Teaching Computing in Secondary Schools: A Practical Handbook

This book provides a step-by-step guide to teaching computing at secondary level. It offers an entire framework for planning and delivering the curriculum and shows you how to create a supportive environment for students in which all can enjoy computing. The focus throughout is on giving students the opportunity to think, program, build and create with confidence and imagination, transforming them from users to creators of technology.

In each chapter, detailed research and teaching theory is combined with resources to aid the practitioner, including case studies, planning templates and schemes of work that can be easily adapted. The book is split into three key parts: planning, delivery, and leadership and management, and covers topics such as:

• curriculum and assessment design
• lesson planning
• cognitive science behind learning
• computing pedagogy and instructional principles
• mastery learning in computing
• how to develop students’ computational thinking
• supporting students with special educational needs and disabilities
• encouraging more girls to study computing
• actions, habits and routines of effective computing teachers
• behaviour management and developing a strong classroom culture
• how to support and lead members of your team.

Teaching Computing in Secondary Schools is essential reading for trainee and practising teachers, and will prove to be an invaluable resource in helping teaching professionals ensure that students acquire a wide range of computing skills which will support them in whatever career they choose.

William Lau is currently in charge of Key Stage 4 Computing at Central Foundation Boys’ School in London. Lau has taught computing from Key Stages 1 through 5 in three London state schools and in an International school in Seychelles. He has delivered CPD at various UK schools and universities, specialising in curriculum design, assessment design and computing pedagogy. He has mentored trainee teachers at King’s College London and the University of Roehampton. Lau is a CAS Master Teacher and a Google Certified Innovator. In July 2017 he received an international Award for Teaching Excellence in computer science from the Infosys Foundation in the US, the Association for Computing Machinery and the Computer Science Teachers Association. He was head of computing at the Greenwich Free School until August 2017.