Seminar paper on how to teach ICT_Buea seminar2010

DIDACTICS FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE

      I.            Learning Objectives

Introduction

Learning Objectives are statements that describe what a learner will be able to do at the end of a lesson as a result of teaching. In other word say, it is a sort of contract that teachers make with learners that describes what they will be able to do after learning which they could not do before, the 'added value' of teaching. Just because knowledge or skills are taught does not mean that particular knowledge or skills are learned. Many factors can interfere with the achievement of objectives: the existing knowledge of the learner, the relevance or usefulness of the materials presented and the skills of the teacher.

Objectives can be written for any type of learning. A common way to categorize learning is by the domain in which it occurs. The three domains and ensuing type of objectives include: cognitive, affective and psychomotor.

Cognitive	Thought or knowledge Objectives describe: "what the student is able to do" (an observable)
Affective	Feelings or choices Objectives describe : "how the student chooses to act"
Psychomotor	Physical skills Objectives describe: "what the student can perform"

Table 1: Different learning domains

The cognitive domain (Bloom, 1956) is the objective type that will be use. It involves knowledge and the development of intellectual skills. This includes the recall or recognition of specific facts, procedural patterns, and concepts that serve in the development of intellectual abilities and skills. There are six major categories, which are listed in order below, starting from the simplest behavior to the most complex. The categories can be thought of as degrees of difficulties. That is, the first one must be mastered before the next one can take place.

Category	Key Words
Knowledge: Recall data or information.	defines, describes, identifies, knows, labels, lists, matches, names, outlines, recalls, recognizes, reproduces, selects, states.
Comprehension: Understand the meaning, translation, interpolation, and interpretation of instructions and problems. State a problem in one's own words.	comprehends, converts, defends, distinguishes, estimates, explains, extends, generalizes, gives Examples, infers, interprets, paraphrases, predicts, rewrites, summarizes, translates.
Application: Use a concept in a new situation or unprompted use of an abstraction. Applies what was learned in the classroom into novel situations in the work place.	applies, changes, computes, constructs, demonstrates, discovers, manipulates, modifies, operates, predicts, prepares, produces, relates, shows, solves, uses.
Analysis: Separates material or concepts into component parts so that its organizational structure may be understood. Distinguishes between facts and inferences.	analyzes, breaks down, compares, contrasts, diagrams, deconstructs, differentiates, discriminates, distinguishes, identifies, illustrates, infers, outlines, relates, selects, separates.
Synthesis: Builds a structure or pattern from diverse elements. Put parts together to form a whole, with emphasis on creating a new meaning or structure.	categorizes, combines, compiles, composes, creates, devises, designs, explains, generates, modifies, organizes, plans, rearranges, reconstructs, relates, reorganizes, revises, rewrites, summarizes, tells, writes.
Evaluation: Make judgments about the value of ideas or materials.	appraises, compares, concludes, contrasts, criticizes, critiques, defends, describes, discriminates, evaluates, explains, interprets, justifies, relates, summarizes, supports.

Table 2: Bloom`s Taxonomy Of Educational Objectives (Bloom et al 1956).

• Purpose of Learning Objectives

Teaching is an art and like all arts, it becomes interesting only when there is a reason for it. When a teacher has only vague ideas about what he/she is trying to teach, it becomes difficult to measure how well the teaching has succeeded thus the need for objectives in lessons. 

The goal of each teacher, consciously or otherwise, is to have a near to one hundred percent understanding of the material taught. Whatever the situation the teacher should develop a good learning objective.

Good learning objectives have the following advantages; 

ü  Instruction(teaching) is better;

ü  Learning is more efficient;

ü  Evaluation is better;

ü  Students do self evaluation better.

• Writing a Learning Objective;

 When writing a learning objective, avoid terms that cannot be clearly understood by the reader. It is necessary to communicate an objective as clearly as possible to avoid misinterpretation. A well written learning objective should specify observable (overt) behavior and indicate WHAT THE LEARNERS WILL BE ABLE TO DO.

Also it should be noted that there is a difference between student’s activities and objectives. If the teacher is not conscious enough, the tendency would be to state student activity as a lesson objective.

Activities are the learning experiences in a lesson that students participate in to achieve objectives.

Objectives describe the knowledge; skills or attitudes students should be able to demonstrate as a result of participating in a lesson.

• Component of a Learning Objective

The three main components of a learning objective are:

ü  Performance-- What should the learner be able to do?

ü  Condition - Under what conditions do you want the learner to be able to do it? It always have expressions like, given…,after…,during…, when provided with…, etc  and

ü  Degree- How well must it be done?

When the learning objective has been written, we would need to observe that three fundamental aspects are covered such as the performance, the conditions of the performance, and the degree.

ü  The (overt) behavior that would be performed

ü  The condition under which the behavior will be performed.

ü  The degree of the performance.

When describing student`s performance in an objective only active verbs are used e.g list, name, select, write, draw etc.

NB: passive verbs should not be used e.g. understand, know, comprehend, learn, feel etc.

To write a good condition, the question the teacher should ask is “under what circumstances is the behavior to be performed?” e.g. Will the learners be given graphs, illustrations, reference material, or must they performs from memory? Generally to arrive at the condition, ‘given’ is used.

• Rules of writing learning objectives

Learning objectives need to be SMART

S = Specific

M = Measurable

A = Attainable or Achievable

R = Reliable

T = Time-bound

In summary a good learning objective should;

1.         i.            Have the three main components, namely: Performance, Condition, Degree
2.       ii.            Be SMART, that is, Specific, Attainable, Reliable, and Time-bound.

This can be used to judge the quality of a learning objective.

• The Three Main Characteristics of Good Objectives

1.                     i.            Objectives should identify a learning outcome - The objective needs to state what the learner is to perform, not how the learners learn. Evidence of whether the learners have learned the material lies not in watching them read about it but in listening to them explain the principles in their own words.
2.                   ii.            Objectives should be consistent with lesson goals - Teachers sometimes try to teach what they think is important or like to instruct rather than what the learners need to know. When objectives and goals are not consistent, two avenues of approach are available: change (or eliminate) the objective, or change the lesson goal.
3.                 iii.            Objectives should be precise - It's sometimes difficult to strike a balance between too much and too little precision in an objective. Remember, the purpose of an objective is to give different people the same understanding of the desired instructional outcome.

   II.            Teaching strategy for a computer lesson

The strategy used is the active learning based teaching method. This method consists of four stages as seen in Figure 4 below and is described in what follows.

Figure1: Active-learning based teaching strategy

• First stage

Trigger: Following the constructivist perspective, the objective of this stage is to introduce a topic and arouse the interest of the students with a worthwhile assignment in a non-traditional fashion. For this purpose, the students are challenged by a trigger which is given by the teacher, an open-end activity of a kind which is new to the students. Specifically, a trigger should enhance and foster meaningful learning and should have the potential to raise a wide array of questions, dilemmas, attitudes and perceptions. Depending on the trigger's main objective (which has to be clearly stated inorder not to allow any doubt in the learners’ mind), the activity can be worked on individually, in pairs or in small groups. A trigger can be based on different kinds of activities, such as analyzing a class situation, debugging a given computer program, composing a test on a specific topic and so on.

• Second stage

 Activity: In this stage, the students work on the trigger presented to them. This stage may be short, or it may be longer and take up the majority of the lesson. The specific period of time dedicated to this stage naturally depends on the kind of trigger used and on the educational objectives of the trigger. The teacher circulates between the different groups working on the trigger, listens to their opinions, is sensitive to what they say and encourages them to deepen their thinking. When needed, the teacher directs the students in their discussion about the different issues raised by the trigger.

• Third stage

            Discussion: After the required period of time, during which the students work on the trigger either in pairs or in small groups, the entire class is gathered. At this stage, products, topics and thoughts that originated during the Activity stage are presented to the entire class and are discussed. The instructor highlights important ideas presented by the students and emphasizes principles derived from these ideas, however, classmates are encouraged to react and express their opinions with respect to the different ideas presented. After the different groups must have brainstormon the task, the presenters of each group will present their results. The teacher in collaboration with the students will now harmonise the results. The harmonised results are taken down by the students as notes.

After discussing as a class the teacher will then try to consolidate what has been discussed, that is students are given some exercises to do and the outcomes will determine the level of understanding of the lesson. If it is notice that the objectives has not been met, the may be taken all over again in the next period, or more practice should be done.

• Fourth stage

             Summary: This stage is managed differently from the three previous stages. First, it is significantly shorter. Second, while in the first three stages the students are the main actors; in the summary stage the teacher takes the front stage. The teacher wraps up the topic discussed by summarizing and highlighting central concepts, teaching ideas, conceptual frameworks and any other related topics that were raised and discussed during the previous three stages. This summary can take on different forms, such as the formulation of a framework, listing of connections between the said topic and other topics, and so on.

            To accurately carryout this strategy some particular teaching methods has to be applied. The teacher is supposed to choose the method which he/she feels will suit the transmission of knowledge. Some of the methods used include;

• Illustration: This method is used when using diagrams, pictures etc
• Demonstration: It is when the real material is available. Using a real keyboard to demonstrate typing as compared to illustrating typing with a picture of a keyboard.
• Oral explanation and questioning: An oral, explicit, clear, orderly way of representing information.
• Brainstorming: whole class or small group
• Practice and drill: Use to consolidate a concept where things are done over and over or many times to reinforce understanding
• Plenary discussion: whole class is involved in the discussion.

The teaching strategy can be fitted in a table representing the presentation phase of a lesson with the following correspondence; Trigger correspond to the introduction; Learning activity correspond to the elaboration,  Discussion correspond to the Consolidation, and Summary correspond to the Closure.

Presentation phase for a theory lesson

The lesson procedure takes a vertical orientation with horizontal association /relations. It is divided into four stages vertically these are; introduction, elaboration, consolidation and closure and on the horizontal axis there is content, intermediate pedagogic objectives(IPO),method, teacher activity, students’ activity formative evaluation and duration.

Stages	Content	IPO	Method	Teacher activity	Student activity	Formative evaluation	Duration
Introduction
Elaboration
Consolidation/Evaluation
Closure

Table 3: Sample of the presentation phase for a theory lesson

Presentation phase for a Practical lesson

Phase	Duration	Description
Settling down	5mins	Orderly entry into the lab, taking of attendance, handing of worksheet etc
introduction	10mins	Review of previous lesson and overview of day’s work. Brief explanation of worksheet and of main points.
Body	30mins	Students work from worksheets with teacher monitoring and giving individual attention as require.
Conclusion	5mins	Saving and closing down application or system. Review of day‘­s work and reinforcement of main of main concept encountered (Elicited from students themselves­).

Table 4: Sample of the presentation phase for a Practical lesson

Background or identification phase

This phase carries information which is relevant to the lesson such as, the subject, class, class size, Name of teacher, topic of the lesson, objective of lesson, date, duration of lesson, language, etc and some background information as to the relevance of this topic.

Subject: ……………………………			place: …………………………………..
Class : ……………	Number of student:………..		Name of teacher: ………………………………………
Topic of lesson : …………………………………………………………………				Duration: ………
Pedagogic Objectives		…………………………………………….
Previous knowledge		…………………………………………………………
Didactic materials		……………………………………………………
New Vocabulary		………………………………………………
References		………………………………………………dossiers de l

 Table 5: Sample of the Identification phase of a lesson

Description of the various elements contain in the identification phase relative to the lesson;

•  
  • Subject: The subject is computer science.
  • Place: It signifies the location where the lesson will take place. The lesson can be in a classroom or computer laboratory.
  • Class: The class for which the lesson will be taught.
  • Number of students: The number student preview for the lesson.
  • Topic of lesson: This indicates the lesson of the day
  • Duration: The time taken by the lesson,
  • Pedagogic objectives: This indicates the learning outcomes (behavior) that is expected to be seen from the learner.

For example of a pedagogical objective is seen below:

Given a computer with all its components, at the end of the lesson, all the students should be able to use correctly at least 90% of the keys on the computer keyboard.

From this pedagogic objective the following components can be deducted:

• Condition: Given a computer with all its components;
• Performance: able to use correctly;
• Degree: at least 90%

•  
  • Previous knowledge: It is the knowledge each student is suppose to have before a given lesson.

e.g a previous knowledge for the teaching of computer keyboard is that, student must have done computer input devices .

•  
  • Didactic Materials:

They are semi-concrete or abstract object which help to facilitate the teaching and learning process.  Before preparing a lesson, a teacher is suppose to choose a teaching material that will suit the lesson. The choice of the didactic material depends on the contents of the lesson and the learning environment. ¶Thus there are three criteria for the choice of a didactic material:¶ This material must satisfy the following criteria;

• Acceptability: It should be suitable with the learning environment and the culture of the users.
•  Usefulness: :¶the material must be useful or employed in this environment
• Usability:¶ the selected tool must be advantageously to serve as to reach the objectives.¶

Example of didactic materials are computer components’ picture, projector , computer etc.

• New vocabulary: it comprises of words that appears in the lesson which learner should know so as to ease their understanding of the lesson.
• References: It refers to the source from where the content is gotten, which may be textbooks or the internet.

III.            Evaluation

At the end of each lesson, the teachers are supposed to evaluate their students to know whether they have attained the objectives set out at the beginning of the lesson. There are various forms of evaluations; formative evaluation which can be carried out during a lesson or at the end of the lesson to see whether the teaching process or methods used have helped students to assimilate what they have been taught as well as develop the competence awaited .This could be done by oral or written questions and answers sections in class or take home assignments to be handed later for corrections. Students and teachers are expected to use the formative assessment as feedback for improvement.

Meanwhile summative evaluation which is an end product evaluation can be oral or written to grade student at the end of a course. Its primary goal is to tell the student and teacher how well the students are learning. It is use by students and teachers as feedback for improvement. It is done in an oral questioning and answer format.

Good evaluations should have the following principles:

• They should be in line with your lesson objectives.
• They should test the students’ knowledge and skills about your topic.
• They should reward students who understand the material.
• They don’t reward students who have memorized information the night before the test hoping to pass.

There should be a logical link between the lesson content, the learning objectives, the didactic material, the learning activities and the evaluation of a lesson. This means that a teacher should not evaluate students on what he has not taught.

1. IV.            How to Write a Lesson Plan

A lesson plan is a written description to teach academic content. A lesson plan helps teachers organize their objectives and methodologies A lesson plan determines the purpose, aim, and rational of your class time activity. It also provides focus for the lesson you are presenting. A lesson plan is a fairly detailed plan of instruction. It helps you think through the best way to present the information to the students. You will need to develop clear and specific objectives. The following important components must be included in all lesson plans:

Preplanning 

• It is important to know the subject matter you will be teaching.
• List the important facts, key concepts, skills, or vocabulary terms that you intend to cover.
• Indicate what you intend to teach.
• Identify the aims or outcomes you want the students to achieve.
• Have a clear idea of what you want the students to learn.
• The objective must contain a behavior, the content, the condition, and the criterion, so that you can write, in detail, what is learned and how well the students learn it.
• The objective of a lesson is that the students demonstrate a specific skill. e.g., how to format word document.
• Make sure you will be able to tell if the objective was met.
• Must include broad and narrow objectives. The broad objective is the overall goal of the lesson plan. The narrow or specific objective would be what it teaches the students to accomplish, e.g., teach the students to copy a text.
• Indicate what is to be learned.
• Objectives demonstrate how well the students have learned or understood the lesson presented.
• Objectives should also be directly measurable. Gather evidence that the students did the task, e.g. quizzes or assignments.
• Write objectives that describe learning outcomes.
• List all the equipment to be used by the student and the teacher.
• Describe how the equipment will be used.

Lesson Setup

• Decide on the signal for attention, e.g., .Good Morning. Let’s get started or eyes on me..
• Explain the rules and procedures, .e.g. raising hands or not talking at once.
• Language must be specific and clear.
• Explain your expectations for learning at each transition of the lesson, rather than stating them all at the beginning.
• It shows the students how this lesson connects with yesterday’s lesson.

Lesson Opening

• Review what has already been learned.
• State the objective of the lesson.
• Motivate and get students focused on the lesson.

Lesson Body

• Provide a detailed, step-by-step description of everything you will do.
• Include a description of how you will introduce the lesson.
• Include specific things that the student will do during the lesson.
• Check for student understanding.
• Use multiple methods to check for student understanding.
• Describe how can this material be presented to ensure each student will have a good learning experience?

Extended Practice

• Provide practice opportunities prior to evaluation.
• Monitor this practice session and give the students feedback.
• Describe how to provide opportunities to practice during and following the lesson.
• Extended practice often takes two forms:

1. Homework
2. Follow-up practice in the computer lab.

• Provide a great deal of additional practice in real-world applications.
• Make sure the student can use the lesson learned in various settings.

Lesson Closing

• Review the key points of the lesson.
• Give students opportunities to draw conclusions from the lesson.
• Describe when the students can use this new information.
• Preview future lessons.
• Have students describe their problem-solving process.
• It should be a meaningful end to the lesson.
• This is a time for students to show their work.
• The closing can create a smooth transition from one lesson to the next lesson.

Assessment/Evaluation

• You must evaluate the objectives that were identified.
• Provide students with the opportunity to practice the activity you will be assessing them on.
• Describe the ways you will provide opportunities for the students to practice.

Clear descriptions of the method that will help you accurately determine whether or not     the students have mastered