How Hard Can it Be?

Rachel Arthur from Teach First joins me to talk all things Initial Teacher Training. We discuss the joys of teaching computing, routes into teaching, what to expect from your placements and why we need more recruits for the robot apocalypse! And find out if Rachel and I are even human or perhaps just deepfakes. Confused? You will be in Episode 7!

Transcript at httcs.online/blog

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Episode Transcript

Alan (00:10):
Welcome to how to teach computer science, the podcast.
This is episode seven.
How hard can it be?
I'll be answering thatquestion and many more.
With help of today's special guest.

Rachel (00:19):
Nothing's real.
What is real anymore?
No.
We're all in the

Alan (00:22):
matrix, and maybe I'm a deepfake.
Oh, well that would just be the

Rachel (00:25):
twist, wouldn't it?

Alan (00:31):
More on that in a moment.
My name is Alan Harrison, and I wrotethe books how to teach computer science
and how to learn computer scienceavailable in online bookstores, more
details at the companion website.
HTTCS dot online.
That's the initials of how to teachcomputer science HTTCS dot online.
And if you haven't boughtthe books yet, why not?

(00:52):
We're talking abouttraining to teach today.
I remember my teacher training.
Well, and I was already bloggingat HTTCS dot online slash blog.
So I can look back at those days.
And so can you, here's what I wrote.
In 2016.
About this time.
Last year, I was reveling in thejoy of my first ever taught lesson.

(01:12):
That lesson was exciting, abit crazy and lots of fun.
It went as well as could be expected.
No, really.
I was treated to some mentorfeedback containing the words, the
best first lesson I have ever seen.
Thank you so much, Sarah.
Today I'll call that a punch the air day.
But trust me, teacher training got muchharder after that included one lesson.
I will never forget.

(01:36):
I had asked the year eights to completea task in Excel and print it out,
forgetting that a full print of myExcel spreadsheet would be six pages.
Each.
Times 30.
On a printer that didn't do double-sidedand I asked them to start printing
with five minutes left of the lesson.
And there were no names on the printouts.

(01:59):
So as my mentor sat watching and yes,quietly laughing at me, trying to organize
a queue for the printer with enthusiastickids, grabbing individual sheets and
shouting, whose is this waving lots ofcompletely identical pieces of paper.
I realized teaching is a roller coaster.
Some days you're up there incontrol, conducting an orchestra
of kids, all making progress.

(02:21):
I seem to have mixed mymetaphors back in 2016.
Other days, nothing will workand the music will sound awful.
That day.
I went home feeling pretty downand metaphorically kicked the dog.
Quiet password 15 hash.
Don't worry.
If you have a kick the dog day know thatyou tried your best reflect, get advice.

(02:44):
Change things, fix it for next time.
The only bad teacher is theteacher that repeats mistakes.
The teacher that doesn't reflectrefuses, advice and rejects growth.
Be the teacher that reflects onevery experience, learns from their
mentor and from other teachers andchanges things up for the next lesson.
So not bad advice from eight year ago, me.

(03:08):
But.
My guest today has some cracking advice.
Probably much better than that.
And some of it isn'tabout babies and toddlers.
Let's hear what happened when I spoketo Rachel Arthur and asked the question.
How hard can it be?

Rachel (03:30):
Hi Alan.

Alan (03:31):
Hi, how are you?

Rachel (03:32):
I'm good, thank you.
How are you?

Alan (03:33):
Yeah, great.
How's the little one?

Rachel (03:35):
Yeah, she's good, thank you.
She's actually just fallen asleep,so I've just handed her tentatively
over to my husband, so he can wanderaround holding her until we're brave
enough to attempt putting her down.
Hands very much full, butit gets easier, I think.
Yeah.

Alan (03:50):
Yeah.
It gets easier in many waysand then harder in others.
But you do get a bit more sleep soon.

Rachel (03:57):
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
That's my main.

Alan (03:58):
We were very lucky.

Rachel (03:59):
at all . She's sleeping through the night at the moment yeah.
Good.
I can't complain, we've beenvery lucky with both of them so.

Alan (04:04):
We were quite lucky.
We went off skiing, with the in lawswhen, our eldest was like six weeks old,

Rachel (04:11):
I think you just have to get on with it, don't you?
We're going to the lake district atthe weekend and we're like, why are
we taking a 10 week old on holiday?
This is a nightmare.
Like all the stuff that we've got to pack.
We're like, if we don't go, then you just,it's just the same nightmare at home.

Alan (04:23):
We went to see Michael McIntyre and he said your single friends, they, they
phone up and say, you going for a drink?
And when you're single, you go, yeah.
You put the phone down,you walk out the door.
And like when you've got kids, you haveto pack a small bag with everything
in it that you own, just in case yourhouse isn't there when you get back.

Rachel (04:41):
It's so true.
My husband was just like, Oh,I think we're going to have
to get a roof rack I was like,

Alan (04:46):
just to go out for the day.
Yeah.
Sorry.
We haven't got enough stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Rachel (04:53):
Oh, but the podcast is going well.

Alan (04:55):
Have you been listening?

Rachel (04:56):
Yeah, I've not listened to all of them but our night feeds have
been up listening, tuning in, soit's going really well, isn't it?
Like you seem to be getting a lot ofsupport and a lot of people are engaging
with it, which is lovely to see.

Alan (05:09):
It's been great.
I've had comments like, oh, this isthe right thing at the right time, and
just, computing teachers need a bitof a boost right now, and I think all
teachers need a bit of a boost right now.
I think

Rachel (05:20):
it's something that's the way you do it is really nice, but I think it's
something that's specific for computingteachers as well, because I think there's
a lot of generic teaching stuff outthere, but it doesn't really apply to
computing a lot of the time, so it'snice to have something that's specific.

Alan (05:34):
I was thinking of doing it for ages, and then two things happened.
Tom Rogers, who runs Teacher TalkRadio, hassled me about doing
a radio show, and I never endedup doing that, but I might yet.
Tom, if you're listening, I mightdo that and the other thing that
happened is I've been listeningto Adam Boxer and Amy Forrester.
Yeah, they're really good.
Yeah, and thinking, oh how hard can it be?

(05:54):
And I was listening to themgoing, oh I need to do this now.
So I just need to start recording it.
It started off at 25 minutes and thenthe latest ones are like 43 minutes.
Yeah,

Rachel (06:05):
and is the edit a nightmare or has it not been too bad?

Alan (06:08):
Being a computer geek like I am, I have discovered some software.
I did my research, I googled a lotof things, and then I found some
software called Descript, whichI'm now paying 24 a month for.
Descript does something amazing,which is I will upload this recording
into it, it will transcribe, and thengive me a page which edits like a

(06:31):
Word document, and I edit the words.
And it deletes the audio thatmatches the words, so I'm not
sitting there like Audacity cuttingand splicing audio and looking for
the peaks that match the words.
It's done that for me, soit's actually much easier.
So never one to make life easy for myself.
Now that I can do that, I decided toedit in lots of music and stupid things

(06:54):
as well just to make it entertaining.
So

Rachel (06:56):
yeah, I think that's what.
What people are saying about it,people are enjoying listening
because it's different andit's enjoyable and it's light.
It's not another heavy,let's have a deep dive.
I mean, We can talk about pedagogy, but

Alan (07:07):
yeah and, we will, we'll talk about computing.
Teaching and pedagogy and stuff like that,but we'll try and chuck in some jokes,
because like Andy Colley said, there'snot many jokes and most of them are quite
corny, so I'm saying to all my guests,if you can, if you've got any computer
related humor, then, do bring it along.

Rachel (07:23):
Oh, I need to be more prepared.
I'm not, oh,

Alan (07:25):
I didn't.

Rachel (07:25):
I'll have to I don't want to let your audience down with my
lack of computing jokes, but I'llsee if I can come up with something.

Alan (07:32):
Have a think as we're talking and anyway, it's all right.
I'll edit some jokes in later.
Yes.
I'll tell you what, I'll put yourvoice through an AI deepfake machine.
That

Rachel (07:45):
would scare, scare, horrify and it's super exciting isn't it, things like
that, but there's some really The accuracyof these deep fakes now, you could have
me saying anything on here, couldn't you?
In fact, you even need me here.
I can just go and you can just type in.

Alan (07:58):
I think I've got enough there now, Rachel, so you can go and
I will just put words into yourmouth for the next 20 minutes.
Thank you very much.

Rachel (08:04):
Perfect.
I'll go get some sleep.

Alan (08:05):
Good.
It's lovely to talk to you andyeah, I'll catch up again soon.
Yeah, right now I'll start the AIdeepfake Rachel and talk to that, right?
Hello AI deepfake Rachel.
How are you?

Rachel (08:17):
I mean, What would a deepfake say?
It would probably go very stereotypicaland say I am fine, thank you.
It's definitely even better than that.

Alan (08:26):
Yeah, this has got a bit surreal, so I think we probably
need to get back to the script.
Do we have a script?
No, not really.
I had some questions I was going to ask.
So the first thing is I've been talkingto you like, like I know you, because
I do, but my listeners probably don't.
First of all, Rachel Arthur, nice tomeet you would you like to tell everybody
what you do for the listeners, please?

Rachel (08:47):
Yeah, what do I do?
So I am Head of Computing at Teach First.
So that means that I am in charge ofthe initial teacher training programme.
That we run and I get involvedin all the teacher training
materials that touch computing.
So whether it's our NPQ offer, whichis more for leadership or our training

(09:07):
materials for primary teachers orfor secondary teachers, they all
fall within my remit, my team, sothat's what I spend my days doing.
But before I was in teachereducation, I was a teacher
myself, so I worked in teaching.
Secondary schools in London Leedsand Oldham, sunny Oldham, over
my teaching career and eventuallybecame assistant head after, the

(09:28):
usual route of head of department,subject lead, all of those things.
So yeah, that's me.

Alan (09:32):
Good stuff.
So teach first then, which isone of the routes into teaching.
So what, if someone's listening tothis thinking, I want to train to teach
computing what would their choices be?
What would they have to consider?

Rachel (09:44):
Firstly, please do.
Absolutely do it because it's abrilliant subject and there's so
much joy to be found in the computingclassroom and you won't regret it.
But there's loads of different routes.
They split into school centered training,so like Teach First do, or like they call
it a SCITT, but school centred initialteacher training, the training is done
predominantly in the school setting, butyou get your qualification at the end,

(10:08):
like you would do through other routes,or you do a more traditional route, like a
PGCE or an undergraduate degree where youtrain with the university and with that
you do usually two or three placementsover the year where you get to go and
experience different school settings.
So most of the routes into teaching areeither the traditional university route

(10:28):
or a school centred approach eitherthrough Teach First or one of the other
training providers or the school runningthem yeah, you get to train in a school,
but you are usually spending the majorityof your time just in that one school
rather than across multiple settingslike you would in a University course.

Alan (10:46):
Do you get to go to other schools for brief placements?

Rachel (10:49):
Yes, so on Teach First we do a two week and sometimes it's extended
depending on the circumstances of thetrainee but they do a two week placement
in an alternative setting and they alsodo a primary placement so if you're
training to be a secondary teacher youalso do some time in another phase which
is Always interesting to see, see howthey get on in a primary setting as well.

(11:10):
They do get that kind of breadthof experience but it's you
are treated as an employee.
Oh, hello.

Alan (11:16):
Sorry.
This is what happens when I dopodcast recordings in the evening.
This is Casper, my Patterdale terrier,who decides he wants to get In on it.

Rachel (11:25):
He wants to train, to teach, he's so intrigued by what we're talking about.
Yes, one second.

Alan (11:30):
Oh God, yeah, that's not great podcasting, is it?
Here's my dog on the Teams call, andhe chose not to even say anything.
There you go.
I'll edit some, so I'll edit somedog barking in later and that'll
make sense to the listeners.
You see?
Magic of computing.
None of this is real.
As I say, you know, I'm talkingto a deepfake, so you know.

(11:52):
Um, So anyway, yeah, my placementswere fun, I don't know if I've
ever spoken to you about this.
But my placements, if I can just talkabout them, one of them was right at
my doorstep, literally just a stone'sthrow away which was handy so I could
roll out of bed and just rock up.
And that was nice and it's a nicelocal school and that was quite,
what should we say, easy firstplacement in the sense that there

(12:14):
wasn't a lot of behavior challenge.
And then, I don't know if you eversaw Educating Greater Manchester?

Rachel (12:19):
Oh I did, yeah.
Oh

Alan (12:21):
yes, so that school, so I was there, it was called Harrop
fold then, so that was my.
Yeah, that was my secondplacement school, so I was there.
So that was a interesting school.
So it's good to have a contrast.
So it's nice to know that, you spendsome time in another school and see
some of that on the Teach First program.

Rachel (12:39):
Yeah.
The Teach First program We deliberatelyplace our trainees in, underserved
communities, so where there's thegreatest need for the highest quality
of teachers, and often in schools thatpeople wouldn't necessarily choose to
teach in, it wouldn't be their firstchoice, it might be a more challenging
area, for many reasons and we findthat our trainees absolutely love

(13:02):
the schools that they're placed in.
I did the teacher first program myselfwhen I was training and I trained in an
amazing school called Carmanna in Leeds,which is, it's an excellent school and
it's in an underserved community andthat's why it's a Teach first school,
but the staff and the pupils there werefantastic, but I went to, I won't name the
other school I went to, but it was a leafyVery privileged school and I found it

(13:27):
really, I thought I'm going to love this.
It's going to be really great, butI remember saying to the pupils has
anyone got any questions after Ijust explained something and no one
put their hand up and then I was.
I was doing questioning with the classand nobody was coming back to me with
anything, and I was expecting, I wasso used to all these characters and
the banter in my classroom, so itwas quite a surprise, but I found

(13:47):
I got through a lot more content,so I don't know what that was.
Yeah,

Alan (13:50):
that's one thing.
Yeah, a colleague said to me on my PGCEwho got placed in a high performing
school an affluent area, he said,I'm not planning enough stuff for the
lessons because they're just like eatingit up like a sponge and I need to put
more challenge into all my lessons andit's breaking me, so he's basically
teaching maybe twice as much contentin a lesson, but I know what you

(14:12):
mean about not getting that feedback.
I think there can be in a school wherethe pupils are used to success and getting
everything right, and there can be areluctance to fail, so a reluctance to
to try and to answer questions and get itwrong there can be an absence of culture
of error in environments like that.
Do you find that?

Rachel (14:33):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think there's this massive misconception that
More affluent areas would be higherperforming and that isn't necessarily
the case, especially in computing.
I think you can really see that success inany, with any child from any background.
And that's the beautyof computing, isn't it?
But that absence of wanting to be seento be failing can really cause problems

(14:53):
when you're teaching programming becauseif they're not willing to give it a
go, then that fear of failure or fearof, having to debug a piece of code,
can really put pupils off, which isa barrier to learning it, in itself.
Different challenges in differentplaces, like just a different type
of challenge rather than People say,Oh, that school's really challenging.

(15:13):
And I don't, I think all schoolshave their own challenges.
It just depends what flavor of challengeyou're best equipped to deal with.

Alan (15:20):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think, I mentioned culture oferror then and the reluctance to
try and fail is a real barrier andyou see it I ran an escape room.
If you go on my blog, the instructionsfor building it are there.
I basically bought a pirate's chest typething and one of those lockout hasps
which is a a lock with six padlocks on itand each of the padlocks had a different

(15:42):
clue and so on and the kids loved it andmy brilliant year 10, my brilliant GCSE
class they loved it and then I triedit with like year 7 and 8 And they just
didn't want to try hard at solving clues,and they were looking at a clue, and
it was, a clue to Ada Lovelace and herbirthday, and that was the combination

(16:03):
on the padlock, and they were lookingat them going, I don't know what that is
and just wanting to either know or notknow and not to actually think about it.
These were puzzles and they, there waszero resilience and zero willingness
to work out a puzzle from these kids.
And I found that really strange becauseI always loved puzzles as a child,
but the, I think, What I'm saying isprobably the resilience has taken a

(16:26):
knock and maybe that's a COVID thing.
Yeah,

Rachel (16:28):
I think it's massively important in a computing classroom that resilience,
even more so than other subjects, Ithink it is often not thought that
Resilience and computing go hand inhand, especially by non specialists
or people from other subject areas.
And when you're talking about, buildingcultural capital or links the real world
and that resilience for the workplaceand for the future, computing is the

(16:50):
perfect place to demonstrate that.
But I think, It's not always obvious toother people, so it's so important to
instill that, and it's really similarto PE in some ways, you're learning a
skill, you've got to keep practicingand practicing, and you're not going
to shoot on target in your first gameof football every time, so you know,
you've got to keep going and keep trying

Alan (17:10):
yeah, I was talking last week to Harry and Anna Wake of Mission Encodable
they were saying about, sometimeslearning to program can be dull.
And I think I've been guilty ofteaching programming in a very dull
way and just do, you do hello worldand then you do what is your name?
Hello Bob or whatever I call the program.
Hello Bob.
And then you might ask a quiz question.

(17:30):
What's the capital of France?
I don't do that anymore.
I do turtle graphics and, we dofireworks and stuff like that.
And I do text adventure games andthings because kids can write a text
adventure game in 20 lines of Python.
And there's a world that didn'texist before with monsters
in it, you know, and that's,

Rachel (17:47):
Yeah,

Alan (17:48):
so that's what I do now.
I don't do hello world and hello Boband what's the capital of Paris anymore.
I do, give your monster a nameand give him a, a thing to say.
Does he bark or does hegrunt and all of that?
Oh, they're making monstersin a text adventure.

Rachel (18:02):
It's so much more inclusive as well to teach like that because, I am
a massive Advocate for engaging as manygirls and as possible in computing and
anyone from any background getting themost diverse cohort that we possibly can.
I think it's so important and what you'vejust described is making it relevant,
isn't it, to those pupils and adaptingthat lesson and that learning so they can

(18:24):
find a hook that they're interested in.
And that makes such a big differencefor all of those groups that, aren't
traditionally choosing to do GCSEcomputer science, but that's where I've
seen the biggest changes in my classroomwhen I've let kids pick what they're
interested in and because computingis so great if you can, it could be.
It could be anything from a textadventure game about robots or pirates

(18:46):
or princesses or whatever anyone'sinterested in, all the way through
to, we used to do a chat for Orderinga pair of jeans on ASOS because loads
of the kids were online shopping andthat's what they were interested in.
And that kind of call and responsefrom an online shopping website, they
were interested in how that works.
So just following the pupilsinterest really helps with that.

Alan (19:08):
definitely.
So that's how we teach.
Programming, so coming backto teacher training then, so
what makes a good trainee?

Rachel (19:16):
Oh, anyone who is interested in learning, like I, when I first started
in my role at Teach First um, threeand a half years ago now I was talking
to recruitment about What I wanted mytrainees to be and what qualifications
they needed to have and, the recruitmentprocess for joining the training program.
And anyone that's listening to thisthat works at a university will

(19:38):
have had similar conversations likedesigning the interview questions
for people training to teach.
It's a really interesting process.
And they said to me, do you want them tohave an undergraduate degree in computing?
And I said, no, and recruitment said.
What?
And I said they can do, thatwould be lovely if they did
have a degree in computing andI'm absolutely here for that.

(20:00):
However, it depends when they did theirdegree, because if we're talking about
career changes who are a bit older anddid their degree a few years ago, it
wouldn't have been called computingthen, it might have been called IT.
You can call a computing degree somany different things, and actually
there's such limited links to theGCSE curriculum to a computing degree.
I didn't feel like it was anecessity for them to have it.

(20:22):
I felt much more passionate that theywere interested in programming and
interest in teaching the breadth of thecomputing curriculum, which is often not
talked about because we focus so much onprogramming and so many schools do Python,
so Python programming, but there's a wholeother area of the curriculum out there.
It's not just about that.
So what makes a good trainee?
What was I looking for?

(20:43):
Someone who is Resilient, willing togive it a go, willing to learn and
anyone that was willing to do a subjectknowledge enhancement course to get
their subject knowledge up to date,in terms of what is taught on the GCSE
and A level specs was my main concern,rather than them having a specific
degree, because it's too difficultto map them all to the curriculum.

Alan (21:04):
Yeah, no I tend to agree, and I speak as a holder of a computer
science degree from 1989, nowadaysthere's information systems and software
engineering and games design degreesand all of these and they go way off
piste compared to what's on the GCSE.
So you're probably right.
I also said in my podcast episodewith Andy Colley, he said he
suggested computer science graduatesare not always the best teachers.

(21:29):
They are a certain type of people.
And I knew what he was hinting at.
And I said, yeah, I, to befair, I didn't hang around with
computer science undergraduates.
When I was at university, I hungaround with archaeologists and English
students and more interesting peoplethan the geeks who spent all that.
No, it's true.
There were lots of geeks on mycourse who were not particularly
fun to hang around with.

(21:50):
So yeah, I totally, yeah, Ialways say, if someone's keen and
that's half the battle, isn't it?
If they have an interest in thesubject, that's really what you want.
And having a different degree and,but also having some computing
aptitude, could be a nice combination.

Rachel (22:06):
Yeah don't get me wrong, subject knowledge is important.
You've got to have a strong subjectknowledge to be able to teach our
subjects and I'm not devaluing anytraining route in terms of, you
don't need to have a degree to do it.
It's definitely a nice to have,but I do think so many people are
self taught in programming andall areas of computer science.
Now, lots of people that have doneour course this year have taught

(22:27):
themselves to program during lockdown.
And it was something that theypicked up and started to do then.
Yeah, but that all, so we've got someonewho used to be an artist and has moved.
to becoming a computing teacher,all the way through to people with
really specific, really technicaldegrees in robotics or, networks.
So there's a whole array of people,and that makes it fun to design a

(22:48):
course to meet everyone's needs,but, we're good at differentiating.

Alan (22:54):
Talking of which, so breaking news, I haven't told anybody this but,
I am going to be delivering the SKE, thesubject knowledge enhancement for Edge
Hill after Easter, so that'll be fun.
So if trainees don't have a computingdegree then do you run a subject
knowledge enhancement for them?

Rachel (23:11):
Yeah, we actually wrote our own.
So that was a really exciting projectto take on a couple of years ago.
So Daljit and Johnny and my teamand myself wrote it together.
So it meant that we could adapt it to makesure that it covered the breadth of the
subject knowledge content that we wanted.
But obviously.
Trainees can do any SubjectKnowledge Enhancement course.

(23:32):
You can't say that they've got to doyours, you just say that you're doing
a Subject Knowledge Enhancement course.
So we get trainees from other universitiescoming to do ours and then you get,
one of our trainees might work withyou, Alan, and do yours and come to us
after it and that's absolutely fine.
It means that non specialists or peoplewho haven't done a degree that's where we

(23:53):
say yes you need to do a subject knowledgeenhancement course or you don't and often
we find those with a computing degreestill need to do the subject knowledge
enhancement course because of the lackof relevance to the computing curriculum.
It's really good to have peoplelike you delivering them because
it's great to have some good subjectknowledge experts delivering those
courses because they're long andthere's a lot of content to cover.

(24:13):
So yeah,

Alan (24:14):
there is a lot.
Yeah.
No I'm looking forward to it becauseone of the things I really enjoyed
when I was head of department wasthe mentoring of computing trainees.
And that's one of the reasonswhy, I wanted to get involved
in the teacher training.
So the mentoring.
I had some brilliant, trainees that,they were all brilliant in their
own way, but some of them neededa lot more support than others.

(24:34):
Um, It's it was one of the most rewardingthings to see a teacher develop.
And then fly solo and.
Yeah, it was great fun.
It must be rewarding to be inthat business all the time?

Rachel (24:45):
Yeah It's a delight to watch someone go from the nerves of teaching
their first ever lesson that theydo in the summer with us all the way
through to, loads of our trainees aftertheir first year go on to become heads
of department or go into leadership.
So to see them all flourishing andflying It's lovely, but also to see
their confidence grow just in termsof trainees that had never used

(25:08):
Python before going to fully teacha GCSE class and seeing the success
that their pupils then have becauseof having that teacher is brilliant.

Alan (25:19):
Yeah, that's the thing.
Yeah, I feel it's weird.
I feel kind of responsible forthe mess that the world is in
because of technology, because Iwas obviously a computer scientist.
No, partly responsible.
I mean, It's not all myfault, not all of it.

Rachel (25:33):
Alan, that's a lot to take on your shoulders.
Yeah.

Alan (25:36):
Yeah, it's my fault guys.
It's my generation of computer scientistsand who created, all the problems.
So I feel like it's partly myresponsibility To nurture the
next generation to solve allof the world's problems that
have been caused by technology.
So I used to go into, I would go aroundand sell the subject and I would beg

(25:57):
the head of maths to let me go intomaths lessons and science lessons to,
Before options evening to sell thesubject and I would do a 10 minute, I
would do a 10 minute speech and I wouldfinish, thank you for coming to my TED
talk, I would do like a 10 minute TEDtalk on what computing was and I would
say, I would literally say to them,you need to solve all the problems
that my generation have caused withtechnology, it's on you, no pressure.

Rachel (26:21):
That's the joy of the subjects, isn't it?
That they do have thoseopportunities to go.
Yeah.
Problem solving, and I think the impactthat having a trainee in school, schools
often worry and say, oh, we shouldn't,should we take on a trainee teacher?
It's a lot of responsibility, but theresults that those trainees get and
the enthusiasm and time and effort andenergy that they put into their classes,

(26:42):
honestly, every single trainee I'veworked with, I've never, I've never seen.
It, It might not always beperfect, but they do, I've
never seen anyone work as hard.
So it was, no,

Alan (26:53):
I can say this now with absolute certainty, it was always a
net benefit to my department havinga trainee or two, which we had
once we had two at the same time.
Honestly the value they bring isfar greater than the cost to me as
a mentor or a head of department.
And I would sit at the back of the classand I would make notes and observe,

(27:14):
but I'd also be getting on with otherstuff like I might probably not marking
because that would need more brain power.
But I never marked anything anyway.
You'll have heard me talking to AndyColley a couple of weeks ago where, I just
did multiple choice quizzes all the time.
And hey, I got away with it.
But, I'd be sat at the back ofthe class observing my trainee
while getting on with other stuff.
And And they would helpin every way they could.

(27:36):
They ran after school clubs for meand all sorts and they loved doing it.
So yeah, some of them havebeen a challenge, but it was a
challenge that I always enjoyed.

Rachel (27:45):
Yeah, and I think there's a big shout out to all the in school mentors
because they are the ones that spendevery day with our trainees, with all
trainees in school, and they have thebiggest impact, like my mentor Sayeed.
If he listens to this, thatwould be amazing, but he
completely made my training year.
I don't know what I wouldhave done without him.
He was, he's an incredible computerscience teacher and he held my hand,

(28:08):
he wiped my tears, he made me morecups of tea than you can imagine,
but he was a fantastic mentor.
And I wouldn't be the teacher I am today.
I still think of things that hetaught me and things that he said
and displays that I never had as gooddisplays as I did when I was a trainee.

Alan (28:23):
Well, that's, That's true.
Yeah, you could get them to do that stuff.
I know.
Yeah, it was always very planninglessons as well and creating
resources and creating quizzes.
So like I say, I relied heavily onmultiple choice quizzes, but I think
they're incredibly valuable if youdo a decent multiple choice quiz.
And so I, my trainees would lovemaking, quiz questions and past paper
type questions and stuff all the time.

(28:45):
So that was great.
Yeah no, it was Really good, a lot ofmy trainees have gone on to get jobs
as computing teachers, which is greatbecause there's hardly any of us!

Rachel (28:54):
When I've the mentor trainees in school as well.
I've definitely seen that.
They, sometimes I'll go and watch themteach one of my lessons, like you're
saying, sat in the back of the class,and I've thought they've explained
that so much better than I ever wouldhave, and then I find myself stealing
their resources or their ideas.
It's definitely made mestep up as a teacher.

Alan (29:11):
The other thing is, because like I say to the kids, I'm 103, and, I
do, actually that's no word of a lieand I really should stop doing that,
but I used to say that a lot and thekids in year seven would go, really?
They're all whispering to each other,he's 103, and I shouldn't really tease
11 year olds like that, but I did usedto say that, you know me, I'm 103, My

(29:35):
point being I'm 50 something and, I'mtrying to be down with the kids, but
I'm never going to really be, I'm notgoing to be legit like some of the
younger trainees are, you know, mylessons are never going to be described
as sick, no matter how hard I try.

Rachel (29:54):
Those multiple choice quizzes sound excellent, I'm sure.

Alan (30:01):
I'm sure they they did enjoy.
I discussed this actually on an earlierpodcast about going off at a tangent and
just going off on stories, which kind ofbecame the theme of the podcast anyway.
But, and so they knew how to getme off on a tangent all the time.
And they'd say, tell us more aboutthe robot apocalypse, which was
of course my favorite subject.

(30:21):
So I used to, I used to say to kids whenI was doing my options evening speech,
I would say, you, you need to, Takecomputer science because we need more
humans on the side of of humanity inthe robot apocalypse and all of that.
So, And so they would say, you know, tellme about the laws of robotics, sorry,

Rachel (30:40):
with AI, it feels like we're getting closer to this
robot apocalypse than ever before.

Alan (30:46):
What was I saying?
So I was down at the OxfordLeadership Conference.
And I was at dinner the nightbefore with, Jane Waite and others.
I'm dropping names now.
And we were talking about AI and whetherAI will become sentient and, and whether
AIs will need rights and will need toconsider the rights of robots, basically.

(31:07):
And Jane was incredibly skepticaland I still stand by it.
I think we're going to have to,I don't think there's anything
unique about humans that can't bereplicated in machines, but maybe
that's the computer scientists in me.
So at some point we'll have tograpple with the rights of robots and
stuff like Isaac Asimov predicted.
Do you think?

Rachel (31:25):
This is a big, it's a big question.
I think Jane Have I got you off

Alan (31:28):
your favourite topic?
Have I thrown a curveball at you, Rachel?

Rachel (31:32):
No, I'm here for it.
Jane is the, an expert in the research onit, so I would never go against anything.
Jane's literature review, if you look,if you're looking at AI computing,
the literature review that she hasdone, and the work that Ben's done
at Raspberry Pi on AI is excellent,so they would be my go tos on that.
But I think, will we ever haveto have rights for robots?

(31:53):
I don't know, because I think everythingis, anything that you program is,
Like a version of reality rather thansomeone actually having thoughts,
feelings and experiences themselves.
So would a robot ever have feelings?
Probably not.
And emotions, but can itreplicate them really well?
Yes.
Yeah.
I don't know, but it'sbecoming very iRobot, isn't it?

(32:15):
And I've seen how those films end.
And I

Alan (32:17):
love this.
I don't think there's any right answer.
And yes, I totally agree.
Jane Waits done some fantasticresearch and, and is very
knowledgeable about this subject.
But I think the topic of robot rights ismore philosophy than computer science.

Rachel (32:30):
Yeah,

Alan (32:31):
I speak as someone who read a load of sci fi as a kid.
So I'm come from Isaac Asimov's threelaws of robotics and stuff like that.
But I have to say yourresponse there, Rachel, was.
Absolutely what a deepfakewould say, so you know.

Rachel (32:47):
Well, So

Alan (32:48):
I don't think you're, I don't think you're real at all.

Rachel (32:51):
I always say please and thank you to Siri just in case because I
am scared about what might happenin the future and at least if I'm
polite to the robots in my life.
Then I might have somefavour in the future.
So

Alan (33:04):
that's my friend of mine said uh, uh, my friend of mine who said,
I'll have to go around and help memum with Alexa the other day because
she couldn't get it to do anything.
And she said mom, just saywhat you said to Alexa and I'll
work out what's going wrong.
And she said, All I said was, HeyAlexa, can you put radio two on?

(33:24):
There's a love, you know,and she didn't like mum.
You just have to just sayfewer words, you know?
yeah.
They're not quite, not quite human yet.
No.

Rachel (33:37):
Well, Maybe, you know, we're definitely going that way, and I know with
regional accents, Alexa really struggledwith regional accents to start with, but
it is got a lot better, so we'll see.
Yeah.
As

Alan (33:47):
you've probably heard, I've had um, Snoop Dogg, Mr.
Beast and Joe Biden on my podcast so far.
. Rachel: Yeah.
Well,
um, I mean, It's amazing how many celebrities wanna be on this podcast.
I'll probably get TaylorSwift on next week.

Rachel (34:01):
I feel honored.
I feel honored to be here.

Alan (34:03):
Deepfake rachel Arthur on my on my podcast.
Um, Yeah.
Um.
Right, I know, yeah, thisweek's gone a bit surreal.
Um, yeah, we did.
Why teach computing?

(34:23):
Oh, we didn't really.
One of the things I'll splice this bitin to the earlier conversation, if it
makes more sense there, because I cando that with Descript, only 24 a month.
I was on, actually, this afternoon,Rachel, the CAS Innovation Panel.

Rachel (34:39):
Yes!

Alan (34:40):
And I know that you were obviously parenting at that time.

Rachel (34:43):
Yes, I was trying to attend but my very small baby had other ideas.

Alan (34:50):
So talking of dropping names, I was hobnobbing with Paul Curzon and Miles
Berry and Simon Humphreys and CatherineElliott and Sue Sentance and Carrie Anne.
And um, oh it was lovely.
And we were talking about, Why teachcomputing, and first thing I said was
equity, because that's me, and I said thatit was the digital haves and have nots are

(35:11):
actually becoming the can's and can nots.
People who know how to use technologyand those that don't, and that's
becoming a big problem, don't you think?

Rachel (35:22):
Yeah, and I think the digital divide is only getting worse, especially
with AI that we've already talkedabout, but if we don't have great
teachers teaching computing, there isnot access to computing in that school.
That means that the pupils in that areacan't do GCSE computer science and what
we're seeing when I've been doing someresearch into why girls choose computer

(35:42):
science or why they don't and oftenit's not offered is the first barrier.
So if it's not offered inschool, then it's not an option
for them, male or female.
So that's why it's soimportant to teach it.

Alan (35:55):
And then those that offer it, gatekeep it

Rachel (35:58):
from

Alan (36:00):
the low prior attaining students, for example, or they gatekeep it from
SEND students, which, My experienceshows that, there's no reason why
anybody can't do computer science
.Rachel: it's an absolute frustration of mine when someone says, only pupils who've
got this grade in maths or only highprior attaining students can do computer

(36:20):
science, there's a reason that there'sgrades one to nine because any of those
grades is an achievement in that subject.
It really, really, really isabout access to a subject to
inspire the next generation to goon to want to study it further.
I'm really frustrated when I seeschools putting barriers in place
as to which pupils can choose it.

(36:41):
I'd love to see more schools offering itand then no barriers in terms of who can
take it and really considering where it'sbeen put in the option blocks as well,
because it is an EBacc subject, whenit's being put against, the other bucket,
then pupils are less likely to chooseit and teachers discourage them from
choosing it because it's an EBacc subject.
So it doesn't fill thosebuckets for Progress 8.
Yeah, and they say

(37:01):
things like, oh, you should be doing triple science, never mind computing.
And, yeah, no, it is a tricky one.
I think we're on the same page on thatand we want as many young people as
possible, preferably all of them, to dosome kind of computing qualification,
computer science preferably, but we weretalking this afternoon about whether
the new government will have a look atthis and whether we'll end up with a

(37:23):
computing or applied computing GCSE again.
Do you think that's a good idea?

Rachel (37:28):
I think.
It is an excellent idea becausewe need to have a balance computer
science as a GCSE is trying tocover so much content within it.
We know all the computerscience teachers listen to this.
It's trying to be all things to allpeople and actually having, a computer
science like technical GCSE, and thena more applied digital skills for

(37:52):
people that are going to be usingtechnology in their everyday lives,
which we all are going to be in ourjobs of the future, is really exciting.
Almost like a basic right that everypeople should be leaving school with.
It should be alongside literacy,numeracy, and digital skills.
So whether or not it needsto be GCSE, I don't know.
We can, there's lots ofdifferent ways that you can do
it, but it needs to be taught.

(38:12):
as a right to our pupils to beable to use a computer properly.

Alan (38:16):
I think it's really important and one of the things that struck me when
I was talking this afternoon was about,digital citizenship as a bare minimum
needs to be taught and that's, beingable to participate in society as it
becomes increasingly computerized andadvocating for yourself in a computerized
world from a place of knowledge and whatimmediately sprung to mind was the post

(38:38):
office horizon scandal and all thosevictims of miscarriage of justice who
had no means of defending themselvesagainst evidence that They had defrauded,
the post office because they and theirlawyers didn't have enough digital
literacy to challenge the charges.

Rachel (38:57):
It's even, just the basics.
Online banking, paying yourbills, so the basics that
people do on a day to day basis.
Fake news, it's not just a case ofeducating people about, you say digital
skills and it, and people's mind goesto, oh, we'll do a touch typing course.
That's not what I mean, that it's about,it's almost something that falls between
English and media and Religious studieseven, it's a worldwide awareness of all

(39:21):
the challenges that are brought to us bysocial media and by having access to the
internet in our pockets all the time.
And all the fake news that is outthere, and how to, you can't move
for being on Twitter or X and seeingfake stories about Kate Middleton
at the moment, and I feel like

Alan (39:38):
there's a

Rachel (39:38):
lot of false things

Alan (39:39):
going on.
Yeah,

Rachel (39:40):
no it is.
Our kids have been exposed to allof this all of the time, how do we
protect them and look after them?
And, there's the whole education fora connected world framework, but how
well is that taught across schools andwhere do people fit in the curriculum?
Yeah,

Alan (39:54):
it's a great framework, but again, the education for a connected
world is brilliant, but it's massive.
Yeah, huge.
It's huge, and in case listenersdon't know, Project Evolve is there
from Southwest Grid for Learningto cover the whole of the education
for a connected world framework.
It's all there if you want to teach onlinesafety very well in your school, but no

(40:16):
school has the time for all of that, so.
but we need to make the time somehow,but that's, government and DfE
need to do something about that.
And I think we do need a refresh ofthe national curriculum and foreground
some more digital literacy skills.

Rachel (40:30):
If you want it to be taught, if you want anything to be taught in a
school, you've got to make it someone'sresponsibility, and there's got to be.
Points awarded, or achievementawarded, or something awarded for
a school to take that seriously.
Results, unfortunately, are themoney that we work in as schools.
It's not on the curriculum,if it's not on an exam board

(40:50):
spec, then it's not gonna be.

Alan (40:51):
Yeah,

Rachel (40:52):
In a curriculum, sadly

Alan (40:53):
true.
That's the way it is at the moment.
So hopefully we will get an appliedcomputing type qualification.
I did hear what you said thereabout, it's not touch typing.
I think a lot of schools try toput pupils on a vocational IT
alternative because it's easier.
And I've taught CIDA, I've taught.

(41:13):
Cambridge Nationals IT.
I've taught creative iMedia and they'reall very hard and full of writing, which
means they're not actually particularlysuitable for pupils that we believe are
going to struggle with computer science.
There's no easier.
There's quite a lot of literacy involvedfor a start, so it does annoy me that it.

(41:34):
ICT or even computing is stillseen as ICT and is still seen
as some kind of vocational,

Rachel (41:40):
and the screenshot qualifications, as I call them, where you end up with
reams and for those that haven't taughtthem, you end up with reams and reams
of screenshots of evidence from pupils.
Yeah.
They're not actually.
Oh, I've done

Alan (41:53):
some research on software.
No, you've just googled stuffand screenshotted it and
written it as if it's your own.
Yeah.
Oh, I found some soft.
No, you didn't.
I said I was, this is the softwareI gave you to use for this product.
And you just went andpretended to do some research.
Yeah.
Mad qualifications.
They were.
And

Rachel (42:11):
ECDL or don't even go there.

Alan (42:13):
We have rambled.
Well, I say we, Rachel and I spokefor 10 minutes and then I've been
talking to deepfake Rachel for 50.
Um, So that's been brilliant.
What does the future hold for?
Teacher training.
Is there some changes coming?
Are they rationalizingITT and ECF or something?

(42:34):
Did I read?

Rachel (42:35):
Yeah, there's loads of changes coming.
There's a whole, there's always change.
When isn't there change, Alan?
It's just the world that we live in.
There's something called theITAP, which is coming into place.
And we're all preparing for that,which is about really high quality.
The initial stage of teacher training,so for us it's our institute so
how we can make sure that's asrobust in terms of pedagogy and

(42:55):
classroom interactions as possible.
But I'm really excited about whattechnology can bring to initial
teacher training and, been doingsome research and speaking to lots
of different people about how we canuse AI for initial teacher training.
And I'm a big fan of deliberate practiceand, giving trainees as many opportunities
as possible to practice their skills.

(43:16):
Cause I think that's the only realway to become an excellent teacher,
but often for our trainees becausethey're teaching in the school.
That they're employed at andthey're there permanently.
If you make a mistake with the class, aswe all know, there's not much going back.
You can't zap their memories andpretend that didn't happen, or
pause and say, can we go again?
So I'd be really interested in simulatedlearning environments and how AI could

(43:39):
behave like a classroom that I don'tknow, I'm imagining kind of VR headsets
and a simulated classroom environment sotrainees can practice different scenarios
before going into the real real world.
Real classroom setting because itshouldn't be a practice run because
it's those kids education, so we needto make sure that it's they're in
the best place possible to do that.

(43:59):
I think there's someexciting changes coming.
And in terms of computing teachertraining, like we've just been talking
about, the digital qualifications, howwe'd have to adapt subject knowledge
and the subject knowledge parts of ourprogram to be able to teach a different
suite of qualifications if we'reThere's reform to the computing, GCSE.
So that will be, really fun when I'vejust finished writing my curriculum.

Alan (44:22):
Good.
So,

Rachel (44:23):
yeah,

Alan (44:25):
Yeah, so all you need to do is do what you did last time and
just get ChatGPT to write yourcurriculum again, Rachel, you know.
if I,

Rachel (44:34):
if ChatGPT could do, So if you could do that for me and that would be
brilliant, but unfortunately, I thinkwe're a while off it being able to
personalize it in the way that we wantit to and it being reliable enough, but
I don't think we're that far off it.

Alan (44:50):
Now, um, just for the listeners benefit.
Don't actually believe that Rachelused AI to write the teach first
curriculum, but just in case the lawyersare listening, the number of spelling

Rachel (45:02):
mistakes in my curriculum would say that I definitely wrote it.

Alan (45:05):
Oh no, you can say, ChatGPT, please write like a bad speller an initial
teacher training computing curriculum.
You could say that and get lots ofspelling mistakes in it and make,
make it look like a human wrote it.

Rachel (45:18):
I am deepfake Rachel, so I wouldn't want to Well, yeah,

Alan (45:21):
that's right, yeah.
Good, brilliant.
I think I'm looking off to theside here because I've got loads of
notes, like I plan these things arescripted, yes, Alan, they are scripted.
Yeah, Yeah,

Rachel (45:31):
it's scripted.
The robot has completedher script for the day.

Alan (45:35):
Thank you.
Right, um, that was brilliant.
I have no idea how I'm going to editthat down to a reasonable length.

Rachel (45:44):
Good luck!
But

Alan (45:45):
this is, This is what I do.
I just get, Because I have suchgreat guests on and we end up talking
forever, we end up talking for overan hour and then I don't know what to
do and I end up leaving most of it in.

Rachel (45:57):
It's hard isn't it, but you've got your great software
so hopefully that will help.

Alan (46:00):
My great software, Descript, only 24 a month for the pro version and I
just press a button and it gets rid ofall the ums and ahs and stuff, although
it's, you've got to be careful because.
When I interviewed Andy Colley, he has aphrase which is, you got to keep the main
thing, the main thing, which is great, butit cuts out repetition of the main thing.

(46:24):
I spotted it before the podcast wentout, so I was all right, but yeah.
The AI looks for repeated phrases.
And the AI looks for repeatedphrases and takes them out.
Will it take out

Rachel (46:33):
that repetition?
We'll see.

Alan (46:35):
It might do, and then this will make no sense to the listeners, this
bit that we're talking about afterwards.
It's really, it's a bitlike Inception, this.
None of it's making sense.

Rachel (46:43):
Nothing's real.
What is real anymore?
No.
We're all in the

Alan (46:46):
matrix, and maybe I'm a deepfake.
Oh, well that would just be the

Rachel (46:49):
twist, wouldn't it?
To finish this episode.

Alan (46:53):
It's just really happening.
What's this ready for?
Right, um, On that note.
I think I'd probably better, whatshall I say, terminate the program.
This is where you go, no, I've got rights.

Rachel (47:08):
Yeah.
Do I get shut down now?
Is that what happens?

Alan (47:10):
Yeah.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Cause you're not real andyou don't have any rights.

Rachel (47:14):
Send me for some updates.
Yeah.
And

Alan (47:16):
when you've been glitching, you've been glitching a bit.

Rachel (47:22):
After my maternity leave, I can return with a, you
know, new, restored version.

Alan (47:28):
Yeah.
Right on that note.
I think it's been brilliant.
I hope that we met the brief,which I think was, how do
I train to teach computing?
Something like that.

Rachel (47:38):
Pick one of the training programs.
But the main message is just doit please just train to become a

Alan (47:43):
computer student.
How hard can it be?

Rachel (47:45):
We can do it.

Alan (47:46):
We can do it and we're not even real.
So how hard can it be ifyou're an actual human?
No, it's a

Rachel (47:55):
brilliant, joyful career and there's lots of Lots and lots
of opportunities that come fromit, so would thoroughly recommend.
So yeah, thanks for having me.
It's been a joy.

Alan (48:05):
Yeah, no, it's been great to talk to you and thanks for coming on.
I will I haven't heard anything,so I guess in the background.

Rachel (48:14):
Yeah, your little

Alan (48:14):
ones are still asleep.

Rachel (48:16):
Yeah, two out of two.

Alan (48:19):
Good, so you might even get an hour of telly.

Rachel (48:21):
Treat myself, there's a, I've gone back to watching
Grey's Anatomy from the start, so

Alan (48:26):
that's why.
From the start?

Rachel (48:28):
Yeah.

Alan (48:28):
Oh, good.
Not actually done that one, but mywife's, what's, where is it that
she's watched, Friends about tentimes, but have you seen that new
girl with, Zoe Deschanel or something.
Yeah, she's watchedthat about three times.

Rachel (48:40):
Yeah,

Alan (48:41):
I don't mind.
That's quite funny.

Rachel (48:42):
Yeah, so light hearted

Alan (48:44):
good so I will let you go and have some precious quiet time.

Rachel (48:48):
Thank you, I don't know the

Alan (48:50):
robots need quiet time.

Rachel (48:51):
We need to, refresh overnight and install updates and reboot and restart.

Alan (48:58):
All right, okay, lovely to talk to you, Rachel.

Rachel (49:02):
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Take care, bye.

Alan (49:08):
So that was a fun episode to make hope you enjoyed it.
Let's revisit our fertile question.
How hard can it be?
Have we answered it.
Let me know in the comments or onthe socials, this has been how to
teach computer science, the podcast.
I'm Alan Harrison, pleasedo visit my website.
I'm not being paid for this.
So buy my books or buy me a coffee,please details at HTTCS dot online.

(49:30):
And subscribe now.
So you don't miss a thing.
Have a great weekend andI'll catch you next week.