My name is Jason Davis, I’m a Computer Science teacher at Handsworth Grange School, Sheffield. I joined the WIPRO Mentor Programme in January 2019. I first heard about the scheme from my line manager at work. Right away, I was intrigued by the potential of the project to improve my practice and subject area. I was encouraged to join the mentor strand of the project, mainly due to being new to mentoring and allowing me to develop these skills for use in my career.
Improving my mentoring knowledge and skills
To help me prepare for my mentoring role, I have been following a mentoring course, involving three workbooks, in Pebblepad. These have been really useful in furthering my mentoring skills, understanding mentoring/coaching practices and how to stretch and challenge mentees. The webinars are hugely effective, allowing you to discuss your learning with others, both clarifying your learning and challenging your views through other mentors’ opinions. Below is a short excerpt from one recent webinar, where I was presenting on my experience of mentoring.
Initially the workbooks seemed daunting due to academic nature and the gap since my last academic qualification. However, once you get your teeth into them you soon realise you are supported through the learning material presented to you and the real-life case studies of coaching and mentoring. These allow you to develop your understanding, reflect on your own practice, and develop your own opinions on mentoring practices.
Developing my own STEM practice
One of the things I was asked to do was to think about an instance where I have reflected on my own practice and made changes. A large problem in Computer Science is getting students to understand failure and rectify/debug programs that do not work. I have trialed and used a practice called ‘Rubber Duck Debugging‘, (see https://rubberduckdebugging.com/) allowing students to reflect on problems and think of their own solutions, and the Wipro programme has given me the space and time to think about this.
Working with a Wipro Teacher Fellow
So far, my interaction with my teacher fellow has focused on my role as a subject coach on the project. The mentee I am working with is looking for subject specific help with programming practice, both delivery and help with how to learn skills instead of just a programming language. How to plan an effective Programming Scheme of work can be daunting for teachers new to the subject, as is the pedagogy of teaching programming, and the development of pupils’ algorithmic thinking (see my suggested links below).
I have really enjoyed the course so far and am looking forward to the next 12 months, both for the learning and the mentoring experience. I am really looking forward to getting to use these further within this project and to get more experience working with other teachers, in the hope that we can better STEM education.
Some useful links for Computing Subject Knowledge and Pedagogy
- National Curriculum Computing Programmes of Study [link]
- Teaching Resources for Computer Science [link]
- STEM Learning: https://www.stem.org.uk/
- Rubber Duck Debugging [link]
- BBC Bitesize: Programming [link]
- British Computer Society [link]
- Computer Science Unplugged [link]
- Teach Computing [link]