Are universities doing enough to support computing education in primary and secondary schools?
Opinion Piece by Keith Quille, Roisin Faherty and Keith Nolan
In 2018 perhaps one of the most significant developments in computing education in Ireland took place - the launch of Leaving Certificate Computer Science (an elective subject that any second level school, of which there are over 700, may offer). As long as I can remember many groups have been advocating such a subject, with many attempts over the years, with CESI (the official teacher professional network for computer science) being one such driver.
Adding to these exciting developments, the primary curriculum is currently under a reform, with the introduction of new subject areas including STEM. This means for the first time, students at all levels across Ireland will have access to some form of computing education. Never in the history of Ireland has computing education been embedded from primary to secondary level education.
I was lucky enough to be involved in some capacity with the Leaving Certificate Computer Science and Junior Cycle review NCCA - It is safe to say I am invested in computing education in Ireland. While all of these developments sound, and are, in fact major achievements when it comes to computing education in Ireland and internationally (as there are not many countries that have the offerings that we do), they come with a caveat. With all efforts from Oidei, there simply lies a problem that not many other subject areas experience. Many teachers or perhaps even the majority simply have no formal education or qualification in computing. Where this problem was explicitly linked to the Leaving Certificate subject, now this subject will now be mandatory from junior infants all the way up to 6th class, affecting not just the teachers who opt to deliver the leaving certificate subject, but for all primary school teachers.
Uptake of the Leaving Certificate subject is estimated to be around 20% (in line with many international comparisons), in approximately 150 schools, with perhaps only one teacher per school. This is in stark contrast to over three and a half thousand primary schools, where multiple teachers will now have to deliver computing education.
Support from Third-level institutions
One of the main sources of support is, and should be the universities and third level institutions, but are we really doing enough? The Leaving Certificate Computer Science support framework stresses the importance of support from third-level institutes; this ranges from a buddy system, professional learning programmes, supporting transition year and community of practices. While there are pockets of supports, not many scale to support of budding computer educators that are needed. In addition, the research needed to iteratively redesign training, supports and professional learning for these teachers are often non-existent.
TU Dublin is different. A small group of academics have been spending all of their spare time over the past six years supporting computing education in Ireland, and we hope to pave the path for other institutions to support this critical inaugural stage. The research group CSINC (Computer Science Inclusive) has been working on several activities that we hope other institutions may adopt to support computing education.
At second level, for the leaving certificate computer science, the team have developed over 20 professional learning programmes that directly support learning outcomes for teachers. These are now freely available online, developed from three years of working with over 1500 teachers who attended the professional learning sessions. Each year, as teachers come to grasp with the
subject we still have several hundreds of teachers accessing the resources. At transition year we have developed an online programme for teachers to deliver computing education. We developed research-informed lesson plans, activities and solutions for teachers in the classroom. This year alone we have over 10,000 students registered and using the system with their teachers, where, on successful completion get a certificate of completion from TU Dublin and other partners. We also support junior cycle short course in coding as well as further education courses on the same online.
At primary level we recently launched Edtips, a programme to provide every primary school with free digital technology teaching resources and equipment to prepare for the introduction of the Primary Curriculum Framework next year (www.edtips.ie). This programme supported by SFI Discover and AWS in Communities, as well as Workday. Here we are not only developing the content to support the new curriculum but with thanks to AWS in communities every primary school in Ireland will receive a digital technology starter kit to help integrate the new subject area into their classrooms.
While TU Dublin may be different in that it supports and encourages the growth of computing in schools, so much more can be done. Imagine a future where every university can adopt and deliver the CSINC content. While many universities are doing their bit to some extent, these are often small local activities and while up to now this may have been enough, the new primary curriculum demands more. The sheer volume of primary school teachers that will have to enact this new curriculum requires a much larger effort from the third level sector. And while TU Dublin have started this ball rolling with the generation of primary school supports for teachers embarking on this journey there is only so much that one university can do. With just under 30,000 primary school teachers, imagine if all of the third level universities provided support, not only with the content knowledge needed, the subject area would be transformed for the better. The support service for teachers and school leaders has been recognised internationally as going above and beyond the normal role of duty for supporting computing education in Ireland.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of TU Dublin.