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From May to November 2022, our seminars focus on the theme of cross-disciplinary computing. Through this seminar series, we want to explore the intersections and interactions of computing with all aspects of learning and life, and think about how they can help us teach young people. We were delighted to welcome Prof. Mark Guzdial (University of Michigan) as our first speaker.

Mark has worked in computer science (CS) education for decades and won many awards for his research, including the prestigious ACM SIGCSE Outstanding Contribution to Computing Education award in 2019. He has written literally hundreds of papers about CS education, and he authors an extremely popular computing education research blog that keeps us all up to date with what is going on in the field.

In his talk, Mark focused on his recent work around developing task-specific programming (TSP) languages, with which teachers can add a teaspoon (also abbreviated TSP) of programming to a wide variety of subject areas in schools. Mark’s overarching thesis is that if we want everyone to have some exposure to CS, then we need to integrate it into a range of subjects across the school curriculum. And he explained that this idea of “adding a teaspoon” embraces some core principles; for TSP languages to be successful, they need to:

• Meet the teachers’ needs
• Be relevant to the context or lesson in which it appears
• Be technically easy to get to grips with

Mark neatly summarised this as ‘being both usable and useful’. 

Historical views on why we should all learn computer science

We can learn a lot from going back in time and reflecting on the history of computing. Mark started his talk by sharing the views of some of the eminent computer scientists of the early days of the subject. C. P. Snow maintained, way back in 1961, that all students should study CS, because it was too important to be left to a small handful of people.

Alan Perlis, also in 1961, argued that everyone at university should study one course in CS rather than a topic such as calculus. His reason was that CS is about process, and thus gives students tools that they can use to change the world around them. I’d never heard of this work from the 1960s before, and it suggests incredible foresight. Perhaps we don’t need to even have the debate of whether computer science is for everyone — it seems it always was!

What’s the problem with the current situation?

In many of our seminars over the last two years, we have heard about the need to broaden participation in computing in school. Although in England, computing is mandatory for ages 5 to 16 (in theory, in practice it’s offered to all children from age 5 to 14), other countries don’t have any computing for younger children. And once computing becomes optional, numbers drop, wherever you are.

Mark shared with us that in US high schools, only 4.7% of students are enrolled in a CS course. However, students are studying other subjects, which brought him to the conclusion that CS should be introduced where the students already are. For example, Mark described that, at the Advanced Placement (AP) level in the US, many more students choose to take history than CS (399,000 vs 114,000) and the History AP cohort has more even gender balance, and a higher proportion of Black and Hispanic students. 

The teaspoon approach to broadening participation

A solution to low uptake of CS being proposed by Mark and his colleagues is to add a little computing to other subjects, and in his talk he gave us some examples from history and mathematics, both subjects taken by a high proportion of US students. His focus is on high school, meaning learners aged 14 and upwards (upper secondary in Europe, or key stage 4 and 5 in England). To introduce a teaspoon of CS to other subjects, Mark’s research group builds tools using a participatory design approach; his group collaborates with teachers in schools to identify the needs of the teachers and students and design and iterate TSP languages in conjunction with them.

Mark demonstrated a number of TSP language prototypes his group has been building for use in particular contexts. The prototypes seem like simple apps, but can be classified as languages because they specify a process for a computational agent to execute. These small languages are designed to be used at a specific point in the lesson and should be learnable in ten minutes. For example, students can use a small ‘app’ specific to their topic, look at a script that generates a visualisation, and change some variables to find out how they impact the output. Students may also be able to access some program code, edit it, and see the impact of their edits. In this way, they discover through practical examples the way computer programs work, and how they can use CS principles to help build an understanding of the subject area they are currently studying. If the language is never used again, the learning cost was low enough that it was worth the value of adding computation to the one lesson.

We have recorded the seminar and will be sharing the video very soon, so bookmark this page.

Try TSP languages yourself

You can try out the TSP language prototypes Mark shared yourself, which will give you a good idea of how much a teaspoon is!

DV4L: For history students, the team and participating teachers have created a prototype called DV4L, which visualises historical data. The default example script shows population growth in Africa. Students can change some of the variables in the script to explore data related to other countries and other historical periods. A example lesson activity illustrates how a teacher might incorporate this TSP language into a lesson.

Pixel Equations: Mathematics and engineering students can use the Pixel Equations tool to learn about the way that pictures are made up of individual pixels. This can be introduced into lessons using a variety of contexts. One example lesson activity looks at images in the contexts of maps. This prototype is available in English and Spanish. 

Counting Sheets: Another example given by Mark was Counting Sheets, an interactive tool to support the exploration of counting problems, such as how many possible patterns can come from flipping three coins. 

Have a go yourself. What subjects could you imagine adding a teaspoon of computing to?

Join our next free research seminar

We’d love you to join us for the next seminar in our series on cross-disciplinary computing. On 7 June, we will hear from Pratim Sengupta, of the University of Calgary, Canada. He has conducted studies in science classrooms and non-formal learning environments, focusing on providing open and engaging experiences for anyone to explore code. Pratim will share his thoughts on the ways that more of us can become involved with code when we open up its richness and depth to a wider audience. He will also introduce us to his ideas about countering technocentrism, a key focus of his new book.

And finally… save another date!

We will shortly be sharing details about the official in-person launch event of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre at the University of Cambridge on 20 July 2022. And guess who is going to be coming to Cambridge, UK, from Michigan to officially cut the ribbon for us? That’s right, Mark Guzdial. More information coming soon on how you can sign up to join us for free at this launch event.

The post A teaspoon of computing in every subject: Broadening participation in computer science appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi Pico is a low-cost microcontroller that can be connected to another computer to be programmed using MicroPython. We think it’s a great tool for exploring physical computing in classrooms and coding clubs. Pico has been available since last year, amid school closures, reopenings, isolation periods, and restrictions for students and teachers. Recently, I spoke to some teachers in England about how their reception of Raspberry Pi Pico, and how they have found using it to teach physical computing to their learners.

This blog post is adapted from issue 18 of Hello World, our free magazine written by computing educators for computing educators.

Extra-curricular engagement

At secondary schools, a key use of Raspberry Pi Pico was in teacher-led lunchtime or after-school clubs. One teacher from a girls’ secondary school in Liverpool described how he introduced it to his Women in Tech club, which he runs for 11- to 12-year-old students for half an hour per week at lunchtime. As this teacher has free rein over the club content and a personal passion for Raspberry Pi, his eventual aim for the club participants was to build a line-following car using Pico.

The group started by covering the basics of Pico, such as connecting it with a breadboard and making LEDs flash, using our ‘Getting started with Raspberry Pi Pico’ project guide. The teacher described how walking into a room with Picos and physical computing kits grabs students’ attention: “It’s massively more engaging than programming Python on a screen… They love the idea of building something physical, like a car.” He has to remind them that phones aren’t allowed at school, as they’re keen to take photos of the flashing lights to show their parents. His overall verdict? “Once the software had been installed, [Picos are] just plug and play. As a tool in school, it gives you something physical, enthuses interest in the subject. If it gets just one person choosing the subject, who wouldn’t have done otherwise, then job done.”

“If it gets just one person choosing the subject, who wouldn’t have done otherwise, then job done.”

Teacher at a Liverpool girls’ secondary school

Another teacher from a school in Hampshire used Picos at an after-school club with students aged 13 to 15. After about six sessions of less than 50 minutes last term, the students have almost finished building motorised buggies. The first two sessions were spent familiarising students with the Picos, making LEDs flash, and using sensors. In the next four sessions, the students made their way through the Pico-focused physical computing unit from our Teach Computing Curriculum. The students worked in pairs, and initially some learners had trouble getting the motors to turn the wheels on their buggies. Rather than giving them the correct code, the teacher gave them duplicate sets of the hardware and suggested that they test each piece in turn to ‘debug’ the hardware. Thus the students quickly worked out what they needed to do to make the wheels turn.

For non-formal learning settings such as computing and coding clubs, we’ve just released a six-project learning path called ‘Introduction to Raspberry Pi Pico’ for beginner digital makers. You can check out the path directly, or learn more about how we’ve designed it to encourage learners’ independence.

Reinforcing existing computing skills

Another key theme that came through in my conversations with teachers was how Raspberry Pi Pico can be used to reinforce learners’ existing computing skills. One teacher I interviewed, from a school in Essex, has been using Picos to teach computing to 12- to 14-year-olds in class, and talked about the potential for physical computing as a pedagogical tool for recapping topics that have been covered before. “If [physical computing] is taught well, it enhances students’ understanding of programming. If they just copy code from the board, it becomes about the kit and not how you solve a problem, it’s not as effective at helping them develop their computational thinking. Teaching Python on Pico really can strengthen existing understanding of using Python libraries and subroutines, as well as passing subroutine arguments.”

“If [physical computing] is taught well, it enhances students’ understanding of programming.”

Teacher at an Essex secondary school

Another teacher I spoke to, working at a Waterlooville school and relatively new to teaching, talked about the benefits of using Pico to teach Python: “It takes some of the anxiety away from computing for some of the younger students and makes them more resilient. They can be wary of making mistakes, and see them as a hurdle, but working towards a tangible output can help some students to see the value of learning through their mistakes.”

This teacher was keen for his students to get a sense of the variety of jobs that are available in the computing sector, and not just in software. He explained how physical computing can demonstrate to students how you can make inputs, outputs, and processing very real: “Give students a Pico and make them thirsty about what they could do with it — the device allows them to interact with it and work out how to bend it to what they want to do. You can be creative in computing without just writing code, you can capture information and output it again in a more useful way.”

“Working towards a tangible output can help some students to see the value of learning through their mistakes.”

Teacher at a Waterlooville school

One of the teachers we spoke to was initially a bit cynical about Pico, but had a much better experience of using it in the classroom than expected: “It’s not such a big progression from block-based microcontrollers to Pico — it could be a good stepping stone between, for example, a micro:bit and a Raspberry Pi computer.”

Why not try out Raspberry Pi Pico in your classroom or club? It might be the engagement booster you’ve been looking for!  

Top teacher tips for activities with Raspberry Pi Pico

• Prepare to install Thonny (the software we recommend to program Pico) on your school’s or venue’s IT systems, and ask your IT technician for support.
• It takes time to unpack devices, connect them, and pack them back up again. Build this time into your plan!

Free learning resources for using Raspberry Pi Pico in your classroom or club

Teachers at state schools in England can borrow physical computing kits with class sets of Raspberry Pi Picos from their local Computing Hub. We’ve made these kits available through our work as part of the National Centre for Computing Education. The Pico kit is perfect for teaching the Pico-focused physical computing unit from our Teach Computing Curriculum.

Qualified US-based educators can still get their hands on 1 of 1000 free Raspberry Pi Pico hardware kits if they sign up to our free course Design, build, and code a rover with Raspberry Pi Pico. This course shows you how to introduce Pico in your classroom. We’ve designed the course on the Pathfinders Online Institute platform, specifically for US-based educators, thanks to our partners at Infosys Foundation USA. These Raspberry Pi Pico kits are also available at PiShop.us.

For non-formal learning settings, such as Code Clubs and CoderDojos, we’ve created a six-project learning path: ‘Introduction to Raspberry Pi Pico’. This path is for beginner digital makers to follow and create Pico projects, all the while learning the skills to independently design, code, and build their own projects. All of the components for the path are available as a kit from Pimoroni.

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