Raspberry Pi Foundation

Debugging is a vital but challenging skill for beginner programmers to learn. It is also a difficult skill to teach. For secondary school teachers, who may lack time or programming experience, honing students’ understanding of debugging can be a daunting task. Despite this, little research has explored their perspectives of debugging. To this end, we investigated secondary teachers’ experiences of debugging in the classroom, with a focus on text-based programming. Through thematic analysis of nine semi-structured interviews, we identified a common reliance on the teacher for debugging support, embodied by many raised hands. We call this phenomenon the ‘hands-up problem’. While more experienced and confident teachers discussed strategies they use to counteract this, less confident teachers discussed the negative consequences of this problem. We recommend further research into debugging-specific pedagogical content knowledge and professional development to help less confident teachers develop approaches for supporting their students with debugging.

K-12 computing education research is a rapidly growing field of research, both driven by and driving the implementation of computing as a school and extra-curricular subject globally. In the context of discipline-based education research, it is a new and emerging field, drawing on areas such as mathematics and science education research for inspiration and theoretical bases. The urgency around investigating effective teaching and learning in computing in school alongside broadening participation has led to much of the field being focused on empirical research. Less attention has been paid to the underlying philosophical assumptions informing the discipline, which might include a critical examination of the rationale for K-12 computing education, its goals and perspectives, and associated inherent values and beliefs. In this working group, we conducted an analysis of the implicit and hidden values, perspectives and goals underpinning computing education at school in order to shed light on the question of what we are talking about when we talk about K-12 computing education. To do this we used a multi-faceted approach to identify implicit rationales for K-12 computing education and examine what these might mean for the implemented curriculum. Methods used include both traditional and natural language processing techniques for examining relevant literature, alongside an examination of the theoretical literature relating to education theory. As a result we identified four traditions for K-12 computing education: algorithmic, design-making, scientific and societal. From this we have developed a framework for the exemplification of these traditions, alongside several potential use cases. We suggest that while this work may provoke some discussion and debate, it will help researchers and others to identify and express the rationales they draw on with respect to computing education.

We describe a pilot study to investigate the effect of engaging with culturally responsive computing lessons on primary (K-5) students’ interest in computing. We use the Integrated Interest Development for Computing Education Framework (IIDfCEF) as a framework for collecting and analysing the data, and interpreting the results. We conducted three focus groups in primary schools in London and the South of England. Our participants (n=12) felt more represented in their computing lessons and in particular felt their interests were recognised. The findings are an initial validation of the IIDfCEF assertion that introducing culturally relevant pedagogy into computing lessons can trigger students’ interest in computing through the key factor of relevance.

Computer science (CS) is increasingly being made available to K-12 students around the world. Research in several countries has indicated that female, Black and ethnic minority learners may be less likely to study computing, particularly at university. Culturally responsive computing, drawing on culturally relevant pedagogy, can help us start addressing the diversity issue. Research and initiatives in this area have been evident in the US but less so elsewhere. This work-in-progress paper describes ten reflective prompts or Areas of Opportunity (AOs) for CS educators to use for reviewing and adapting the cultural responsiveness of their K-12 computing activities for their context. The AOs build on guidelines co-created with teachers. We describe each of the AOs, correlate them to literature, suggest what they might look like in practice, and how we are using them in the context of a wider study. We suggest the AOs may be useful for other researchers to investigate in their country's context and welcome discussion about the AOs.

As the discipline of K-12 computer science (CS) education evolves, international comparisons of curriculum and teaching provide valuable information for policymakers and educators. Previous academic analyses of K-12 CS intended and enacted curriculum has been conducted via curriculum analyses, country reports, experience reports, and case studies, with K-12 CS comparisons distinctly lacking teacher input.

This release brings a substantial change to the random number generator. This has the unfortunate side effect of breaking backwards compatibility. If you have been using rand, choose, shuffle and friends to create predictable patterns for your riffs, your code will produce different results in this release. Please let me apologise and say it's for a good cause. So what is this good cause? Well, you can now jump backwards and forwards through the random stream giving you way more creative control than before! The random stream is now also unified with the random stream on the synthesis server allowing you to sync behaviour between synths and code. Exciting times. The sampler has also been super charged. We can now easily change the rate via MIDI note intervals with rpitch: and stretch the sample whilst preserving pitch via pitch_stretch: (although with variable results ;-)). Finally you can now control the global mixer with set_mixer_control! for those full filter sweeps over the entire sound... Have fun and happy live coding! Breaking Changes Complete rewrite of random number system. This means if you've been combining calls to use_random_seed with randomisation to create predictable melodies/rhythms/timbral manipulations you will unfortunately get different results in v2.7. This change is to synchronise both the Ruby rand stream with the one in SuperCollider as well as enabling the reversal of calls to rand via rand_back. sync now causes the BPM to be inherited from the thread calling the matching cue. This may be disabled with the new bpm_sync: opt. rrand and rand now return 0 if called with 0. invert_chord now handles negative inversions in a more musically appropriate manner.. New Fns ratio_to_pitch which provides the inverse of pitch_to_ratio midi_notes - returns a ring of numbers (mapping the source ring/array through the fn note). rand_back - reverse the random stream and 'undo' calls to rand rand_skip - skip forward through the random stream. rand_reset- reset the random stream to the last seed. GUI It is now possible to toggle the commenting of whole selections or individual lines with the shortcut M-/. Added Icelandic translation. Synths &amp; FX All synths learned the decay_level opt to allow the sustain phase to shift between two distinct values. The default value for decay_level is to mirror sustain_level: thus preserving current behaviour. play and synth have now learned the pitch: opt to match sample. This just increments or decrements the final note. sample now correctly validates opts. sample learned the pitch_stretch: opt which combines rate: modification (similar to beat_stretch: with pitch:. Attempts to maintain the pitch whilst simultaneously changing the rate. The underlying implementation is very basic and can easily destroy the sound. sample learned the rpitch: opt for simple rate pitch modulation. This modifies the rate to match the specified number of MIDI notes relative from the current pitch. For example, a rpitch: of 12 would double the rate. The unit of the FX :echo's decay: opt is now beats and the value is scaled with the BPM. Examples Most examples have been tweaked to sound good with the new random generator. Tilburg has been replaced with Tilburg 2. Play it and get your Algorave on! Improvements Auto-align code on Run. live_loop learned the seed: opt which will set the new thread with the specified seed prior to initial run. Add check to ensure BPM is a positive value. density has now been taught to handle values between 0 and 1 which will now stretch time for the specified block. Errors now no longer print out crazy print version of context object i.e. #SonicPiSpiderUser1:0x007fc82e1f79a0 Both in_thread and live_loop have now learned the delay: opt which will delay the initial execution by the specified number of beats. Buffer and thread name are now printed on error.<br> sample_duration now understands all the opts that you can pass to sample<br> It is now possible to do basic arithmetic on symbols representing rests: :r + 3 returns :r (a rest plus any MIDI note shift is still a rest). Bug Fixes Fixed crash when synth args were specified as Rationals.<br> note_info now correctly handles octaves. Fix windows paste shortcut C-v. Teach invert_chord how to properly handle out of range index ranges.