting that you've got, that you've put semantic waves quite so centrally within the kind of the training. It's something that here with our resources when we create and we try to bake semantic wave thinking in, right from the very beginning. And if listeners are unfamiliar with semantic waves you can find more information about that in our Big Book of Pedagogy. But I think it's really, it must be really interesting as well seeing the theoretical concept of a semantic wave, and how its structured, and how it works. Actually seeing that in the classroom, sort of planning it into your lesson and then seeing that reality both for yourself as the educator but also for you as people that have supported those educators that must be really interesting.
Jonny Usherwood:Yeah, definitely and what you find is that sometimes let's say a teacher has not necessarily planned it in and focused it all, the lesson around it. But they've introduced the concept and the pupils it's just not, they've not understood that concept. And so they naturally "Right how can I get my pupils to understand this concept?" So they almost naturally go through a semantic wave and related to what they know for example, an algorithm "Well you brushed your teeth this morning. What was the, what was the process you went through when you brushed your teeth this morning?" And so "Oh okay. I went through some steps." So that's also interesting to see from an observation point of view as well. One of the things we really like about semantic waves is the fact that more often than not and I'm talking from experience when we were all in bubbles in classrooms, back post covid, or covid, or whatever time it was. When we didn't have access to computer science classrooms all the time. And so actually semantic waves is a really good pedagogy that you don't necessarily have to have the, the equipment for as well the technology for, you can do it unplugged. So it's really really important as well for when we're teaching the pedagogies.
Daljit Shoker:Oh, yeah. I was just going to expand on that how important it is the theoretical knowledge and then the practical teaching experience. So as a CS educator myself, I think we've all possibly been a little bit guilty where we can assume that the pupils that we're teaching because they use computing in their everyday lives. So for example with their smartphone devices if they've got their own laptops and iPads, tablet devices. We assume that they know because they can send an email or a text message that they might understand the actual theoretical aspects of how that works. But in reality they don't. And I think that's where its really important where that practical teaching, the pupils that we have in front of us the skill set they have is really really strong, but the knowledge gaps where it comes to the theoretical understanding is where it's really important to us as educators that we check their understanding, and we're questioning, and making sure that they know for example when they're sharing their hot spots with their friends, family what that actually means in terms of using networks.
James Robinson:Yeah, I think sometimes like the students they've learnt a lot of these skills and it is fundamentally skills that they've learned without necessarily having built that conceptual understanding first. And a lot of what we do in computing is we might start with the conceptual understanding and then develop those into skills later on. So we find ourselves particularly in those those areas where students who maybe have some experience, having to unpick some of those skills a little bit and sort of build the groundwork back in, and that's where maybe you're having to unpick some misconceptions they might have developed.
Sway Grantham:Yeah. I think it's really reassuring for a lot of teachers though, when we're looking at their development that, to take note of that. That these young people kind of, it looks flashy that they can do all these wizzy things on a device and they can make it get to the quickest way to get to YouTube or Netflix or whatever the in thing is. But then actually when you do probe that understanding there are gaps in that knowledge and I think it can be quite intimidating as an educator if you've moved into the subject, or if you're in primary and you're suddenly having to teach computing for the first time. But it feels like these young people some of them very very young know a lot more than you do, when actually when you start to ask those questions and poke it is a superficial level of understanding. They've learned some processes. They've got some basic skills, which is great. Let's not knock it, let's build on that. But coming first with that conceptual understanding and I think when we're designing training experiences to help educators to see that and to make that transition can be a really valuable learning opportunity for them to not be fazed by the flashy. Jonny.
Jonny Usherwood:Reminds me of in my teaching classroom. I had big red letters above the whiteboard."It's not a Wi-Fi box. It's a wireless router." Because that was a big bug bear of mine. That really links to what you, what you're just saying there Sway.
James Robinson:Whenever we used to write comments in Python and the kids would refer to it as a hashtag and I would be like "It's not a hashtag!" Or my kids say "I'm going to go and search it up on Google." And I'm like "What the hell is searching it up?" But anyway, that's just me being a bit old I think potentially. I think one of the things I think we're probably all agreeing on is this idea that you know that that practical experience and being like mindful and paying attention to what's going on around you in the classroom is a really vital part of that experience as Jonny you were describing like the different placements earlier on the students go on. I was thinking about all those opportunities you've got to kind of go and make your mistakes to go and like, you know, make all those mistakes in as early as possible. Figure out what the things are that you don't do so that then you can kind of go in with more confidence into their that second kind of placement or that continued kind of, that role. Yeah there's not really a question there, it was just an observation. I don't know where to take that now.
Jonny Usherwood:No do you know what? I, one of the things that we will say to our trainees is because the way in which they work is they send the subject development leads, they send them an Irish recording of their of their lessons and we'll say to them "We don't necessarily want a perfect lesson." Because...
James Robinson:Would you say an Irish recording, that's a video recording of the lesson?
Jonny Usherwood:Yeah, video recording of the lesson. And we will say something "We don't want a perfect lesson because we are here to support you, and we're here to support you with some knowledge in your subject pedagogy. So it doesn't have to be every lesson does not have to be perfect. And if every lesson was perfect, I think you would be exhausted within a week and you would not be able to get up on the Monday morning after." And that's really important for us is, this is about trialling things out. It's about things. Things don't always work. You will get variables that happen. Something will happen at break time with pupils that completely send your lesson off course, and that's fine because that's what happens in school and it doesn't always go exactly to how you've planned it.
James Robinson:It's a craft, right? It takes time to develop.
Jonny Usherwood:Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Sway Grantham:And I think like we've talked a lot about early career teachers and getting into the subject of computing and it's great that they have so many opportunities to, to learn, to develop, that support network to help them and get the best start. But I think there's also a lot of teachers that come to computing as a subject having experience in teaching and knowing all about teaching and learning and individual differences, but being new to the subject of computing. But I think there's something we can learn there about accountability and showing off our best lesson versus opportunities to practice things. Something I heard we did in schools some time. So we'd have one week where the rule was you had to try something new and your management team would not be able to come around and make any judgments about it. And it was this safe space. It was one week and you had to feedback what you tried, and it really gave educators the opportunity to think. What am I doing? What could I do that I always think "Oh, it'd be cool but..." It took away one of those barriers and I think the more we can give opportunities to have a safe space, to reduce the accountability where we can and I know that that's harder in some year groups and in some schools than others. The greater opportunities there could be for teachers to really understand the range of things they could be trying in a classroom and not reduced to the kind of narrow set they got in their initial teacher training years.
James Robinson:I think it's a way of preventing like teachers becoming like there's that that craft becoming stale or or overly safe. You want to take a few risks. You want to try a few things out and it's if your school won't let you do that. I always found like my Code Club was the place where I would go and try out some wacky random stuff. And then if it worked I'd bring it into the classroom and use it there. So yeah, I think it's all about these sort of practical experiences its really important.
Daljit Shoker:I was just thinking on the flip side of that. I've had some trainee teachers who've got for example, they might have three classes of 11 to 12 year olds, and they will try and teach programming using t he PRIMM pedagogy for example. And for certain classes it will work really well. When they try to apply the same lesson with the same activity and pedagogical approach. It doesn't necessarily work with another class. And and I said to them that is absolutely fine. It's you've just got to adapt your way of teaching to suit those learners and it could be that you then apply some code tracing or paired programming depending on if those pupils liked, you know if they are a bit more boisterous and they've got bit more energy. They want to not do as much active listening. They need to do a little bit more engaging activity and speak to each other to share ideas.
James Robinson:And let's face it as well. You might need to apply different pedagogies based on the time of day or the time of the week with the same class.
Daljit Shoker:Yep.
James Robinson:You know, Friday afternoon with year nine whatever is very different to a Monday Monday lesson, because they're just not in the right frame of mind. So I think yeah building that toolkit...
Daljit Shoker:Yeah.
James Robinson:Of different approaches is really important as well.
Daljit Shoker:Yep the time of the day definitely.
James Robinson:And whether it's rained at lunch.
Sway Grantham:Windy. In Primary, it's all about the wind.
Jonny Usherwood:Windy. It's the same with me at secondary- with sixth formers even 16 to 18 year olds, even the wind would or something outside the window a tractor can disctract them.
James Robinson:Any excuse to be distracted right?
Jonny Usherwood:Yeah.
Daljit Shoker:And that all comes with experience doesn't it, being able to quickly think on your feet. Something's happened at break or lunch or the weather dynamics have changed. What can you quickly do to adapt that lesson to make it more engaging for everyone.
James Robinson:Has anyone else? Or this is just maybe a weird thing. But a weird thing that I seem to remember is like sometimes when you've had those lessons where you come into the room. The kids are just, they're just not ready for the lesson you had prepared. And so you have to think of something else for them to do on their feet, on your feet sorry. And then that just turns out to be the best lesson you've taught in just a fortnight or something. And you're just like "I don't know where that came from, but the kids enjoyed that and I just made it up on the spot." Kind of thing. Is that is that something that you guys have had as well?
Jonny Usherwood:Yep, definitely. Yeah. Yeah.
James Robinson:Sway's not nodding because she's a planner, she doesn't like...
Sway Grantham:No I think I was more thinking of like, I was answering the question in my head as to why. And I think its that because you're tuned in to there needs you're being super responsive and aware of the context that you're in and the environment. And like the flip side of sticking to your plan. No-holds-barred. I planned this lesson, I would do exactly what it says. Actually, it's far more challenging but it's a security blanket for a lot of teachers. So in terms of that development, we've been talking about having the more experience, you collect more ideas, that toolkit expands of what you can lean into. I think the other thing that came to mind for me in this space is it sounds really hard. Well, what if I just don't have that experience? What do I do? And I think there's a mount of peer learning like making time to talk to colleagues and to talk not necessarily just in your subject in other subjects as well who do all have Friday afternoon lessons. They may not be the same as your Friday afternoon lesson, but they do have that. There can be a lot of value and you can gain a lot in sharing and discussing what you have experienced and that builds your toolkit out before you've had a chance to teach every lesson in every possible way. And I think like online courses and modalities like that give you an opportunity to that internationally as well and they can be a lot gained from finding out how people in a very different setting to yours actually have the same challenges and how they deal with them. It can give you a different insight into how to deal with those challenges and can really help your development in that space.
Jonny Usherwood:Yeah, and I think what's so important in terms of the unqualified teacher timetable and an early career teacher. They've got reduced hours on the timetable and it's so important. And we encourage it at Teach First. Use those hours go and watch somebody else, go and do some CPD during that time. Don't just use it for marking whilst that can be really tempting to do, go and use it in school, go and watch someone else in your department, go and watch a science teacher, go and watch an art teacher. Because you can learn so much from it. Not just in terms of teaching styles, but also the ways that they might use technology in the classroom. If it's another computing lesson or it could be a business lesson that are using computers at the time. So, so much can be learned from using that time especially when you've got that time because you're not going to that time forever.
James Robinson:And that markings not going anywhere right? And it's never going to end so you may as well, I think if you can find those opportunities that aren't going to last then yeah.
Jonny Usherwood:Yeah, absolutely.
James Robinson:As well as speaking with Jonny and Daljit today I was fortunate enough to attend a recent session run by Teach First and I sat down and spoke for a few minutes with second year trainee Katy. Katy thank you for joining us. It's a real pleasure to have you as part of this episode.
Katy Barber:Thank you for having me.
James Robinson:So you're very early in your teaching career.
Katy Barber:Yeah.
James Robinson:Can you tell me a little bit about your kind of Journey so far in the classroom?
Katy Barber:Yeah, absolutely. So as we record this it is very early 2024, and I joined Teach First back in September 2022. So prior to becoming a teacher, I loved my job as a marketing exec. I had a really fantastic job, but I just fell out of love with it. And outside of work I used to help with girl guiding and I used to love it so much, and I still do it now. And I would come home every single week and I'd think why can't I get paid to do that. And then I don't know it just kind of clicked and I thought well I can get paid to do that. And I started looking at all of the different routes into teaching. Obviously I'd had a job, I'd done the uni' thing, and I thought I don't know if I could go back to university full-time. And then that's when I came across Teach First and the idea that I would be in the classroom from the get-go, but I would have responsibility for my own classes alongside the training, the teaching, and the support of kind of subject experts, and help. And so I just applied and then went through the process and here I am now over a year later and I look back at where I was this time last year and it's been an absolute whirlwind. But I've loved every single second of it, and yeah love it.
James Robinson:That's really, it's really nice to hear that. I think there is that, lots of teachers have a similar experience. They maybe be go into another job and then find it may be a bit dissatisfying and the other bits of the work that may be doing the kind of the work in cl assrooms or with kids in clubs...
Katy Barber:Yeah, this is it.
James Robinson:Is the more engaging point and that kind of brings them in. And so your background isn't necessarily in computing I don't think is it?
Katy Barber:No it isn't.
James Robinson:So brought you into computing as a subject?
Katy Barber:Yeah, so my background was in business and marketing really. But having said that at university I was able to dabble very briefly in topics like big data and a little bit of data analysis. And in my previous role I was doing kind of SQL.
James Robinson:Okay.
Katy Barber:And that was kind of what got me into computer science. But when I first started Python was a whole new world to me. But I think the skills I was able to bring into it from knowing how to use SQL and being quite comfortable with the whole data analysis side of things that kind of made the transition a bit easier for me, but I think the theory side of computer science was huge so vast so so vast. And that was quite a challenge in itself, both me having to learn the content, learn how to teach that content, and then teach that content.
James Robinson:Yeah.
Katy Barber:All in the space of, well a matter of weeks really because you know September rolls around and here are your classes. But no there is so much stuff out there. So many resources that have been so incredibly helpful that I don't think I would have been able to do it without it. And I think that's probably the really amazing thing about computer science. It's you know, what we teach now, it's fairly new like 10 years-ish. But because of the fact it was quite new and it was quite new to the teachers who are teaching it, there are so many resources out there and people are so willing to share and there's fantastic companies out there that make resources for us. And that I think makes it a lot more manageable in terms of delivering.
James Robinson:That's interesting, so has the subject knowledge been a barrier? Has it, has is it like, I don't know, how [...] how important has the subject knowledge been do you think?
Katy Barber:Okay, so I, obviously I think subject knowledge is incredibly important to being able to deliver the subject and if we're thinking about what does success look like in a computer science classroom. Obviously most of us who teach at key stage 4 we're getting a student's exam ready. At which you do need to have that level of subject knowledge, but I would certainly say when I joined back in September 22, I was not a computer science expert. But the things that exist out there have been so helpful. So I've been able to undertake like day courses and even like kind of e-learning that has taken me from there to then I kind of got my GCSE accreditation and I've just had my A level accreditation in the matter of, what is that? Less than 18 months. And I think on the go I thought it was going to be a huge barrier. I won't lie back in September I thought what if a student asks me a question in the room and I have no idea. And guess what it happens, but they really don't mind when you say "Great question let's work out the answer."
James Robinson:Yeah and even those with subject knowledge right so my back, I came in with a degree in computer science...
Katy Barber:Yeah.
James Robinson:And even as someone, you know there's lots of areas there's such a broad subject.
Katy Barber:It's vast, yeah.
James Robinson:That you know students will ask you questions and you're like "I think I do know the answer somewhere."
Katy Barber:Yeah absolutely!
James Robinson:"It's kicking around, but I can't answer this question right now" and so you have to, yeah you have to be honest with your students.
Katy Barber:Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is one thing that I have learned because at first that was so daunting for me. But actually I think my students have really respected that as well, especially when it got to A level. And I remember, so as part to Teach First I have a subjective development lead Jonny, and one of the things he taught me very early on was that at A level they will respect you a lot more if you're really honest because there could be somebody in the room who actually does know the answer and if they see you trying to bluff...
James Robinson:Yeah.
Katy Barber:Then they might think well, you know "who's she taking us for?" Almost and that is exactly what happened. I do think that they respected that honesty, and transparency, and almost that."Okay. Well, let's go and solve that problem together. Let's go and work out that together." Or "You know what, great question. Let me come back to you next week." Or something like that, you know if it's on a particular topic or something. And I've never had issues with that and I think I got over that hurdle quite quickly. But I would say my subject knowledge is probably the thing that I'm most proud of actually if I think where I was at the start to where I am now. And in developing my own subject knowledge, I have developed a love for the subject and I am now so keen to build that subject within my school and to build up the reputation and to you know, increase uptake of girls and I just want to do as much as I can now for the subject because through learning and going from a newbie. And I'm still a newbie, but you know, going from very fresh knowledge. I've just, I've seen in a totally new light. I really have.
James Robinson:That's amazing, that's great. And what do you think then in the time you've been in the classroom...
Katy Barber:Yeah.
James Robinson:What would your reflections be in terms of what do you think it takes, or what makes a great CS educator in the classroom?
Katy Barber:Yeah, I think somebody who is really open to new ideas and new challenges, but also somebody who is able to persevere and just be with resilient with it. There is, it's a huge vast subject to be able to teach and you're never going to be able to know absolutely everything about absolutely every topic. But also nobody expects you to be able to. I think what we need to be able to do is we need to be able to inspire the students we've got in front of us because we need these students to be our future workers in the workspace with problem solving skills, analytical skills, we need them to be our next programmers and if they don't have educators in the room, who are engaging them and inspiring them to do that. Then we're not going to have who we need in the future.
James Robinson:Yeah.
Katy Barber:So I think my biggest piece of advice would just be around being as enthusiastic with the content as possible. Don't worry. If you don't understand a topic at first. Be you know resilient in your own learning because the students were really really appreciate that. And then, you know, if you can have an impact on one student wanting to take that subject at college or wanting to take A level computer science, then you know, if everybody around the country did that that's, that's what we need.
James Robinson:Yeah, that's that's great advice. And then I guess you know and this might be quite personal but like what have you learned about either teaching or about yourself? What's your biggest piece of learning over your journey with teaching?
Katy Barber:My biggest piece of learning. I think one of my biggest piece of learnings is around what does success look like because I came from a very different background to where I teach right now. And I came in with this view of well success is you know, having a set of GCSE's running eights and nines, going on to sixth form to do A levels, going on to university to get a degree. And that could be what success looks like for some students but in my classroom out of a class of 30, yeah two or three maybe that's going to be their path, but for everybody else in that room, they still have a successful path ahead of them, but it doesn't necessarily look like that. And for me it was discovering okay for each individual student in my class. What is it that they want to be able to achieve in the next couple of years? What can I help them with? And what can I do to help them get on to that next step? Because it might not be that they're going to go in and do computer science at A level. But if I can just help them understand, well how do I take a problem and solve it? That's logic skills that they're still going to be able to use in the future. So I think it was really kind of taking that view of what is success? Success is different for everybody in the room. What can I do to help them achieve it though? And that was very very impactful.
James Robinson:Fantastic. Thank you so much for spending some time talking to me today Katy.
Katy Barber:Thank you for having me.
James Robinson:That was really inspirational and great to hear from your experience in the early classroom.
Katy Barber:Thank you.
James Robinson:Well personally I've really enjoyed today's conversation. If you have a question or comment about our discussion today, then you can email via podcast@helloworld.cc or you can tweet us at Helloworld_edu. Our thanks to Jonny, Daljit and Katie for sharing their time and experience and expertise with us today. So Sway what did we learn?
Sway Grantham:I really liked how much we talked around the range of development opportunities available to teachers. We didn't just stick with going on a training course or doing an online course, we talked about the role of observations reflecting on your practice talking to peers and I think all of those are great takeaways for whatever stage of teaching your in currently.
James Robinson:And I learned that I think there's always room to make mistakes.