Video Welcome, organization, module overview

0:00 <Untitled Chapter 1>

0:04 So, welcome to Comp 335, communicating computer science. Today, we'll just have a look at what the module is about. So, there's not a lot of uh of actual content. It's mostly adminis- adminis- administrational things and we'll have a quick introduction round at the end. Now, I know you've seen each other or we've seen each other for the selection round already. Uh but that was a bit um shall we say rushed or focused on getting your talks through in in the in the short time.

0:42 Uh the most important bits on one slide. So, uh I'm Sebastian. I'm I'm your lecturer. That's also my job title, but if you want you can say assistant professor is the equivalent. I don't know. For for UK people, you should know what a lecturer is, but it's internationally quite confusing. Uh it's a research and teaching position. That's That's what I'm getting at. Um my office is is in the Ashton Building. If you want to see me there, better ask whether I'm there. Um and email is is usually easier. We also have a team on MS Teams uh for the module. So, you should all be there and that might be the quickest way to communicate. Uh the official things are all on the website. Hopefully, you've seen that. Uh we also have a a Canvas module where you're automatically enrolled. So, I'll I'll try to keep things that don't need to be private on the public website. This is more convenient, I think.

1:40 Uh anything that has to do with you, like your personal data and all these things, uh they go to the locked-in system on Canvas. And then Teams I mean, Canvas is nice for some things, but the forums, I don't know if you've ever used them. Clumsy is uh is putting it nicely and uh Teams is a little nicer for that. And you can share all sorts of things more easily. Uh so, try to be reactive on Teams. Check once in a while if if something's going on there. Um Slido we'll use I'll I'll show the screen before is uh it's just a demo a system. Um Yeah, and we'll have assessments. That should also not be something new. Uh the the majority is on lessons that you deliver and uh design. First design, then deliver. Uh these two parts, so half of the mark is in the first semester, and this is in the second semester. So, it's uh equal split.

2:41 Now, the effort that you have to uh to put into the module will not be so equals equally split. We have these few lectures now, first 5 weeks. Um Probably should switch to this. Uh so, we have different components, uh and they're roughly spread over time from left to right. So, we have the lectures at the beginning just for some background. It's not a lot of uh of material. And you'll write an essay, that's the first bit we'll talk about later today. Uh then you'll work. That's the bit where you spend, I think, a lot of time on, hopefully. Or I guess it's worth spending some time on that. Late October, November time. Uh where you design a lesson. And in the second semester, we'll have our Taste the Days, where we invite schools, and you'll deliver some lessons. So, it it will be the effort will be focused on the lesson plan design. And then probably just a single day for each of you, but then the full day, nothing else.

2:54 Components of COMP 335

3:47 Um but that's hopefully a lot more fun. The lesson plan is a little a little more effort, uh and well, you have to work hard for for your credits at some point, so that's probably where it is. Uh the other bits, the essay and the final report, they're much smaller, so this is uh is relatively light um towards the end of the second term.

4:13 All right. Uh if you have any questions, like uh just shout. I tried to list some some goals for the module in its entirety, not just the the lesson part. Um it's it's a taster in two ways. It's taster days where we invite the kids, so they have a taste of what computer science is like. And it's a taster for you into teaching because you you step into this role of teaching a class at some secondary school. Uh so, you can have a look at what that's like. Um we'll spend a lot more time on the single tiny lesson polish that really well. You won't have that that much time uh if you were a secondary secondary school teacher. Uh but, I think it's is a fair window into that. Now, you haven't committed to anything so far, right? But, at the end of your your uh BSC you can go on a teacher track uh for MSC in some pedagogical uh studies that often have a placement in school together, so that's that's one way that this module originally was intended. Have a an a foot in the door, if you want, into this teaching direction, if that's something you like.

4:15 Overview of the module

5:25 Um or the other way around, at the end of the module, you should have a good idea whether that's for you. And if that's a no, you know you know for sure what not to do.

5:39 We'll also talk very a little bit about empirical research in uh computer science education broadly, pedagogy. I it's something that we don't really touch on in computer science otherwise. So, we'll talk a little bit about P values and and these things just very briefly and not without going much into stats. Uh I think it's that's actually useful to know uh in general, right? A lot of science outside of the theoretical parts works like this.

6:12 And I hope I can convey a little bit the the values that well, we as universities subscribe to and and I subscribe to. Uh we'll we'll talk about that in more detail later.

6:26 For the lectures, um well, the preliminary plan is is these five. So, we'll today just talk about talk about the thing not much in detail. Um we'll talk about the the national curriculum in computing. If you don't know what that is, that's basically the uh the curriculum for England and Wales that all public schools all state schools have to uh adhere to. Uh we'll have a look at that, where that came from, and what's in there. Uh we'll look a bit at the pedagogy side. Um and then concretely how to plan a lesson. So, that's really like your blueprint for for doing this continuous assessment. Uh and we'll talk a little bit about um the science bit. Uh maybe we can also smuggle in a bit about uh how to gather feedback. How can you measure whether your lesson was helpful? That goes a bit hand in hand with the empirical science part. Um but that lesson was already a bit full, maybe I have to smuggle it somewhere else.

7:31 Uh so much for the plan. There's a few things we won't touch on. Uh I'll just I just list these because if you do go into teaching, you'll probably have to hear more about those. Um but it's just a taster. Good. So, let's have a look at Slido again. Uh I used to call these clicker questions. Um basically because it started out specially North American universities made their students buy a physical device that had four buttons. And uh all it's all it was used for was um sending such little answers to polls and you had spend 100 pound on on a device that's no good use otherwise. So, nobody's really using these anymore, but the term stuck around. Today, you just do it on the phone. Uh they're a nice way to make lectures a little more interactive. They're only superficially more interactive if you just use the polls, but it's enough to wake people up a bit.

7:44 What are clickers? Why use it?

8:33 And so, the psychology of that uh I found is is quite effective even if you don't change much of the lecture otherwise. Uh if used well, um and if you want to Google peer instruction, that's kind of the the fancy pedagogy term behind that. Um you can design your lectures much more around this idea. Uh then it it can be quick feedback for both sides how things are going. Um and you can branch off if the understanding isn't there, you can try to work your way around it. There's this think-pair-share concept. So, you're going to small groups and then you do the poll again later. Uh let's have a little little demo of that so that uh I wake you up a bit. So, if you join this, and I'll have to send question off.

9:43 So you can set it up in different ways. For this question, which is just for information, you immediately see how the answers come in. It's kind of fun. If you want to test understanding, uh you would often first hide the answers and then uh look at the screen for for you and and smile and then show to the audience at the end. As usually a moment that's that's quite quite helpful because uh everyone sees um if if they're understanding what their mistake was shared by all the others. All right. Thanks for playing along with that. Uh you can also do more of more free things like uh just to get to know the audience a bit. Um Now, I didn't really pay attention. It was four out of 10 who haven't used the system before. You probably had seen systems like this, but in lectures, no, That's a shame, right? Why not? Uh A lot a lot of things in in education is is a big why not. I think it's it's quite clear that it helps. Uh Again, uh if if you believe nothing else of pedagogy, then just having people wake up is already useful.

10:55 All right. Good grasp of different languages. I guess you've all early enough here to have our module in Java. I think the the course is slowly switching to Python as well. The MSC modules already have. Not sure if the undergrads are also following through. Uh might be both. Um I'm a researcher in algorithms uh and data structures and these things and uh if students only know Python, that's sometimes a bit of a pain. Because you start explaining, "Oh, let's look at the simplest kind of data structure, an array." Oh, crap, there's no arrays in Python and a lot of other things Python is is nice to program, but it's abstracts away so many things uh that's a little little too high-level for for some concepts to make sense.

11:50 Anyway, that's beside the point. Um You want to do this one? The ranking question of what type of teaching styles you like? All right. All right. Let's do it. Uh I asked this in my other lecture that I I had to give during lockdowns. And so it was very fun to see how people's uh answers changed. I asked it again on Monday. Uh and I think there was the the most popular choice for them was um some online thing, but life. Uh whereas in the pandemic everyone hated everything online. Is yeah. Whatever you don't have, right?

11:52 Clicker Question

12:42 So, what happens with the ranking questions is you put an order in and then Slido assigns points. Uh I think just counting counting up from lowest gets one and then up to whatever the highest choice was. And then sums those up. So, it's trying to do some aggregation of the orders.

13:05 Good. So, you like what we're doing. I think this is not surprising in general. This is just the most effective way. Having small groups in teaching always helps. Uh it just doesn't scale and at least in some cases it's it's not affordable. Uh but it's it's absurd how effective it is to have more teachers. Well. Okay, but you also find with the traditional lectures and so on. And you've had enough of Zoom, I guess. When I ask the MSc students who start now, they might not have had Zoom at all. Some Some of the MSc students, they don't follow up right from an undergrad. They had some some years some time in industry or some other breaks. Uh so for them, maybe it's not as um not as clear what what that looks like to study during that time. Whereas you I guess had the full load of pandemic nonsense.

14:02 All right. So one good thing I mean, uh you're probably an engaged audience. You chose this module. Um But still, it can be awkward to get people to talk in a lecture if this if you have this asymmetric setting. Uh the sage on the stage and the rest hiding in the chairs. But these response systems are a nice way to get something going. Um Even worse in online settings, I don't know. Zoom Zoom meetings with more than five people, if you try to to jump into a conversation, there's a little bit of delay. Even if you're in the same country, it's already annoying because you usually start at the same time. And then you you talk over each other, then both stop and you repeat that. Uh if you had some some sessions with transatlantic connections, maybe even worse because you have just 300 500 milliseconds. It's just the speed of lights across the ocean. So it it's really awkward and polls work much better.

14:59 Okay, enough advertisement for Slido, I guess. Uh um I mentioned most of these already. It's the same four things as before. Um I want to contrast a little bit what the goals of the different continuous assessments is. So no exam, right? Uh I didn't say that. It's By not appearing on the slide, maybe obvious, but we only have continuous assessments. The essay is a bit of an outlier, so we do that at the beginning because it fits nicely. This is more on the on the theory side. And I'll talk about that in a second a bit more. But to be part of a a scientific curriculum, you have to do a little bit of of science. And that means digging in a few research papers. I it's also just a an invitation for you to spend time researching some topic that you like. I think this can be a very enjoyable. At least last year a few students came up with some some really crazy theses.

15:01 Assessments

16:03 Uh it was fun to read. Um you can also take this if you already I mean you all have thought about what you might do as a lesson, but you don't have to stick to that. Uh we'll talk about lesson planning in in 2 weeks time, so more on that then. Um but you already thought about this and maybe you have an idea for a theory question, some pedagogy question. Maybe look up you have an idea how you would teach this. Is there some theory that someone might have tested if that's effective to teach that way? Right? Does that make some sense? Uh so maybe you have an idea for that and that could be could be your essay. So it can be tied into the rest. The rest is all a bit more practical. So we focus on uh delivering the lesson is is the the final goal, but the lesson plan is to make sure that we have a a solid basis for for marking.

17:00 That doesn't rely on just a performance of one day. Uh I have to say that for the for the taste today's it's always a bit of a gamble how the kids play with uh with the lesson. It's completely unpredictable, even if you know the schools. And you know, we have a a very broad range of schools um but still it's it's very unpredictable and the same group of kids reacts to some lessons really well and for others they couldn't really be bothered. Uh so, there's a bit of randomness in this. I'll try to assess just the part that is under your control for this uh continuous assessment. But it's impossible to completely filter that out. If If the kids are super engaged and love your topic, you'll have an easier job uh and if they feel like this is not at all interesting, which may or may or may not be your fault, uh it can be tougher to get them engaged.

17:57 Uh but I'll try to make it as fair as possible and then at least the the lesson plan is is 100% um under your control.

18:13 Okay, that's um that's an important slide. However, you don't have to memorize it. I think the important bit is uh I put this overview of the two semesters on Canvas. Have you seen that? So, I tried to plan ahead the entire year uh when do we do what? Uh we have the lectures, obvious, and then that's in your timetable, that's why I say it's obvious. Uh you will spend some time in your essay first and then the lesson plan. And we'll have two further meetings, basically to have a a point where we get together as a group. Um we'll probably talk individually between that about your lessons a bit. Just so uh I'll try to push you in a certain direction. Um that's that's maybe uh overall beneficial, but I tried I won't try to push too hard. Uh but we can discuss individually. However, as a group, I think it's good to have some fixed timetable settings so that everyone can make them.

19:12 I might invite you to do some some extra stuff, but we'll we'll talk about that. Um is all tied into outreach, and a lot of outreach is is volunteering. So, there will be bits where I I'll offer you to volunteer on some things. Uh they're separate from the course, so no grudges if you don't. Uh but these are often the fun bits, so maybe I can engage some of you for for doing that. Uh one concrete thing I want to do um is is build a large sorting network on a large tarpaulin. Uh And so, kids can walk on this and get sorted. That's um the idea is is an old one from Computer Science Unplugged, if you've seen that before maybe. Uh but I think we we could do this for for some of the taster days as well. Um So, I I figured out there's 7 weeks before Easter that we can use for taster days, so there would be seven slots.

20:12 Uh and I would I would split you up depending on the lesson topics so that we have on each day is some some spread across computer science, not just the same topics uh twice. So, my current plan is two of you would come for 1 day, and you'll be there the day, organize uh one lesson that you deliver, and help out with some of the others. Um and uh if we can get this to work, I would structure it as having one one lesson from you, then something outside for the kids to run around, and that could be the sorting network or some some other ideas. Then, uh it's probably already lunch, then another session from you, and then a session that I do. And that could be either the LEGO robots that we had traditionally in there, uh or some new stuff that's uh, I want to play with, but I'm short on time to do things. So, there we have a embroidery machine that you can program and stitch things on all sorts of textiles.

21:21 Um, so it's it's a it's a fun thing where you basically program a turtle to draw something, but then you can stitch it on some cloth. Uh, so if if we have enough good ideas for that that can replace some of the robot sessions, uh, I'd love to try that out.

21:43 Okay, more more details on that later. It's half a year in the future. But, um, I'll have to start planning with this soon because it always takes time getting back and forth, getting teachers to commit, and getting um, the all the all the parts on the university organized and fixed, uh, always takes a long time.

22:09 The other bit for now, I think that's the last last frontal topic for now, uh, is is the essay. Because you can basically get started on this right away, um, in the search for for a good topic. So, I want to leave the choice of the topic to you, uh, some many years ago this this was given like you know, we're doing the same topic. Um, I hope that we can can avoid that. I listed a few examples, but uh, just just think about what what you would find interesting. There's two hard requirements. One is that it should somehow touch in computer science education. Uh, as much as I'd love to hear about, I don't know, your favorite D&D character, uh, it's a yeah, it's a bit too much of a stretch. And maybe the second requirement makes that obvious. It should have some scientific literature in it. Uh but it can also have other things on top of that.

23:08 YouTube videos, a blog post, or I don't know, radio programs, or TV. Does Does TV still exist? Well, uh whatever you find, newspaper articles. Uh it often helps to look at different angles. Sure. Um so, if the project was essay, if this linked to the plan, like say you picked "Every child will learn how to program." But then the lesson plan had no like programming aspect to it all. Is that okay, or is the essay linked to this So, the essay can be linked if you want to, but it doesn't have to be. Uh it's Yeah, I think this is tough. Uh sometimes sometimes it's hard to find If you have a a really cool topic in mind and don't find an an appropriate essay topic that connects to it, I think it's it would be a shame to not do the lesson because of that. So, that's why uh I say do the essay on whatever.

24:02 Um of course, it's smart if you connect them because then it saves you effort and you have a nice theory underpinning for what you do later. Uh of course, that's that's kind of the ideal.

24:19 Final submission is 1st of November. Um um yeah, it's all on Canvas, but I didn't put on the slide uh for some reason. Uh I want to force you to tell me first what topic you want to work on. So, there's a a separate submission on Canvas where you just tell me uh in a few bits what you what you plan to do. And I mean, it's not so much to hassle you, it's more to protect you from working on some topic that I afterwards decide is completely unsuitable. Uh shouldn't be much effort, but it's also a good way I think I put a deadline on this well in advance of the 1st of November. So, that uh you don't push off the at least the decision what to work on.

25:08 Marking scheme, I mean, it's it's mostly about the content. There's a bit more detail on the website. Um So, remember the module website from the first page. Uh it has subpages for the different assessments. Uh and there's a bit more more detail on on the marking scheme. That didn't fit on the slide. But, yeah. I mean, the content is the most important bit.

25:42 Maybe it's a good idea to show the website briefly at this point because there's substantially more detail at this point. So, that's my website and here's the module. So, if you scroll down, there's the units and then here's the uh assessment subpages.

26:07 So, I listed some some typical structure that uh if you have a very very good reason to deviate from that, I guess, fine. But, uh usually that's that's what you do. You introduce some topic uh and you have some potentially provocative thesis from this topic, something you can agree or disagree with. Uh then you present somehow neutrally what the different viewpoints could be on this. Uh but, you also present what you think and why. Right? And this this is the part where you have to argue and bring evidence in why you think this is what you think. Uh and a big big picture at the end just to draw uh like uh the the thesis is often My advice is pick a thesis that's fairly narrow and focused because it's easier to be precise in the evidence then. Uh but it's often nice to uh you know, draw a bigger bigger scope at the end.

27:09 Uh have a read through that page and if something's unclear, let me know. Uh so there's more detail on the marking scheme. I'll I'll try to go through these questions when I read your essays and and make my ticks or marks for the sub parts and then um average that over with the weights together. And there's a few um example topics. These are the same as on the slides, but here's some some links as well.

27:41 Ah, one thing I didn't I wanted to check what the deadline for the topic is. Did I put this here? No. Uh okay, 7th of October. That's in a week, right? So um Maybe I was I was super eager to get you started early. Uh if you take a little more time with that, uh maybe maybe the world doesn't come to an end. But the the hope is get started early with thinking about the topic is is helpful.

28:25 Taster Day Lesson

28:28 Uh okay, we we can talk about this in much more detail later. Uh but because you question? Okay. Uh because you thought about your topic already, I thought it's it's good to list at least the goals briefly and you can check if you're if you want to stay with your topic or if you want to think about something different. Uh the overall goal of the taster days um is to show that computer science in general well can be enjoyable, that's one thing. But also uh is broader than the the hacker nerd programming robots in a in a dark basement. Uh I think this is maybe slightly getting better, the stereotypes even in in movies etc. is is more like the Silicon Valley nerd now than uh the Jurassic Park hacker nerd. I don't know. The first Jurassic Park, that guy, that's for me, that's the the stereotype for a long time about all computer scientists. We're moving a little bit away from that.

29:32 Uh but still um I don't know how how kids feel uh There are surveys about how much people feel they belong to the field of computing. And uh well uh for everyone like averaged across, I think it's still 15 to 20% say they don't feel like they belong. Which is pretty grim. And for some demographic groups it's much higher. I think uh the worst was uh women of color with 40% saying they don't feel like they belong. That's that's not good. Uh so whatever we can do to change that um helps and the taster days is one way just to show you know uh fun stuff like this this stitching is one way. Um show that the topic is broader and uh can be approached from many different ways.

30:29 It's often easy to argue that it's relevant. You can show all the things that people already use. Um yeah, for the setup we plan for one school hour for the lessons. That limits what you can do a bit because it's one school hour of getting kids to do things. Not one school hour of you talking. Uh roughly one class and the age groups are clear. And we'll we'll probably be in our in our labs. That's just the overall best compromise. I hope that we have a roof on top of those again. I don't know if you've heard the the misery of of Troy Hall. There were serious leaks in the roof and they're replaced now. So it should should be all fine for semester two, fingers crossed.

31:18 Uh what what does that mean for the topics for the lessons? Um I put down a few buzzwords that I think are are are important. Uh and this one is maybe the least obvious. It should be relatable to students. So try to uh think back what what you were interested at that age. Uh better yet, try to ask kids of that age now what they're interested in. Or just try to guess and uh think of something that has a connection to their life. Because that's usually how motivation starts. We'll We'll talk about motivation next week, but yeah. Ideally inclusive in various meanings of that word. In particular, the second is uh is an something you will have to deal with. You don't really know what they know when they come. Uh some of the year eights were happy with programming in Python some non-trivial things. And uh for some others, you could see through the course of of the lesson, they didn't grasp what a loop is. Um And so the the variance is quite big both between groups and of course within the group.

32:29 So it's it's ideal if you can have a lesson that allows some success moments on different stages. Um So, people call this low floor high ceiling, right? That's that's what you want to aim for. It's easy to step in, uh but there's ample room to grow. Hopefully without ever hitting a ceiling.

32:55 Okay? Questions on that so far? I don't think this has changed from what I told you in in the spring, but it's a long time ago. Maybe you have forgotten.

33:07 Introduction / Ice breaker

33:10 All right, that's uh all from that. On to the fun stuff. Uh what I would like you to do on Slido. So, I I'll put the question up, but um listen up first.

33:27 Uh I'd like you to submit this. So, the thing is you can only submit it once and you can't edit it. Heh. So, uh um let's uh let's be careful of it. I'd like you to answer these four questions briefly, but without putting your name there. Um I set it up on Slido so that it's anonymous even if you're logged in with your name. And what I'd like you to do is is submit that. Once we have all the answers, we'll go through them, and you get to guess who it is. And then that person can briefly comment on it. So, I know icebreakers are always a bit stupid. Uh but I tried to to sprinkle in a few things that can get us talking about things useful for this module. And of course, I'm curious about the last bit as well.