My name is Ray Chambers. I'm a specialist in computing and have a first class honours degree in computer science. I'm currently the lead teacher of computer science at Brooke Weston Academy in Corby Northamptonshire. I have been teaching for roughly 8 years and I thoroughly enjoy my job. In 2015 I was fortunate to win the Pearson National Teaching Award for innovative use of technology. I also won the BAFTA for mentoring young coders.
My name is Ray Chambers. I'm a specialist in computing and have a first class honours degree in computer science. I'm currently the lead teacher of computer science at Brooke Weston Academy in Corby Northamptonshire. I have been teaching for roughly 8 years and I thoroughly enjoy my job. In 2015 I was fortunate to win the Pearson National Teaching Award for innovative use of technology. I also won the BAFTA for mentoring young coders.
These are 4 programming challenges which include the following programming techniques. You can get the students to work through these tasks and evidence the work. I get my students to show print screens and testing for each of these tasks and then they can use the tasks combined to make their own program.
*While Loops
*Variables
*Input
*Output
*Lists
*For Loops
*String Manipulation
This is a simple task which will allow students to create a simple user interface in Python. It uses the Tkinter library which is built into most schools. They're able to create some simple procedures which quit and display error messages.
It shows candidates how to add in buttons and gets them creating a simple interface in Python which they can use for programming. The idea of this is to get A-Level students started so that they can start thinking about using Python for their main project. It is suitable for GCSE and Lower Level students.
Some questions to assess how well your students have understood the Von Neumann and Harvard architecture of the CPU. Includes answer sheet. One side test, good for a starter or plenary activity.
Questions include:
GPU - Graphics processing unit
Von Neumann
Pipelining
Hardvard
This lesson introduces constructors to students and talks about the need for setting up the class.
There is an example program to work through with a worksheet attached. it shows students how to initialise variables in their program and how to pass items in.
This should help students become more confident and builds on nicely from the previous task. If students have been absent they can pick it up quite easily.
This lesson introduces students to using operators such as Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide and Exponentiation. They're also introduced to Mod (working out the remainder) and Quotient (working out the whole number). They're given a number of activities which allow them to apply some of this and will attempt working out the median and mean. After this they're given an activity which gets them to work with the OCR structure. They're required to decompose a problem, list success criteria and build a sleep calculator. They will need to list their variables and on top of this will also need to show the development of their code. The worksheet can be typed in.
All operations are explained: -
num1+num2
num1-num2
num1*num2
num1/num2
num1**num2 for exponent
% used to explain remainder
// used to explain whole number part of division
Students given extension task / independent research task for finding out the mode.
This is a 50 mark assessment to check students understanding of input, output and storage devices. As the new spec for OCR is quite new. I went through all of the computing spec to find old questions which will map into the new specification. This gives you a good idea of how your students are performing.
Students will answer the questions and their is an answer sheet for you to use so that you can mark your students. I currently use the OCR A-Level grade boundaries for a rough idea.
I have used the last 4-5 years of A-Level computing questions to find questions on floating point binary. I have compiled them in a 50 mark test which will test the students on their ability to do the following: -
- convert from denary to binary
- convert from denary to floating point binary
- convert from floating point binary to denary
- normalise floating point binary
- compare floating point binary numbers to check accuracy
Answer sheet has been provided against the spec so that you can see where it's possible to gain marks.
I used this against the current grade boundaries to assess where they're currently at.
This task is a worksheet which explains the rules for bitwise operators and it explains some situations of where you might use it. On top of this it gives you a number of questions with an answer sheet which will help support your lesson.
It explains the rules of AND, OR and XOR which are on the OCR A-Level Computer Science Syllabus.
This presentation is a follow on after students have already learnt about how the Fetch Execute Decode Cycle. The idea of the presentation is that they can flow on from what they've already learnt.
This will focus on the AS Level - Von Neumann / Harvard systems and it explains the difference. Following on from this the students are taught the difference between CISC and RISC. The idea of this will be that they understand how instructions are split.
There is a task at the end with requirements for students to build a revision poster at the end.
1.3.2 - Characteristics of networks and the importance of protocols and standards.
This lesson is the first part to two lessons on section 1.3.2 of the OCR syllabus. The lesson starts off with some questioning on the CPU which was the topic I covered with students in their recent lesson. Check the PowerPoint notes.
Slide break down: -
Slide 1 - 4 - We’re learning to explain the characteristics of Networks and the importance of protocols and standards - Learning objective and questions. Asks students what a network is.
Slide 5 - A video explaining why we need networks.
Slide 6-8 - Explains what is meant by a network. Explains what a LAN and WAN is and uses key points from past computing exam papers to give students what the mark scheme would look for.
Slide 9-13 - Looks at different transmission media. Gets students to understand copper and fibre optic.
Slide 14 Students share what they did for homework.
Slide 15 - 25 Explains topologies and includes a video. Their are unplugged activities which get the students to become the network.
Final Activity included
This lesson starts off with some previous exam questions about LAN and WAN. It includes answers and shows students where they can gather their marks.
It then explains to students how a protocol works. It gives them an example and gets them to think about their communication.
Following on from this there is a video explaining the TCP/IP stack with the 4 layers that they're likely to need to know. Each layer is broken down into key points.
There is a single exam style question.
Students are then expected to look up the remaining protocols which are used regularly in networks. This task can be through poster, video or other medium.
This slide deck includes software development.
It looks at the following content through these slides;-
*Feasibility
*Requirements
*Waterfall life cycle
*RAD
*Spiral
*Agile
There are some questions are the end and a link to a YouTube video showing me teaching it.
It should help you with your delivery.
Slide 2 - Introduces the learning objectives.
Slide 3 - Explains the difference between client and server-side processing.
Slide 4 - Talks about decision making briefly talking about the difference between performance and security.
Slide 5 - Advantages of client-side processing.
Slide 6 - Advantages of server-side processing.
Slide 7 - Link to a video from craig and dave - computer science teachers. I do not own this content and you're not paying for it. It is an external link to a great video resource.
Slide 8 - An exam style question. It has no answer sheet to this question. It's more about getting your students to apply knowledge, application and evaluation.
Slide 9 - Example exam questions to support the topic. These are attached in the PDF. Made using an exam builder.
A Powerpoint presentation explaining Big O Notation. There are some examples of code and some graphs which help students visualise what is meant by exponential and the complexity of algorithms.
This was useful to my year 13 students and hopefully it will help yours.
Many of my students struggled with the concept of converting from denary into floating point binary. This presentation shows a variety of question and breaks down how to tackle the questions. There are 5 sample questions at the end of the presentation for students to attempt and the technique is broken down into simple steps to help both the teacher and the students understand it.
It breaks down how to do some simple questions such as number 7 but also shows you how to work out negative numbers such as -0.375 and shows the technique for multiplying the decimal by 2.
I hope that this will help struggling teachers.
This shows students how to design a class with a class diagram.
It walks through the need to design classes and there is a worksheet attached that gets the students do design the class and build the program. They can use a number of different programming opportunities with this and it will help them for their A-level project.
Assessment covering the following areas of data representation: -
Units - bits, bytes, nibble etc...
Numbers - converting to hex, denary and binary
Binary Shift
How to convert whole denary numbers
Characters - use of binary codes
Character Sets
Images - How to represent images as a series of pixels
Images - Metadata included in a file
Images - Colour depth and resolution
Sound - Sampling rates / Size / Bit Rate / Frequency
Compression - Need for compression / types of compression
Objective: - We’re learning to identify the hardware and classification linked with networks.
This lesson includes notes in the teacher slides to help teachers understand the content they're delivering with links to videos and also embedded videos.
During this lesson students will learn about:
Client server models
Client-Server
Servers available
Peer to peer networks
Advantages and disadvantages
Network hardware
NIC
Wireless access points
Routers
Switches
Draw your own network diagram
This video is a sample of what you will see in the bank of 9 videos which will help your students get started with the Micro:bit. I hope this is useful and that the other videos will get your students started.
This video shows you how to get a light moving left and right using iteration.
When planning a curriculum you might want to use this sheet to help you when planning a curriculum for your school this is an example that I used for my department to help think about the curriculum.