Schlagwort: lesson plan

  • Teach your learners with The Computing Curriculum

    Teach your learners with The Computing Curriculum

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Computing combines a very broad mixture of concepts and skills. We work to support any school to teach students about the whole of computing and how to create with digital technologies. A key part of this support is The Computing Curriculum.

    Two girls code at a desktop computer while a female mentor observes them.
    We help schools around the world teach their learners computing.

    The Computing Curriculum: Free and comprehensive

    The Computing Curriculum is our complete bank of free lesson plans and other resources that offer you everything you need to teach computing lessons to all school-aged learners. It helps you cover the full breadth of computing, including computing systems, programming, creating media, data and information, and societal impacts of digital technology.

    Young learners at computers in a classroom.
    A girl in a university computing classroom.

    The 500 hours of free, downloadable resources within The Computing Curriculum include all the materials you need in your classroom: from lesson plans and slide decks to activity sheets, homework, and assessments. To our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive set of free teaching and learning materials for computing and digital skills in the world.

    Two learners and a teacher in a physical computing lesson.
    We continuously update The Computing Curriculum to reflect the latest research about this young subject.

    Our Curriculum’s resources are based on clear progression and content frameworks we’ve designed, and we continuously update them based on the latest research and feedback from practising teachers. Doing this is particularly important for computing education resources, because computing is a young subject where thoughts and understanding about the best teaching approaches are still evolving.

    Computing lesson plans that save time and engage your learners

    With The Computing Curriculum, we support educators of all levels of experience. Whether you specialise in computing, or you are a newcomer to the subject, the Curriculum will save you time and help you deliver engaging lessons.

    In our 2022 survey of teachers who have used The Computing Curriculum resources:

    • 91% said the Curriculum was effective or very effective at saving teachers time
    • 89% said it was effective or very effective at developing teachers’ subject knowledge
    • 81% said it was effective or very effective at engaging students

    The resources are organised as themed units, and they support your computing lesson planning, preparation, and delivery because they are comprehensive as well as adaptable. You are free to use the resources as they are, or adjust them to your context, access to hardware, and learners’ needs and experience level.

    A Kenyan child smiles at a computer.
    The Computing Curriculum will help you plan and deliver engaging lessons.

    One aspect of The Computing Curriculum that will facilitate your teaching is the progression framework on which the resources are based. In creating the resources, we have considered the learning objectives throughout each unit and year group, and throughout the entire schooling period. This progression is detailed in curriculum maps and learning graphs, and you’ll be able to use these documents to plan your lessons and to check your learners’ understanding.

    Start teaching with The Computing Curriculum

    You can download and use the resources for the year groups you teach computing right now. And please tell us of your experiences using The Computing Curriculum in your classroom, so that we can make the resources even better for educators around the world.

    If you are interested in curriculum resources tailored for your region, please contact us via this form. You can find out how we adapted resources from The Computing Curriculum for learners living in a refugee camp in Kenya if you’d like to learn about our approach to tailoring resources.

    Website: LINK

  • Interactive fiction with Python | Hello World issue 8

    Interactive fiction with Python | Hello World issue 8

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Nicholas Provenzano explains how he introduced Python to students in his literature class, bridging computer science and literacy.

    Literature classes seem like the last place you would find students coding, but interactive fiction has been around for decades. Students love to play computer games, and the very best games have amazing stories. This project will allow students to create their own piece of fiction and then use Python to turn it into a text-based computer game. Students will have a chance to create their own hero and monsters, treasures and traps and so much more while being introduced to Python. Students that love to write, and students that love to code, will love this lesson.

    Hello World issue 8

    I’ve been thinking a lot recently about to ways to bring computer science into the literature classroom. I set out exploring the Raspberry Pi projects page, where I saw a project that allowed the user to create their own text-based computer game using Python. I thought this would be a great way to engage students in reading, writing, and programming.

    Students create their own piece of fiction and then use their stories to create an amazing text-based computer game based on the role-playing game (RPG) tutorial from Raspberry Pi: helloworld.cc/rpg. From the first day working on this project, my students fell in love with the writing and the coding. They couldn’t wait to create their game and share them with their friends.

    The project is best introduced with a focus on creative writing, where students should create an outline for their own adventure story. With that in hand, introduce the students to the Raspberry Pi RPG tutorial. It is much easier for students to create their game if they draw out the rooms on paper to help them visualise the game they’re creating. The more time they are given to create their game, the more complex it can become. Students will be able to fully explore the code while creating a fun game they can share with others.

    Hello World issue 8

    This project is the perfect way to bring coding to a literature class. Students that love to write will be introduced to text-based programming, while students that love to code will have an opportunity to explore fiction through their own writing.

    My students were excited to spend their time creating a complex story, and an even more complex game to challenge their friends and their teacher. Students who struggled with the code were helped by other students who’d already moved ahead. We spent a week on this project, but you could spend longer, depending on the breadth of the stories and games. Watching students use their critical thinking skills to plan out a maze for their players was great to see.

    The best part was watching students who do not normally engage in reading and writing lessons become leaders as they embraced the coding and were excited to turn their story into a game and share it with everyone. This project will become a mainstay in my teaching for years to come.

    Take this to your club or classroom

    For the complete lesson plan of the above project, download Hello World issue 8 for free and turn to pages 80–81.

    Hello World issue 8

    Get Hello World issue 8 for free

    Hello World is available to download for free in PDF format anywhere in the world. Subscribe to Hello World today to receive the latest issues into your inbox as soon as they’re released.

    Hello World issue 8

    If you are a UK-based educator, you can also subscribe for free print copies of Hello World, which will be delivered to your door at no extra cost.

    And, lastly, if you’d like to purchase Hello World magazine, you can buy the latest issue via the Raspberry Pi Press website.

    Website: LINK