The Rise of CS Across the Pond with Phil Bagge

The Rise of CS Across the Pond with Phil Bagge
Jared O'Leary
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In this interview with Phil Bagge, we discuss the rise of CS in UK curricula, the evolution of Phil’s pedagogical approach, how time constraints impact pedagogical approaches, not letting the loudest voices drive instruction, how research informs Phil’s approach for working with teachers new to CS, how to emphasize student agency in teacher professional development, and much more.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    each week alternates between an episode

    where i unpack some scholarship

    and an episode where i interview one or

    more guests in this week's particular

    episode i'm

    interviewing phil bagg who has been

    doing computer science education in the

    uk before it became part of the national

    curriculum

    in our conversation today we discussed

    the rise of cs in the uk

    the evolution of phil's pedagogical

    approach how time constraints impact

    pedagogical approaches

    not letting the loudest voices drive

    instruction our research informs phil's

    approach for working with teachers new

    to cs how to emphasize student agency

    and teacher professional development

    and so much more there are people and

    organizations and curricula that phil

    mentions in this particular episode and

    i include links to those in the show

    notes which you can find at

    o'leary.com or by simply clicking the

    link in the description for the app that

    you're listening to this on

    all that being said we will now begin

    with an introduction by phil

    so my name's full bag and i have quite a

    lot of jobs really

    lots of different sort of variety of

    things i do i teach at two different

    primary schools

    i have done my best to maintain having a

    teaching role still

    unlike most primary school teachers

    which is your elementary school in the

    states

    i don't teach all the curriculum i just

    teach the computing

    then i also work for hampshire's

    inspection and advisory

    service so i work helping schools

    running training working with the

    computing

    managers computing leads persons

    responsible for their computing

    curriculum in school

    working with them helping them to design

    new curricula run lots and lots of

    training

    cpd continual professional development

    that's

    really me in a nutshell really can you

    tell me the story of how

    you started teaching computer science

    education like in the classroom before

    it was actually part of

    a national curriculum yeah so this is

    quite an interesting one really so i was

    an ict skills advisor we actually had a

    job title called an advanced skills

    teacher and what that means is that i

    talked as a primary school teacher for

    four days a week and then i was employed

    to go

    and support other schools anywhere in my

    sort of area

    and to help them with computing and i

    loved the job it was great fun

    loads of opportunities to get into

    schools and i'd done

    lots and lots of work in my own school

    at really sort of raising the level of

    ict

    information and communication technology

    and i loved it and we've done lots of

    things with we wanted the first schools

    to go

    and have a google domain even before

    there was google classroom

    we'd rolled that out to first of all the

    teachers then the year six children

    that's the ten to elevens and then

    all the way down what years and years

    before anyone else had got into all of

    that

    i loved all of those things but i always

    felt that there was a sort of a plateau

    where children could get to once you

    sort of learn every sort of

    google skill or you learn every word

    processing aspect or how to make a good

    video and all of that's got

    you know loads of great things in it

    there was nowhere else they could go

    and i was sort of looking for something

    that would really challenge my pupils

    and really make them interested and give

    them that sort of sense of something

    that they could

    really improve and that there was so

    much bigger than them

    that they could really sort of dig their

    teeth into and think oh i can really

    start with this but i'm not gonna

    finish it in a couple of weeks you know

    i was looking around for something and i

    bumped into computing at schools which

    was an organization that was starting to

    so promote

    computing science in the classroom so i

    joined that

    i think about 2012 and it was just a

    mailing list when i joined it from all

    sorts of people

    across the country you know from lots of

    different perspectives and i joined it

    from the sort of primary side

    and i started just experimenting you

    know i started trying all sorts of

    programming things with my

    class that i had then i am probably the

    only person

    ever who has tried to teach python with

    seven and eight year olds

    you know so because i didn't really know

    any better i just tried all sorts of

    things and

    little by little i made some horrendous

    mistakes one of which i've just

    mentioned

    i sort of realized there was something

    really quite cool in all this and really

    quite exciting and i loved some of the

    things that the children would

    be able to get into and i loved the fact

    that it was just so much more open-ended

    with so much more sort of knowledge and

    understanding that they really

    had no chance of plumbing in the depths

    of

    my time with them anyway so what i did

    is i actually approached a whole load of

    head teachers because i

    had this other role i approached a whole

    load of head teachers

    and i said how about you come and let me

    work for you in your school and i'll

    teach some computing science

    now i've got to be honest i think most

    of them didn't have a clue what i was

    talking about

    but because i had a good reputation as

    somebody who would improve their ict

    curriculum they thought you know

    so five of them said yes and i ended up

    sort of going through all these

    different schools

    you know half day here a day here and

    teaching computing science

    and lots of programming lots of scratch

    so i'm doing this and then of course

    just after i started this

    the announcement came that ict was going

    and it was going to change into

    computing

    and so there was a new national

    curriculum which was written

    and so everything sort of changed but i

    sort of preempted that i remember at one

    point having a video

    chat with about four people in the uk

    and we were probably the only four

    people in primary

    who were teaching any computing science

    you know anywhere and two of them were

    in private school and then there was me

    and southampton in a state school

    and there was another lady that was

    about it

    at that point so yeah that's sort of how

    i got into that sort of cider

    so how did it go from like a small group

    of people who were engaging this

    into being part of the national

    curriculum basically i think there had

    been

    quite a lot of lobbying of the then

    education

    secretary who was doing a big curriculum

    rewrite anyway

    a lot of the people in the computing at

    school sort of group

    lobbied and worked on and they basically

    i think persuaded him

    to allow them to write a new curriculum

    now i didn't get involved in the

    original writing it bit

    but i did get involved in the first edit

    of it which was quite exciting and

    actually

    whatever anybody says it did have some

    primary school teachers it did have some

    secondary school teachers you know it

    wasn't just an imposed curriculum on

    us i don't think we got everything right

    really

    exciting and interesting process and i

    never thought in any of my time

    that i would ever be involved in taking

    part in editing a national document so

    that was quite exciting in some ways

    what were some of the motivations behind

    lobbying for it so like i see a lot of

    value in computer science

    in general but the typical discourse in

    the united states is well there's these

    unmet jobs we need to fill this job

    market by

    training kids k-12 now so that way they

    can

    fill these jobs i'm curious is it

    similar in england like is that

    part of the push for getting it in the

    national curriculum or was it something

    completely different

    in the uk there was a lot more made of

    jeanette wings call to have

    computational thinking skills

    so i think that was part of it and then

    i think there was a visit by somebody

    quite prominent from either google

    or one of the big tech firms who came

    over and gave a speech and basically

    said look

    you know you guys from the uk you did a

    brilliant job of

    kicking off sort of computing in the

    early days you know you've got the

    original code breakers at brixley park

    you know and you've got all that

    wonderful sort of starting and you've

    sort of abandoned it all and you've

    missed out on that strand

    and then there was a lot of teachers

    from the sort of 1980s when there was

    an aspect of computing science in the

    curriculum going yeah you know there was

    and

    we sort of abandoned it and gone sort of

    microsoft office

    i think probably a lot of people sort of

    saying well we've missed something

    we've cut something out of our

    curriculum and we're at danger of

    missing out i don't think

    really the main thing that was pushed

    was a jobs market i certainly don't

    remember it like that anyway

    yeah that's interesting one of the

    things i'm interested in is just like

    the larger discourse like how are people

    communicating and whatnot but like

    another thing that i'm

    really interested in is the changes that

    educators or the system as a whole makes

    over time

    and so like i have been constantly

    reflecting on well how is it that i have

    changed over the last

    number of years that i've been in

    education but i'm curious from your own

    standpoint like

    how has your own approach to pedagogy or

    philosophy as

    education changed over time and like

    what led to some of those changes

    yeah i think in some ways i was at a

    little bit of a disadvantage when i

    first got into this because

    there was almost nobody anywhere doing

    computing science at the level of

    education i was doing

    and so my first of course was to go and

    look at the sort of scratch foundation

    and

    at that point it seemed to mostly be

    saying right just let the children get

    on and do this stuff

    let's just be totally constructionist

    you should just be the person who's

    there facilitating a bit and now okay i

    know that's

    probably a little bit of caricature

    of what they were saying so i tried that

    approach first of all

    right let's go play with this stuff and

    see what we can come up with and after

    about six months of doing that i

    felt really depressed i thought actually

    i'm not convinced any of my pupils are

    really making any progress they seem to

    be stuck on

    lots of coloring in sprites lots of very

    very low level activities

    and so i thought i've just got to try

    something different really so then i

    went probably

    the opposite and i went very

    instructionist and a lot of copy coding

    and then of course you're trying to sort

    of still keep that creativity in there

    so you're thinking well okay

    we're copy coding but i've got to give

    children a chance to make some stuff as

    well because

    it's no point if you're just copying it

    that's boring you know so

    did that for a while wrote lots of work

    off of that

    tried lots of things found that that was

    quite a good

    introductional approach that children

    you know

    learned the sort of programming

    environment from that sort of things

    but after about i don't know 18 months

    two years of that

    maybe a little bit longer i looked at

    sort of what was coming out a couple of

    years

    later of the children who had just done

    that approach

    and i was sort of equally depressed

    really i just thought well i've sort of

    gone the other way and

    there are a group of children who are

    doing quite well from this

    but it's not all of them it's not

    universal it's not equitable enough you

    know

    so i felt quite depressed about that at

    that point i'd even written a book with

    lots of open projects in there

    and things so it was quite a big sort of

    thing really for me

    just to come back and think hang on

    there's got to be a better way really

    and it's probably at that point i came

    back and started

    reading a lot much computing research

    and at that point you and the states had

    gotten bored

    people from israel got on broad loads of

    people were sort of getting on board

    this

    and so we're starting to see more

    research come out

    and more people writing research for

    novice programmers

    in block based languages so then it

    becomes a bit more interesting and at

    that point i'm reading loads and loads

    of stuff

    and having really sort of teach myself a

    lot of things as well at the same time i

    mean i was really lucky

    that one of my really good friends in

    southampton professor

    les carr at southampton university he

    has just been a wonderful mentor

    the type of person who's happy to sit

    there and explain something

    to an absolute idiot like myself on

    occasions you know and that has been

    just brilliant

    and so being able to have that time to

    unpick ideas

    read research i actually ended up going

    back

    to sort of use modify crate which i'd

    looked at

    quite a long time in the past but i

    hadn't really sort of engaged with it i

    thought well this sounds good

    and even had a little go at it but i'd

    taken it a bit too much at face value

    so i'd given the children stuff right go

    use this and then right let's make some

    changes to it and i hadn't been very

    sort of

    guided through the process and then of

    course

    one of my favorite researchers in the uk

    is a sue sentence

    and she came up with this sort of prim

    which is a lovely adaptation of views

    modify creates

    now her research is all a secondary

    pupils which is our sort of 11 year olds

    plus

    but i thought to myself hang on this

    then made more sense of use modify crate

    because it made me think actually it's

    not just use it's more investigate

    and investigate can be a bit more of a

    guided process

    it can be a little bit more you know you

    the teacher think about the concepts and

    things you want them to come up with

    you want them to really look at so maybe

    you should write some questions for that

    and really sort of focus what they look

    at

    and the same for the modify aspect you

    know maybe

    if we get children to really sort of

    focus in on the bits

    so if i've taught them about count

    controlled loops let's ask them to

    modify some count controlled loops and

    then they'll learn a bit more about

    count controlled loops

    and the lovely bit also was that was

    adding that lovely predict bit

    before everything that thinking about

    the bigger purpose for the code

    then really the process for me has been

    trying all of that so trying a sort of

    strand of use modified crate but with a

    bit more structure to it

    trying to work out what's a really good

    way to go from pupils who modify code

    to pupils who can create because in fact

    if they can't come out with agency in

    the programming process

    what's the point they're not going to

    enjoy you're not going to enjoy it

    so how do we get them to go from that

    modifying bit to the creating bit

    and that's been a really exciting thing

    you know sort of making slightly harder

    modifications

    often with a sort of block based

    programming approach at first i would

    give children a whole project to make

    right you know go make something that

    uses controlled loops and then thinking

    well actually

    it's easy for the child to start in the

    original project that you made

    and add a whole thing into there because

    that's nearer to the modification

    they've got all their examples on hand

    oh okay that's a better first step and

    then they can get into making their own

    you know totally independent thing it's

    been a sort of a real

    process of looking at this research and

    thinking what's cool about it

    what works and how can i adapt this from

    something that was written for python

    for text-based languages how can i adapt

    that

    into block based languages and for my

    much younger children as well

    and also as a computing inspector and

    advisor

    i'm always thinking well that's great

    but i've also got lots of teachers are

    going to be teaching this who don't have

    the same level of knowledge that i have

    so how can i write stuff into that

    questions and hints and

    things so that it enables them to teach

    this successfully

    and actually the prim structure really

    works

    well for that with the sort of questions

    because

    it's a lot closer for our elementary

    primary teachers

    to a lot of the strategies they use for

    teaching literacy

    and english and math in fact it fits

    better pedagogically

    for what they understand for other areas

    of teaching i had a lovely

    training session where i went in and i

    did some things for the first sort of

    evening

    and i left them with some modules of

    work to do and

    two of the year five teachers which are

    nine to ten year olds

    about a month later i came back and they

    said oh phil this is brilliant we went

    and did this with our class and they

    totally nearly got it and then really

    they just sold it to the rest of the

    school you know

    that all the other teachers who were not

    quite sure again oh yeah yeah this is

    called it

    because it's a lot closer to working

    pedagogy that they can see happening in

    other areas

    as well the other thing that's been a

    big thing for me with this has been

    the introduction of concepts and

    thinking about progression as well

    i realized early on that i introduced

    too many concepts too quickly

    there was a lot of cognitive overload so

    going back to things like

    non-computing science things like

    sweller's work on

    cognitive load theory and thinking

    actually why is it children love this

    lesson

    but the next week they can't remember

    half of it you know

    and thinking well actually maybe it's

    because i introduced too many things

    and i've just literally cognitively

    overloaded them really

    so coming back out of that and thinking

    well okay well

    what's a good progression taking some

    lovely stuff from your everyday

    computing guys who have done a

    great job in a really nice progression

    and really helped me for definites to

    think that through

    and to think about what's more complex

    that has made a big difference to my

    curriculum

    taking things i used to do in eight nine

    year olds and you can actually

    loops in loops that is a really

    complicated one let's leave that to a

    little bit later

    you know maybe variables too early let's

    leave that to a bit later you know and i

    love also

    sushi grover all her vela stuff all her

    understanding

    the concept away from the computer first

    and we've always done

    quite a lot of that in primary anyway

    she brought about a bit more rigor

    to that aspect than i'd had before and

    that has also helped

    a lot of the teachers that we're working

    with because they like this idea of

    introducing a concept

    away from the programming language first

    there's some nice research about the

    transferability of that between

    different programming languages as well

    if you teach the concepts away from

    just one programming language which i've

    definitely seen

    children find it easier to go from one

    block based programming language to

    another

    because the concepts were taught outside

    of the programming language so it's

    easier for them to

    take that and go oh yeah that's a count

    controlled whatever

    that's an indefinite loop you know we

    got that that was nothing to do with

    scratch that was just a concept we did

    in an algorithm somewhere you know

    so yeah if people haven't heard i did an

    interview with shuchi

    and it's a good interview she's got a

    book that came out probably about a year

    ago

    so i can dive deeper into that having

    like

    worked in research but also as an

    educator like i know there's always like

    more questions to ask and like i really

    wish there was more research on

    a b or c i'm curious for you like what

    do you wish there's more research on

    that could inform what you do or what

    the teachers do that you work with

    yeah i think one of the biggest

    difficulties for me

    has been having to take often research

    that is

    one stage of education above where i'm

    at or even sometimes two stages

    and try and think well how can i get the

    bits out of that which would work for my

    elementary pupils

    so a big thing for me would be to have

    much

    more elementary research into this

    and we've got a lovely lady jane waite

    in the uk

    who's done some lovely primary based

    elementary based research

    into design in programming especially

    with sort of block based things

    and i just think we need more of that

    really no

    not siri that bit but more research into

    elementary aspects of this

    because i think we can garner things

    from research at a higher level but

    we're always having to then

    do that thing where we're yes that's

    true but also our children have got less

    experience of life or of maths or of

    literacy

    you have to do that sort of translation

    approach which is not always the easiest

    thing

    so yeah that would be a big one for me

    yeah that makes sense a lot of the

    research that i've

    been interested in have been in more

    informal spaces and those informal

    spaces usually are with older people but

    also have a range from like elementary

    kids through

    like adult and because of that like it's

    kind of hard to sometimes translate into

    what would this look like in a

    formalized educational space and

    it was fun experimenting with that but

    it definitely was a lot of work trying

    to

    reconceive of something in a new venue

    essentially i enjoyed it in that really

    early stage when i first looked at

    a lot of the programming research almost

    none of it was in a school's context

    having run clubs for children they're a

    very very different thing to

    teaching and you can get a whole load

    more work out of children

    when you're in a formal educational

    space because they're expecting to do

    that

    they're expecting to work hard with this

    well that's my experience anyway so

    i think they are a different thing

    really here's probably

    something a bit controversial i just

    wish everybody

    in research would stop keep saying that

    they are

    following constructionist principles

    almost every single research paper you

    read

    they say and we're all following

    constructionist principles

    and then you read the research and you

    think i don't know

    you're following the construction of

    principal in as much as

    someone's making something which is

    great and actually i think you know that

    massively valuable thing but

    i do get a little bit fed up of reading

    that

    and thinking well you're not really

    following a full constructionist

    principles there really let's be honest

    you know

    yeah i agree with constructionism and a

    couple of other areas of

    research where i have like dove deep in

    it it's clear when some people have read

    the abstract and not actually read

    the large body of work that actually

    describes the thing that they're

    claiming to do so yeah i totally

    totally know what you're talking about

    with that in a prior conversation you

    had mentioned that

    i think it was on average students had

    about 12 hour long sessions throughout

    the year

    i'm curious like how the approaches that

    you've

    kind of like landed on as like hey this

    works really well how those are kind of

    match to that 12 one hour time blocks

    and if you would

    go with a different approach like let's

    say you had like every single day an

    hour a day

    in the classroom well first of all it's

    worth saying that

    we've actually got three times that

    amount of time okay but the

    the programming

    computing science bit okay there's

    another 12 hours which most primary

    schools would use for more

    information technology which could be

    anything from green screening to video

    making to word processing that sort of

    side of things

    and then there's another 12 hours that

    we'd mostly dedicate to online safety

    okay and thinking about how do we make

    good citizens

    schools are totally free to change that

    percentage of time

    and to do more of different things i

    confess that on occasions i do

    do more computing science than the other

    two but it is important to do some of

    the other two as well

    and actually for our primary pupils you

    know they do need functional

    skills in things as well as the

    understanding of computing science and

    and they do need to have a really good

    discussion think about

    some of the issues around being a good

    citizen

    online and how they can avoid some of

    the dangers and make the most of some of

    the positive things so

    you know that's important too so

    although i have a bias towards the

    computing science i have to say

    having taught all of them for many many

    years i think it is important that we do

    have a balanced curriculum that has

    other things in there as well

    now the original question though it was

    about i suspect you know if i had more

    time than those 12 hour sessions

    so first of all it's worth saying not

    every school splits it into an hour so

    for some of my schools they have a

    longer slot

    one of my schools i have the equivalent

    of an afternoon a week

    which is about a two and a half hour

    slot so schools are very

    different in their approach to this i

    think it is true that that sort of

    code comprehension methodologies that

    sort of use modified crate prim

    those sorts of things do lend themselves

    quite well to picking them up

    starting something go working that way

    through it quite independently

    in pairs so it actually does work quite

    well on that sort of

    slot for so many weeks sort of yeah i

    ask cause like i've worked in

    some districts where i would see the

    kids every single week

    year but then i also worked in another

    district where

    i would see the kids for three weeks

    straight every day for like 40 minutes

    and then i wouldn't see them again for

    six more weeks so like

    each approach was like afforded some

    things but also constrained other

    approaches that i could have used so

    like project-based learning was great

    for the three-week

    chunk of time because every day they

    were coming in and working on things but

    that

    might not have worked as well when i

    only saw them 30 minutes for a little

    bit

    but they all kind of had their pros and

    cons so i was just curious if it would

    change for you

    okay so it's worth saying i tend to use

    the code comprehension stuff for

    the programming that we're doing which

    is mostly screen based

    if i'm doing projects that involve

    design and technology

    that involve things like the crumble

    control board

    we do an independent electronics project

    we do a robot wars project

    and those tend to have a different

    structure to them

    it's a lot more difficult to do code

    comprehension with those sorts of things

    and in some ways i use the screen based

    stuff to really sort of

    make sure children really understand

    that and then when you get into doing

    the more

    the projects which involve building

    things as well

    that you're not having to teach so much

    of that and you are much more doing a

    sort of a

    creative project a more project based

    learning approach

    that is a different thing and i have

    tried a bit of code comprehension with

    that

    side of things and it sort of works i

    wouldn't have said that was the best

    thing for that

    i'm still trying to work out the optimal

    strategy for that sort of programming

    experience really

    now the way you're describing this it

    sounds like it's almost like a set

    time or a set class that students go to

    separate from like their i don't know if

    you call like a homeroom teacher

    is that accurate it is for me in my

    schools that i teach in

    but in most primary schools that

    wouldn't be in most primary schools

    computing would be like every other

    subject would be taught by the class

    teacher

    your homeroom teacher you know wouldn't

    be a specialist

    so there are schools that do employ

    specialists to do it but

    the majority would be the class teacher

    so of course anything you do

    has to work for somebody who's a

    non-specialist really

    so with that being said like in the

    states like when it is a just like a

    general classroom teacher

    they're often trying to find ways to

    integrate with another subject area it's

    not learning computer science for the

    sake of learning computer science or

    computational thinking

    it's trying to find a way okay yeah we

    value that but we really need to improve

    our math scores so is there a way that

    we can do both at the same time

    is that also something that teachers in

    uk deal with or

    is it like a separate no we learn

    computer science for the sake of

    learning computer science

    it's interesting that because left over

    from our old ict curriculum

    was this idea of the best way to teach

    ict was to integrate it into other areas

    so a lot of people took that when they

    went from ict to computing

    they took that approach and went oh yes

    we previously if we were going to do

    word processing we might do that with a

    literacy fill

    or the history project and actually

    there's a lot of brilliant stuff that

    integrates really well from that one of

    the things i've argued

    very much for though is to look at

    computing science in a different way

    so i would say that that information

    technology and that

    is a servant to the rest of the

    curriculum

    because in a way it's not really its own

    subject

    it's how to use lots of stuff to work

    our way through the digital world

    whereas what i've argued quite heavily

    in the uk is that actually

    computing science is its own subject now

    that doesn't mean that it's not going to

    have impetus and topic and

    things that you're going to be exciting

    which will link to others but it's not a

    servant to maths

    it's not a servant to history if those

    things coincide

    in a great way go for it there was the

    scratch maths project which was a big uk

    thing

    and that looked at whether learning math

    skills

    using scratch would improve your math

    skills actually although it found that

    it would improve the computational

    thinking

    skills of children it didn't actually

    found that it massively improved their

    math skills really

    personally i think it's much better to

    teach the computing science for its own

    sake

    because it's a really interesting

    exciting subject in its own right

    i think that is respectful to computing

    science

    and that doesn't mean you won't end up

    hitting touching other things i mean i

    do a lovely

    project around cartesian coordinates

    because it fits really well

    and it's a lovely maths link and i do

    think it makes a difference to their

    enjoyment and excitement of using those

    yeah that makes sense and

    from like an educational psychology

    perspective i worry when we focus

    so much on integration in the states

    that it

    gets rid of the joy of being able to

    create through computer science and just

    like

    exploring the medium and it kind of

    turns it into basically like a digital

    equivalent of a worksheet so like yeah

    you're coding but you're just coding to

    solve

    like predetermined answers rather than

    to like create something or solve like

    problems that have open-ended solutions

    so that's kind of like my

    fear with some of the way that i've seen

    integration happen

    i'm a big believer in it's nice if you

    can find a link

    but i think often the thing that loses

    out most when people

    stretch those links and make them fit is

    the computing science

    and i don't think that's fair to the

    subject what it would say though

    is that we should look for a variety of

    genre in this you know

    it shouldn't all be gaming it shouldn't

    all be math stuff

    typically for the primary i think the

    stuff that does some shape drawing type

    stuff is great

    logo was the one that led the way in

    that you know we can definitely do some

    great stuff in scratch or

    other block based programming languages

    gaming definitely making some games is a

    great thing

    and children can put a great stamp of

    interest in what they love

    on that you know and i think some app

    making in for me covers lots and lots of

    other sort of things you might make

    everything from a fish tank to something

    that adds up some numbers or you know

    so i'm a big one for believing that we

    should never

    think that children like certain things

    and we should also be really careful in

    the classroom

    for being driven by what the noisiest

    children say

    they'll have a little story so i

    remember teaching a computing science

    thing which was about

    how we could use computing science to do

    some basic math problems

    and how we could use variables in order

    and there were some quite noisy boys in

    that lesson who would sort of

    in no uncertain terms they'd done the

    work but they'd let me know that it

    wasn't really anywhere near

    as exciting as the gaming project we've

    done previously and i was

    just walking away from this project

    feeling sort of you know

    okay i think that worked they did what i

    wanted them to do but i was just coming

    around the corner and there were these

    five goals and they rushed up

    to their class teacher who they've got a

    better relationship with because

    she teaches them all the time and they

    say oh miss that was a brilliant session

    we really enjoyed that

    it's really interesting and i thought

    phil you

    must not judge it just by the noisiest

    kids in the class

    it actually made me think oh i've just

    got to make those genres available to

    all the children

    as long as we've got a balance of stuff

    that's great and they will find the

    things they enjoy

    and they'll put up with doing the other

    things because they're still learning

    some stuff you know

    yeah that was definitely something that

    i tried to do when i was in the

    classroom and then with the curriculum

    that i currently create like just

    constantly trying to find

    that balance between like stories and

    like design

    and games and apps like so that way it's

    not just like one thing

    because while i might love a game based

    curriculum some kid might hate it

    last year in both of my year five and

    six classes

    the best games were made by my goals

    easily

    really really well produced so i don't

    believe we should think this thing all

    you know it's all the boys who love the

    games

    that's rubbish i just think we should

    just have this open thing which is

    let's give them a wide variety of genres

    and let them find the things they like

    in that

    second guess it either you know because

    we'll probably be wrong

    yeah no that's a good point i'm curious

    like through all these different

    approaches that you've tried

    over the years and like with the

    research how has that kind of informed

    your own approach when working with

    teachers who are new to teaching

    computing in their classrooms

    i think it's interesting there are

    things i still use

    so even from that original instructional

    thing say

    we're doing a session of cpd on

    introducing to scratch

    so i will often do a very instructionist

    because in some ways people need to see

    some stuff early on

    same with my pupils in fact most of them

    can't do co-comprehension type

    methodologies

    if they don't understand the basics of

    the environment so there is a place for

    some of that

    which i think is still useful but i also

    want my students and my teachers to work

    harder than me

    and actually if the only approach is

    instruction i'm probably working harder

    than them whereas actually when i

    get them to start thinking for

    themselves a little bit more

    funneling them into trying some of those

    things

    i also am a big believer in sort of

    paired work

    even for some of the sort of prim stuff

    and for teachers as well i'll say look

    lina i want you to pair up with somebody

    else

    who's about the same so if you've never

    done any of this choose someone who's

    never done any of this

    don't go and find the one person who's

    done it all because that is not going to

    help you

    they will do all the work for your sit

    back and you know so find someone who's

    about the same

    level as you and then you'll struggle

    together

    you've got to know that i'm a big

    believer that we all going to make bugs

    in this that bugs are in

    totally normal don't be worried about i

    won't be funny with you

    i'll be totally cool if you get stuff

    wrong i get stuff wrong in front of the

    children sometimes it's totally normal

    it's going to be normal for you in the

    classroom as well that actually is a

    liberating thing for a lot of teachers

    because they're used to other curriculum

    areas

    where you know if you write the wrong

    spelling of something on there and

    someone comes in it's like

    and here we're saying well actually you

    are going to do the wrong coding

    sometimes it's just

    you know even professor les carr from

    southampton university

    is coping with bugs on a daily basis and

    that's probably

    quite a liberating thing for a lot of

    primary school teachers when they hear

    that

    okay all right so i can start then it's

    not the end of the world if i

    make some mistakes you know the other

    thing i'm a big one when i'm

    working with other teachers it's really

    just talking about

    some of the ways that children avoid

    learning so i will often talk about

    learned helplessness

    how children will try and get you as the

    teacher

    or the child sitting next to them to do

    the work for them and then we look at

    strategies that can help teachers to get

    children around from that

    now secretly i'm doing two things yes

    i'm helping them with real strategies

    that work really well in the classroom

    but i'm also challenging their own

    learned helplessness because actually

    there is in

    almost every elementary primary school

    there are teachers

    who rely on other people to do their

    technology for them and that's not a

    helpful thing for them

    when i've done sessions with this i

    always remember doing

    a really big session with four schools

    and

    the lead head teacher for a whole group

    of about 25 academy schools

    she came up after the first session when

    i talked about learned helplessness and

    she said i've got to be honest with you

    i have been really learnt helpless in

    the past and she said

    i'm going to stop doing that now and i

    tell you something the

    impact i had honestly the amount of work

    that everybody else put in

    because she was leading from example

    really you know

    by recognizing that and you could see

    that at school where we better take this

    seriously and do it if she thinks that

    you know

    you know so that's another big approach

    which i think is really important

    and also i think it's really important

    to just

    put computing because a lot of people in

    the uk

    would not have had a computing

    background in their own education so

    they wouldn't have had a computing

    science bit because it hasn't really

    been in

    our education system for a long time for

    me a lot of that

    is about framing and saying well

    actually what we're doing is the

    gatekeepers to a whole set of knowledge

    and that actually if we leave that bit

    of knowledge out of children's

    curriculum

    then that's another gate that a lot of

    them will never push on

    so really you're restricting their

    opportunities in work in university

    in the future and then also talking

    about

    how much computing although you might

    not become a programmer

    how much an understanding computing can

    be interesting for lots of other

    sciences

    and for all sorts of other areas of

    development so i think you know don't

    just think about it as

    you're opening up programming you're

    opening up children's eyes to how a lot

    of the world works

    and that might be useful for them later

    on when they go and do other things as

    well and if you don't open that door a

    lot of them will never push it

    themselves

    and actually primary school teachers are

    pretty cool at wanting to give

    opportunity

    yeah and actually often find rise to

    that occasion

    you've mentioned it a little bit but i'm

    curious like how do you

    encourage teachers to do this in a way

    that emphasizes

    agency with kids so whatever strategy

    you're choosing

    whatever sort of pedagogy i think it's

    important to have an agreement with your

    pupils

    that actually they are going to get some

    create time in there

    say i'm using something like the code

    comprehension methodologies

    what that's been great is great for

    enabling me to actually support those

    children who need the support

    most so i typically two-thirds of my

    children can get on with that pretty

    independently and with a partner

    they can do it they can mark it then

    they can go on to the next sections they

    can do it themselves

    but that then freed me up to work with

    those children who need me to read stuff

    who might need me to scribe a question

    because their writing's not so fast

    what's been absolutely wonderful out of

    this has been seeing those children who

    in previous lessons i might not even

    notice that they'd actually

    not done much now really giving them the

    time

    so my whole focus and time is then taken

    up really with helping them because the

    rest of the children getting on doing it

    pretty independently

    and that has been absolutely lovely i

    mean i've had children where the class

    teacher has said to me well so and so

    uncertain i

    really can't get them to do anything and

    then we've had some sessions and

    because i've read the questions to them

    and then they've played and worked

    out and puzzled it out and then

    sometimes i've said oh what do you think

    what's the answer oh yeah write this mr

    mac and they've got the

    questions right they've got the answer

    right they've tested stuff themselves

    they've done it themselves

    sometimes you're seeing their look on

    their faces of realizing that they're in

    a total mainstream lesson

    and they've achieved just as highly as

    all the rest of the children there

    it's just wonderful yeah and then the

    other thing part of the agreement really

    if a child is really working hard with

    that maybe

    engaging with me with reading those or

    having a real good go

    if they're struggling after a certain

    period of time if i feel they've really

    worked hard i would just go and cross a

    couple of questions off the end of their

    to-do list

    to get them onto the next section to

    make sure they get at least a third of

    that lesson

    if not more to actually make something

    because there's nothing worse

    not having that create time in that

    personal agency really

    children pick up if you're fair you know

    whether you're fearing how you are with

    the class your discipline structures

    your

    relationships so really protecting those

    bits of the curriculum and making sure

    that they have full access to every bit

    of it

    which includes that create time goes

    down very well with them

    and i think i get more effort out of

    them because they know i'm going to make

    sure they get some time to make some

    stuff

    one of my critiques that i've seen with

    some people who focus on computational

    thinking or even computer science is

    they do it for the sake of understanding

    but not applying and so

    they don't actually create things with

    it i've always had a problem with that

    like

    having a background in music education

    like when i was getting my degrees i had

    to take music theory courses

    and music theory courses you're

    analyzing music for the sake of

    analyzing music you don't actually

    compose anything

    you don't create anything new you're

    just looking at what somebody else

    created and went oh this might be what

    they thought of but it's probably not it

    and so there's like no application of

    the understanding of it

    it's not that there's not value in it

    it's just like what's the point of

    learning this thing if i can't

    do something with it and i can't create

    my own music or my own

    program or whatever no i totally and

    utterly agree with you

    actually i think it was diane levitt i

    did a session

    in new york on agency although i'd

    always had this idea of agency before i

    think it was who gave me that first word

    you know when i was trying to learn some

    programming

    just having a list of this does this and

    this does this and this does this

    i can read it through i can have a quick

    go at those things

    after a while i lose the will to live

    and so actually it's so important to do

    something with it and i think

    any methodology that you choose it's

    important that it has

    some form of creation i personally don't

    think that

    stops at primary i think that should go

    through all of

    computing science education yeah you

    know my friend les carl will tell me

    right

    so his students are off to make this web

    app that fits with this sort of

    aspect of much much more complex

    programming and i think well yeah

    so you're still having that agency and

    that creation and that

    gui design and that you know as part of

    your project so

    yeah i'm a big one for thinking that's

    important what do you think

    is like preventing educators from doing

    as well as they would like to

    in the classroom or with computer

    science like as an example in the states

    all these standardized tests that takes

    the focus and anything that takes time

    away from that is considered to be like

    less than so computer science is often

    put on the back burner as like well no i

    need to focus on preparing students for

    this particular test so like that's how

    i might respond like well maybe we

    shouldn't really focus on

    tests as much so in the uk because the

    computing science is part of the

    national curriculum

    state schools have to actually teach it

    and now that doesn't mean they have to

    teach in the way i think they should

    teach it you know they can choose

    whatever they like

    so that is a real plus so you've already

    got this sort of starting position

    that definitely helps you've got a sort

    of common set of aims

    and what we found in our school

    inspection system

    previous to the last sort of ten years

    or so

    or five years really the inspection

    system's been focused very heavily on

    maths and literacy

    so you're right and then what happens is

    teachers because the inspection system

    is focused on that in primary

    then teachers squeeze all the systems

    and heads

    squeeze all of the other bits of

    curriculum and to do more

    maths and literacy because that's what

    you're being judged on so we do have

    that

    we have a situation though about two

    years ago really where

    the chief inspector for schools

    recognized

    that actually the other aspects of

    education were being squeezed

    and started to tweak the inspection

    system to asking questions about the

    wider curriculum

    and actually that's been really useful

    for us because it's enabled us

    to encourage schools to take geography

    and history and art and

    music and computing bit more seriously

    we do have a bit of a strange system

    though because our academy schools don't

    have to do

    quite the same national curriculum focus

    and we do still see some schools

    squeezing that

    the best schools do recognize i think

    that actually children want a variety

    of things personally i do feel our

    key stage 3 which is our 11 to sort of

    has gone a bit too focused on the exam

    testing regime we did have for quite a

    while

    a bit of a programming project that got

    you points towards your exam

    or you could do that and then that was

    taken out in favor of a sort of a more

    exam based

    and personally i think that was a

    mistake like would you say it's a time

    thing as well

    like oh we only have a limited amount of

    time if only we had

    double the amount of time like we could

    get so much more done one of the things

    we find in the uk

    is the primary schools the elementary

    schools if they feel that their maths

    and their literacy is a good enough

    standard to

    get through you know inspections and all

    rest of it then you find that their

    focus goes on to the wider curriculum

    and improving that and that's lovely

    because they then come and work with

    people like me

    but in some ways that upsets me a little

    bit because it's

    all those children who maybe aren't in a

    school

    who have got to that standard who are

    often the ones who are not asking for

    help not getting any support now

    don't get me wrong i do understand the

    importance of writing and reading and

    the importance of that

    but actually i think a broader education

    that should be

    valid for everybody i mean i've been

    doing a bit of work with teach first

    and i've been quite impressed with the

    fact that they try and place teachers in

    the most

    difficult areas really or the areas that

    have more social deprivation

    they're trying to push this sort of

    wider curriculum thing

    as much as they can if you were to like

    wave a magic wand

    and either fix something related to what

    you're just talking about or have it so

    that all

    teachers across the uk were to be able

    to understand something

    like a concept philosophy whatever like

    what would you

    wish for and why i just wish

    that every school would engage with

    open-ended

    programming languages directly

    rather than any sort of roach learning

    or

    very heavily scripted computerized type

    thing i believe in the messiness of

    programming and the making mistakes for

    it and having agency over stuff

    and i'd much prefer schools who were

    willing to

    get their feet dirty with scratch or the

    crumble programming language or the

    micro bit

    or python or whatever you know rather

    than

    going down a very heavily scripted

    computerized

    scheme for that some of the language and

    platforms that you just mentioned

    are like block based some of them are

    text-based i'm curious where you stand

    in the like there's that debate that

    goes on

    with when should you transition or is it

    okay to just do

    like gui or block based like all the way

    through

    like k-12 yeah i mean it's an

    interesting one

    see our national curriculum says that

    you must use

    at least one text based language in our

    key stage

    three and four which is from eleven year

    old up that doesn't mean that teachers

    straight away from eleven go right

    okay let's throw out all text let's

    throw out all block-based programming

    languages

    but it does mean that there will be a

    transition

    at some point and probably the most

    popular in secondary is python really

    now i've talked python quite

    successfully

    in primary as well and i really enjoyed

    teaching it in fact i felt the children

    really enjoyed it we got something out

    of it

    the only reason i really moved away from

    it is not because i didn't like it it

    was because

    i felt that in lots of ways it was a

    real hard ass

    to take a non-specialist teacher and

    actually

    train them in the use of it in a short

    space of time whereas actually i felt

    the block-based programming language i

    could do that

    so it wasn't so much that i had any

    great philosophy behind that

    there's some interesting sort of

    approaches to try and think about

    transitioning i do like things that

    is it pencil code that has that ability

    to flick between the block based and the

    text based and there's a few other

    programming languages that have

    sort of experimented with that sort of

    thing and i think that's useful

    i do also think that that whole idea of

    introducing the main

    concepts away from programming is

    massively useful as well because you

    know at the point where we get to

    something else and we go well that's

    still a count controlled loop

    that's still an indefinite loop it looks

    different it doesn't work exactly the

    same way as scratch but actually

    it is i think that introducing concepts

    away from computing

    sort of helps whether i'm really clear

    on when the best time to transition

    maybe at the point where the children's

    typing and writing skills are good

    enough to cope with

    more typing and writing that must be

    part of it

    and the ability to spot very small

    syntax errors

    yeah that makes sense my kids did block

    based

    up through third grade and then from

    fourth grade on they had the choice of

    continuing with scratch or they could do

    ruby or javascript or swift and the kids

    who did make that transition

    even as early as fourth grade they made

    all these like leaps that i knew were

    not

    in the platform that they were using

    like it didn't teach them how to do that

    and when i asked them well how did you

    figure that out they're like oh well i

    figured like

    here's how i do it in scratch and then i

    just imagine what i do in javascript and

    i was like that's it

    that's what you're supposed to do it's

    interesting to say that because when i

    was doing both

    i had some children describe that same

    process and one of them actually said i

    would go

    and prototype it in scratch and if i

    could do it in scratch i knew i could

    then go and write it in python

    yep how do you practice or iterate on

    your own abilities

    so you've done a lot of different

    pedagogical approaches and you've

    worked in different positions like

    either working with students or working

    with teachers but how do you

    personally try and improve or refine

    that

    yeah so probably a really

    key thing for me has been the

    relationship i have with

    les carr from southampton university to

    the point of actually

    doing some programming together learning

    some bits you know if i get to the point

    where i think actually i really do want

    to get this thing

    i would often go and have a chat a

    conversation or a bit of a session

    learning some things

    and the other place is we have

    an organization called computing at

    schools uh

    cass and there's lots of great people on

    that

    that you can go and work with lots of

    forums that you can discuss stuff or put

    stuff off on say oh

    you know what's a great place for

    improving your skills in cersei and then

    at the moment we've got the national

    center for computing education that's

    been around for a couple of years now

    and they are developing some really good

    courses

    and to further your knowledge and to

    understand other aspects of things

    my difficulty is i often really love all

    that much more advanced stuff

    but how much time do i have to do that

    in some ways if it was left to me and i

    didn't have to actually teach it in

    primary and write

    resources and you know all for books and

    all sorts of stuff then i'd probably be

    sitting there with a micro bit

    trying to work out what the next thing i

    can do i've had to be quite sort of

    constrained ultimately i'm a teacher if

    my pupils aren't getting the very best

    out of their computing science at the

    age they are

    and being able to take some quality

    skills and understanding

    and agency up to the next step then i've

    not really done my job really so while

    you were mentioning that i

    was just thinking of something so i'm

    curious what your perspective is on this

    one of the things that i really

    appreciated when working with students

    is i

    knew long term where they were headed if

    they were to head down a particular path

    maybe several years so like having done

    app development

    all these things that they might not

    currently be working on but if they had

    a question i was able to guide them that

    would assist them further down the road

    but also having done professional

    development teachers i know they don't

    have the time to learn several

    programming languages and ides and

    platforms et cetera like i have

    so they're going to learn the basics of

    what they need to be able to teach at

    that grade level but they don't

    necessarily know where it's heading

    several years down the road and i'm

    curious what your thoughts are with that

    like

    how has that helped you when working

    with young elementary kids even though

    you're working on this really advanced

    thing and you know that they're never

    gonna do that with five-year-olds

    do you feel like that has helped prepare

    you for working with those kids and

    teachers

    i think certainly the discussions on the

    bigger things about how computing work

    have always been useful even if it's

    sometimes to decide that you don't do

    those

    because actually they're not cognitively

    at the level that there's enough

    abstraction understanding to really make

    sense of that

    but even that can be a really good thing

    because that in itself

    is a decision about what to include and

    what to not include

    in my very earliest computing science

    teaching i was a sort of uh

    i've learned some new things let's just

    go through it out there

    which is good from a trying stuff

    perspective but it's also

    major league cognitive overload on

    occasion for some children

    right so in terms of seeing where it's

    going in the future

    and what the possibilities are i think

    to be fair

    i see more of my secondary colleagues

    picking up children

    and giving them a bigger perspective as

    to where those things are in the future

    i think my job as an elementary teacher

    is more about

    can i get you to secondary with enough

    excitement and enthusiasm

    and enough knowledge to make some stuff

    that you go into your computing lessons

    as an 11 year old in secondary gain oh

    bring it on

    i'm ready for this you know so if they

    go in with that

    and then their teachers will start

    sharing all this

    wider stuff around because mostly in our

    secondary schools they're being taught

    by a computing specialist

    who will have a bit more understanding

    and i could do that

    some of it and i have had primary school

    pupils who've come back many years later

    and said actually mr bake i got a job in

    programming and it was your set of

    lessons

    when we were in year five nine to ten

    year olds that triggered it all off

    yeah so that does happen but i also

    think you don't want to heavily

    force a child into a pathway i agree

    too early you want to keep it exciting

    but

    if they get excited about science

    instead and go off on a

    chemistry thing wait and hopefully some

    of that computation will be useful in

    some of their science as well yeah that

    makes sense

    when i was in a case six school so that

    was like what

    five-year-olds through 11 or

    kids excited

    about the subject like i just wanted

    them to have fun creating but

    the most recent district that i was in

    it was k-8 so it was like five-year-olds

    through like early teenagers

    so i had that opportunity not only get

    them excited but also like okay now we

    can dive even deeper into it so

    yeah your answer definitely makes sense

    to me i have had children

    at the age of 10 and 11 come up to me

    and say mr back how do i get a job in

    computing

    you know so i think you have to be ready

    for some of those questions

    and actually i talked to them about

    developing their programming i also said

    look you're going to need some maths as

    well

    so don't dump your maths curriculum

    because that's going to be useful for

    you

    in the united states like there's a high

    burnout rate like i think it's like 50

    of teachers leave within the first three

    to five years something like that i

    don't recall the exact stats but it's

    really high like that

    how do you personally try and like

    prevent that kind of burnout because

    with computer science in particular like

    you never stop

    learning so that might be motivating for

    some people but it could also be like

    okay well what i learned a year ago

    now i gotta learn something brand new

    and like it never ends

    it does never end in as much as we're

    always inventing better ways of doing it

    but actually i've often presented to

    primary school teachers and said well

    you know it's true that information

    technology is always changing and you

    know what will be the next big thing

    after the ipad or the touchscreen

    that is always true but actually the

    fundamental

    building blocks of the programming

    languages even going back to

    ada lovelace there will be a recognition

    of some aspects of that programming

    language even all the way back to then

    so there's a constancy in computing

    science at the moment i do think the

    whole ai thing may

    change that a little bit more but

    there's a bit of a constancy or

    at the point where someone develops

    something that can do

    not just a zero and a one but a zero one

    and a two at the same time you know

    so at that point we get into a whole

    different thing but at the moment

    i'm often surprised when i'm doing

    training

    that i will get someone who's a lot

    older come and say oh well i did some

    logo or some fortran or something way

    way back and actually for all the

    concepts you're talking about i learned

    about then and i said oh brilliant

    exactly so there was something that was

    constant from your

    previous training that you can take in

    and yes we've got more exciting

    interesting ways of doing it but hey

    well done you've got some transferable

    skills what about for teachers who

    might not have the time like if they're

    a general classroom teacher and they're

    teaching the computer science

    stuff basically on the side like it's

    not their main gig

    how about for them how would you

    recommend that they continue to learn

    while also

    not overwhelming themselves with always

    having to stay up to date

    in most of our primary schools we often

    have a computing lead

    and it's that person's job to actually

    keep abreast of the curriculum and keep

    the other teachers updated

    now when that's working well that means

    that that person should be

    i mean typically in the uk going along

    to the

    local community groups that we organize

    maybe once a term

    picking up new ideas new methodologies

    new things

    to think about and taking it back and

    thinking well how do i disseminate those

    things you know do i do 10 minutes in a

    staff meeting do i lead something

    you know a good computing lead is worth

    promoting and helping and nurturing

    and i expect a lot of our job really is

    trying to get those people into groups

    of communities of practice

    and then encourage them present them

    with training opportunities you know

    those sorts of things

    and then encourage them to take that

    back into their schools

    so i think that's important burnout is

    something that happens for all teachers

    and i do

    massively worry at the moment in the uk

    for the head teachers

    i have never seen so much workload put

    on them by covered

    regulations and all sorts of other

    things i very much

    fear for our education system in the

    next couple of years because i think

    we're going to lose

    a lot of head teachers and experienced

    head teachers are really valuable

    and can make a big difference and i

    wonder whether we might lose some

    teachers in that as well

    so before we started recording we were

    just kind of

    talking a little bit about covid and you

    were mentioning that there were some

    like equity

    issues around like just a lack of

    devices

    for kids or even like internet i'm

    curious like thinking

    not necessarily just on the device front

    but just broadly with equity and

    inclusion like

    how have educators or organizations like

    try to improve

    in equity and inclusion in relation to

    computer science

    and it doesn't need to be just framed

    incovid like it could be before that as

    well

    there's a lovely group called cass

    include

    that have been really sort of

    championing

    inclusion they've been doing lots of

    events and things

    and pushing that side of things and

    encouraging us all to sort of think

    about

    that side of aspects and then i think

    it's the job of people like me to take

    some of that

    back and disseminate it so even in

    my own practice you know i think it's

    important to think about

    what are you doing in terms of equity

    in different areas for example i went to

    a session i don't know

    seven years ago on basically sexism and

    they said to me well you know

    male teachers often will challenge their

    male students and do the work for their

    female students

    and i thought oh god there's no way i

    would ever do something like that

    i'm a modern bloke you know and i went

    back and was running a code club that

    evening

    and there was a group of lads who were

    making a game and they were stuck on

    something and i said oh

    just going to say here's a hint and then

    i walked off and left them and there

    were two girls who were making a unicorn

    game

    and they said mr beckham didn't i and i

    went and took over and did it for him

    and i thought oh my goodness

    you know i have professed that sexism is

    wrong and no rest of it and here am i

    just

    perpetuating this so i think it is

    important

    that we do have groups that raise these

    issues and say it and then i think it's

    really important as we as educators

    and we were responsible for training so

    to run those things past

    and sort of check out i think sometimes

    we

    have this big s sexist or big

    r racist thing and yet all of us are

    capable of small racist

    things and actually checking our

    practice constantly is important and

    thinking you know so have i not helped

    those two

    indian kids because i think i've got

    this viewpoint that they should be good

    at technology anyway

    so there's a whole load of sort of minor

    racist stereotypes that we all have to

    some extent

    and challenging our own and then just

    being honest

    and saying look i have to keep

    challenging myself because

    i was born in 1967

    you know i'm not going to be totally

    there yet so i think

    those aspects are important i think also

    there's been

    some really nice work around trying to

    help

    people see people from their same

    background or their same sex

    who have done really well so there's

    been a lot of work put into

    representation in terms especially

    female computing scientists

    which has been a big issue in school

    says lots of sort of posters and things

    and promoting

    and it's been nice in the uk to see a

    lot more

    if you go to a computing conference

    you'll see a much more diverse

    set of people presenting than you might

    have done 10 years ago

    and i think that's really good i don't

    think we're there

    i think you know our government bought

    out a thing quite recently

    in effect pretending that there was no

    institutionalized racism and

    everything was great in the uk and i

    personally think

    that until we really got an equal

    playing field for everybody

    then that can't actually be true so i

    think there's still a lot of work to be

    done on this

    if you think of like a listener to this

    podcast who might be able to help you

    with something like what is something

    that you are working on that you might

    need some help with so one of the things

    i write a lot of computing science

    resources

    and i've often looked for and maybe this

    is not so much a computing science

    question really some ways but

    what is the best way to ask questions of

    younger children

    you know i would be really interested if

    anybody's got any educational or

    computing science research

    into the best method of putting a

    written question down

    now at the moment i tend to write a

    question and i try out with about three

    classes and i

    think oh god that was an awful question

    because oh no i might go and rewrite it

    and try again but there must be a better

    science behind that so if there's

    anybody

    out there who knows anything along those

    lines i'd be really interested

    one of the things that we've talked

    about internally at boot up is a math

    process for asking questions called

    cognitive guided inquiry

    and so that has some really good

    questions that are math related but very

    easily can

    transfer over to thinking like an

    algorithm in math

    with an algorithm in computer science

    and whatnot but then there's also

    another podcast that i did on like open

    guided and closed questions and like

    those kind of broad questions

    i'll make sure to send that to you so

    i'm writing myself a note no that's

    lovely thank you i i look forward to

    listening to them

    do you have any questions for myself or

    for the field

    i'm particularly interested in what the

    best educational research combined with

    the best sort of computing science

    research so

    i think we're still a very very young

    subject yeah especially at this age and

    i think we

    gonna go through a whole sort of when we

    think of where maths

    teaching and learning has come and

    that's probably taken hundreds of years

    to get here

    and actually we're really really early

    on this sort of journey

    i've been really excited i'm writing

    some new resources and some new books

    and i've agreed with the authors that

    we're not really making much money out

    of the books but we've agreed

    to put all the money that comes from

    those books back into editing them and

    improving them

    and taking them on and doing rewrites of

    them

    and that i think is really important

    because actually

    we will have some great insights but

    there will be things we learn

    in the next few years which will be

    great to put in and i think

    that's probably what excites me most

    about this process that it is a process

    of

    change and development and improvement

    and i'm just really pleased that i've

    had a chance to be

    in on the ground floor in this tiny

    little bit in the uk with the elementary

    side of

    or sorry primary site of teaching so

    that's an interesting point about having

    to like

    update the books basically like i was on

    a team that helped write the standards

    for computer science in the state of

    wyoming

    and they typically have a cycle of like

    they go back and revise

    the standards and then update them to

    something new and when we all met we're

    like

    you're probably going to want to cut

    that in half at least like

    because in five years things are gonna

    change

    no that's true the other thing i suppose

    i'm probably really interested in

    is this combination of working

    with researchers but also working with

    teachers as well i think it's really

    important to sort of keep the two people

    the two sides of these things closely

    sort of connected

    and that's probably why i've always

    appreciated those

    researchers who have made the time to

    include teachers in their

    wider circle because i think it's not

    just a research-based thing

    it has to actually be taught and

    probably my greatest

    compliment ever was up at southampton

    university and meeting

    i don't know about three or four

    professors and one of them saying

    actually i had a look at your work on

    variables that you'd published around

    some text-based stuff we were doing at

    the time and i really liked it and i

    even adjusted some of that for teaching

    my university students another oh my

    goodness

    one what a lovely person to actually

    come back and say that to you

    and two the fact that actually someone's

    can learn enough to re

    recognize that you know you can learn

    even from something and

    when something's been distilled a lower

    level a more basic level and that there

    was value in that

    yeah that's a nice compliment so then i

    guess my last question would be

    where might people go to connect with

    you and the organizations that you work

    with yes so i have a website which is

    code it which is code iphoneit.co.uk

    of which i publish free programming

    stuff on there and sorts of other bits

    and pieces my

    email address is on there as a hampshire

    computing inspector hampshire will sell

    me out anywhere

    in fact i have been all over the world

    at some point in time and doing stuff

    if any of your listeners want to work

    with me then they're very welcome to

    send us an email

    and we can discuss things and with that

    that concludes this week's episode of

    the csk8 podcast i really hope you

    enjoyed this interview with phil i know

    i certainly did

    and i hope you consider sharing this

    with others stay tuned next week for

    another unpacking scholarship episode

    and two weeks for now for another

    interview hope you're all staying safe

    and are having a wonderful week

Guest Bio

Phil is a Computing Inspector/Advisor working for Hampshire Inspection & Advisory Service and CAS Computing Master Teacher. Involved at the drafting stage in creating and refining the 2014 Computing Curriculum through the BCS and CAS. He currently teaches computing science in two Hampshire schools. A contributing author to Compute-IT KS3 Scheme of work and author of How to teach primary programming using Scratch and Crumble Creations, How to teach physical computing in primary classes. His Computing science resources are the sixth most used primary computing resource in the UK.

Phil is passionate about

  • The importance of every child being exposed to quality computing science teaching and learning opportunities

  • The power of computing to develop pupil resilience and perseverance

  • The importance of mastering formative assessment to unlock great progress in computing

  • That every primary teacher can teach outstanding computing lessons

  • That computing is all about problem solving

Phil can be contacted for advice about improving Computing at your school.

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