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https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/international-computing-curriculum-metrecc-research-seminar/
Around the world, formal education systems are bringing computing knowledge to learners. But what exactly is set down in different countries' computing curricula, and what are classroom educators teaching? This was the topic of the first in the autumn series of our Raspberry Pi research seminars on Tuesday 8 September.
[...] Examples of mismatches include lower numbers of primary school teachers reporting that they taught visual or symbolic programming, even though the topic did appear on their curriculum.
A table listing computer science topics.
This table shows computer science topic the METRECC tool asks teachers about, and what percentage of respondents in the pilot study stated that they teach these to their students.
[...] If you missed the seminar, you can find the presentation slides and a recording of the researchers' talk on our seminars page.
In our next seminar on Tuesday 6 October at 17:00–18:30 BST / 12:00–13:30 EDT / 9:00–10:30 PT / 18:00–19:30 CEST, we'll welcome Shuchi Grover, a prominent researcher in the area of computational thinking and formative assessment. The title of Shuchi's seminar is Assessments to improve student learning in introductory CS classrooms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @01:37PM (1 child)
How much will it cost to give poor children the opportunity to develop computational abilities? Many wealthier school districts are outfitting students with iPads and Chromebooks, but many of lower classes never see a non-touch computer at all outside of a "lab" in school. You really want your future robot techs and cable wranglers to have proper digital hygiene.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday September 19 2020, @04:57PM
The problem is neither expense nor availability of commodity hardware.
I've worked in some of the poorest area, in schools under "special measures" (i.e. about to be shut down, they were so bad), with deprived children, etc.
In a developed country almost nobody "doesn't have a computer". In fact, I'd say that I've never seen a household in the age-group of parents of a school-age child that didn't.
The problem is that those computers are for entertainment only. Smartphones, games consoles, etc. In terms of programmable computers, there is a dearth because people would not buy them of their own accord.
The Raspberry Pi and OLPC projects were supposed to solve this (and to some extent the microBit but that's a waste of time). But they completely fluffed integration with schools. They just threw hardware at people and expected them to use it. That's not how the education sector has worked in the UK or US for many decades. For schools and teachers, a computer that doesn't do what they expect is a broken computer, in their eyes. There is a dearth of skilled teachers, and those teachers could teach computing with an abacus and pen and paper. The unskilled ones can't teach computing even with £1000 laptops and unbelievable amounts of infrastructure.
It's a skills problem, not a hardware problem. £35 per child would give them all a Raspberry Pi that would plug into any TV, connect to the Internet, work with Bluetooth and wireless, allow them to do electronic integration, etc. The schools don't buy them or issue them because they don't know how to use them. That's why schools spend £500 per child instead and give them Chromebooks and apps that make the TEACHER'S life easy. Then those same teachers complain that the apps on iTunes don't work on Chromebook because "they're what I've based on my lessons on".
The problem to solve computer literacy, the same as the way to solve actual literacy, is not to just throw free computers/books at people. Sure, that's nice. But if there's nobody there to teach you to read, then you're not going to read them. Similarly, computers will be used to play games (of little educational value generally, it has to be said) - and they'll put ten times more effort into getting them to play games and do stupid things than they ever will to learn programming or even basic computer literacy. This is the era of the copy/paste coder/hacker who doesn't even understand what the code does, let alone how.
It's a skills shortage. And you solve those by training. And we don't train people. The hardware is literally lost in the noise of providing even their basic stationery if you wanted to do it properly. The problem is that it's nothing compared to what they have at home, and they won't use either to build even basic computing skills, let along more advanced ones.
To be honest, having worked in both state and private - state schools are way ahead in technology. Private schools tend to stick to the old-fashioned methods of teaching and don't like their nice properties littered with wireless access points and the like. If anything, private schools are playing catch-up. The difference is... they teach. Both teachers in both sectors are woefully underskilled.