We have a website at the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre that is kept more frequently up-to-date. For blog posts by Sue Sentance, you can now go to https://computingeducationresearch.org/
Author: Sue Sentance
I research computing education in schools, particularly in the UK. My particular interests are programming pedagogy, teacher professional learning in computing, curriculum change, and physical computing. Any views expressed on this site are my own and not endorsed by my employer. I work for the Raspberry Pi Foundation and I'm a Visiting Fellow at King's College London.
WiPSCE 2019 – a ceilidh and more!
I've just attended WIPSCE 2019 at the University of Glasgow, UK, hosted by Quintin Cutts and Peter Donaldson and team at the Centre for Computing Science Education. I really enjoyed the conference, as I do all WIPSCE conferences! In fact it was my 8th, as I have been every year since 2012, the first year… Continue reading WiPSCE 2019 – a ceilidh and more!
New paper: PRIMM and sociocultural theory
Together with Jane Waite and Maria Kallia, I've recently published a new paper about PRIMM called Teaching computer programming with PRIMM: a sociocultural perspective There are 50 free eprints available. Download one here. If they run out, contact me! I've written about PRIMM elsewhere, and I also presented a shorter paper on it at SIGCSE… Continue reading New paper: PRIMM and sociocultural theory
Situated Learning and Computing At School – new paper
I have recently published, with Simon Humphreys, a new paper on situated learning and teacher professional development in computing education, using Computing At School (CAS) as an example. This paper looks at situated learning and what it really means, and what Lave and Wenger (1991) meant by a community of practice. The term "community of… Continue reading Situated Learning and Computing At School – new paper
Computing in the Curriculum: Identifying and responding to the challenges
In October 2017, I was awarded the BERA Public Engagement and Impact Award for work in computing education. To respond to the award, I wrote this short article, which was published in BERA's termly magazine, Research Intelligence, Spring 2018. Every time we turn on the TV or radio we hear of a new innovation in… Continue reading Computing in the Curriculum: Identifying and responding to the challenges
GCSE computer science – can we look at “why” before we talk about “hard”
Today the latest TRACER report from Peter Kemp and colleagues was published. It's excellent that the team have done so much digging into the data to be able to contrast different groups and show us where students are likely to be taking GCSE computer science and A Level. Some good news: "Increasing numbers of schools… Continue reading GCSE computer science – can we look at “why” before we talk about “hard”
New book on computer science education!
Computer Science Education: Perspectives on Learning and Teaching at School is a new book edited by Sue Sentance, together with Carsten Schulte, University of Padeborn and Erk Barendsen, Radboud University, Nijmegen. Bringing together international experts in the field of computer science education in school this book will be useful both for students studying to become computing… Continue reading New book on computer science education!
‘Coding’ in School? Research Needed to make Computing Accessible to All Children
This post has been reproduced from the Social Science Space Blog published in January 2018: https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2018/01/coding-school-research-needed-computing-accessible-children/ Coding. It's the new ‘must have’ skill - there are opportunities for us to learn this everywhere, with online courses, workshops, books and magazines abounding. In school, coding has also become a focus. When computing replaced ICT as part of… Continue reading ‘Coding’ in School? Research Needed to make Computing Accessible to All Children
IT and Computing education in Guyana
Guyana is a small country (size of UK) in the north of South America bordering Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname. However in many ways it associates itself with the Caribbean - for example, students take Caribbean GCSEs - called the CSEC. In terms of computing in school, students can take the CSEC in IT and this… Continue reading IT and Computing education in Guyana
Identifying Exploratory Procedures of Visually Impaired Learners in Programming
At King’s College London we are conducting research around making computing education inclusive of all learners. Alex Hadwen-Bennett is currently carrying out research looking into the use of physical programming languages to teach visually impaired children to program. Physical programming languages use physical blocks or pods to represent commands. These blocks or pods can be… Continue reading Identifying Exploratory Procedures of Visually Impaired Learners in Programming
Sue Sentance 