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.
This lesson starts getting students to think about the way the world looks. Their main objectives are to learn how to create a basic landscape and to experience the techniques available.
They will look at existing games and talk about what makes them more interesting. I've included some screen shots of existing games to guide the teacher.
It starts getting the students to come up with a concept for their own game and they have a few ideas.
Teacher requires prior knowledge of how to use the landscape tools or can use YouTube videos to support.
Students to complete the worksheet to show that they're able to use the tools available and that they can come up with their idea. Homework included.
A series of 12 slides going over questions from the A-Level computer science spec with marks that you would give students. The idea of this is that you can have a lesson where you break down the terms that the exam board would be looking for.
They include the marks and show students the type of thing that would be required for an answer. This resource helped my year 12 students which is why I'm sharing it here.
This resources breaks down to students how to think abstractly. It includes answers to the questions discussed on the PowerPoint slides. It also includes a step by step guide to breaking down problems.
The students will have a number of activities which require them to solve problems. There are attached videos which have been taken from YouTube resources which should help students understand how to think abstractly in more depth.
I have attached a link to the OCR PDF specimen paper and I have pointed to questions relevant to this discussion.
The lesson plan helps break the task up and includes answers to the PowerPoint.
This tutorial introduces SQLite3 and databases to A-level students. It helps them do computer programming and helps them to create a database.
it shows you step by step how to do queries and how to get the information to show up on the screen after a search. It is 6 pages long with print screened examples on how to complete the activity. It does not include buttons to navigate but it is a good starter project for helping your A-level students.
This package includes 3 powerpoints that introduce object orientation to students.
On top of the object orientation powerpoints, there are worksheets that help students build on the skills that they have learnt. The first activity sheet shows how to set up a class in python and how to call on it.
The second shows how to pass parameters into your class using constructors. There is theory supported in the powerpoint.
The third lesson shows how to design a class and is a good introduction to class diagrams.
This is a project sheet which will help students plan and make a project. It is a tick sheet that will help you deliver a project over a number of days. Students can come up with their own project and the requirements are mapped against the OCR requirements.
This means that they will have a run through of what is expected before completing a task.
This is the final in a series of lessons which help year 11/12 use an interface for Python.
It shows the final functions that delete records from a text file. It also shows them how to move to the previous record. The functions are written and the finish program is shown here with the text file needed to run it.
This is a combination of two tasks. It helps students create a user interface.
Once they have produced the user interface it allows them to get text from text boxes and write them to a text file. It has a number of procedures inside it. One produce to clear the text boxes. One procedure to save the information. Another procedure is used for going to the next record in the file.
The next task in this series will allow students to move backwards and it will also allow students to delete records from the list.
Comes with a complete Python file so that you can see how it works.
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 series of 3 activities which introduce the user interface library tkinter to students. It helps them build a simple user interface that looks at a text file. The first worksheet introduces them to text boxes and buttons. This is fairly straight forward.
The second activity starts building a simple database using a text file that will read and write information.
The third activity builds on task two and shows how to navigate back through the records and it allows the student to delete a record from the text file.
It allows people to add more records to the file but it also allows people to read information from a file. This the basis for building on and using an actual database later on.
There are some final solutions attached through the zip files which will help you on your computer.
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.
This is a personal learning checklist for algorithms and programming in computer science A-Level OCR. It will help candidates evaluate how strong they are at specific areas of the subject. This can be used to monitor progress.
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
4 questions with mark scheme attached showing students what they're expected.
Questions are on the clock speed, cache memory, multiple cores and how the cache works. This is a simple starter activity that will test knowledge from a previous lesson.
This is an end of topic test on specific areas of the CPU for students to use. Questions are taken from previous years with the mark scheme attached. There are 4 pages to the test. It includes questions on the following areas of the CPU: -
MAR (Memory Address Register)
PC (Program Counter)
Buses used
ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit)
Fetch - Decode - Execute Cycle
Registers
Accumulator
Memory Data Register
Lesson explaining how Data representation works. There is a PowerPoint which walks through two methods of conversion but it also specifies how to use binary. It explains to students place value and compares denary to binary. Lesson 1 in a series of 4 lessons.
Students will also learn about: -
Switches
Binary
Exam questions
Binary conversion using switches
Binary conversion using division
Binary grid method
Least / Most significant bit]
Worksheet provided
Content written by Ray Chambers - National Teaching Award Winner - 2015 - Innovative use of technology
This is a simple worksheet that shows students how they can use object orientation with Tkinter.
The idea of this program is that they can build on the knowledge in the 3 previous lessons.
Example code with extension activities included.
This activity will teach you how to develop a simple table using Python and Tkinter. It walks you through step by step, how to add records to a database. It shows you how to create the table and how you can insert information into the table.
It shows you how to make a navigate button that moves forward through the records in the database. This guide is 7 pages long and includes the full code for the activity with explanations. Useful to anyone doing classes for the first time with databases and Tkinter. It shows you how to make the user interface.
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 lesson is a short extra lesson on teaching your students how binary shift works. It introduces the basics to them and also gives them a worksheet. I have included an answer sheet and you can fit this around the rest of the data representation lessons.
The lesson includes some visuals to help students understand what is happening.
The worksheets come with answers. There are only 4 questions but it's a small area of the syllabus to cover and should fit nicely into the other lessons.