Alan Harrison

Online companion to the books by Alan Harrison

Buy the book “How to Teach Computer Science” at www.johncattbookshop.com or on Amazon here.

Buy the sequel “How to LEARN Computer Science” here or here.

If you enjoyed the book and would like to support my work, please leave a review on Amazon here and buy me a coffee if you’re feeling kind. Please remember I am a full-time teacher, writing content in my spare (!) time 🙂

This website contains additional material referenced within the book, links to further reading and suggested additional activities. Scroll down for more…

Cover illustration

Alan conceived the cover art which features some of the characters and concepts explored in the book.

At top left we see Persian scholar al-Khwarizmi, whose name gave us the word algorithm, from where the line draws a famous photograph of Ada Lovelace, Victorian scientist and author of an algorithm for Babbage’s Analytical Engine.

Next the single line draws Tim Berners-Lee at CERN showing off the first ever website, before drawing Katie Bouman, astrophysicist and computer scientist on the Event Horizon Telescope project at MIT whose Python code created the world’s first image of a black hole.

Finally we see a woman relaxing in a self-driving car, representing cutting-edge computing applications of the 21st century. A single line draws the whole image, reducing the image to its essentials, representing abstraction, a key theme of computing which runs throughout the book.

Why read this book?

This book is for new or aspiring computer science teachers wishing to improve their subject knowledge and gain confidence in the classroom. And it’s for experienced computer science teachers who wish to hone their practice, in particular in the areas of explicit instruction, tackling misconceptions and exploring pedagogical content knowledge.

You will read some of the backstory to our subject – the “hinterland” – those fascinating journeys into history that make the subject come alive and place it in historical context. These stories will help you to enrich your lessons, cement core knowledge, develop cultural capital and help you excite a life-long love for the subject. We will go beyond the mark scheme to explore the subject knowledge behind the answers, giving you the confidence to discuss the field in greater depth, enabling you to use explicit instruction methods: presenting skills and concepts clearly and directly enabling student mastery.

We will explore misconceptions that arise when teaching our subject, so you can “head them off at the pass”. And we will look at teaching ideas – the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) – exploring the helpful analogies, questions and activities that work for each topic: practices that can be lifted and dropped straight into the classroom to immediately enhance your teaching.

Trainee or pre-service teachers, NQTs and early-career teachers will find this book invaluable, experienced teachers will find it inspiring, and all will benefit from a fresh look at the hinterland and subject pedagogy that makes computer science a fascinating subject to teach.

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About the author

You can find out more about me on the About Me page. In brief, I am Alan Harrison BSc. MBCS MCCT NPQML, a Professional Development Leader for the National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE), a Computing at School Master Teacher and CAS Community leader, and a content author for Craig’n’Dave Ltd. Holder of the NCCE Teach Secondary Computing certificate, before training to teach in my mid-forties, I enjoyed a successful and varied career in IT, beginning as a graduate trainee operator of IBM mainframes, then a network administrator, an analyst/programmer and finally a certified cybersecurity consultant working with major banks and insurance companies.

I can be found in school holidays camping or staying in remote cottages with the family from where we can explore new trails but I always pack my eBook reader, due to my unceasing thirst for knowledge! I love three things: computers, learning new things and pedagogy; these books allowed me to combine all three in a labour of love.

Chapter Abstracts and References

Click the “Menu” icon at the top of this site to browse through the chapter abstracts and follow the links to content referenced in the book.

Below are the references from the book Introduction and Acknowledgements

[1] Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15, 4–14.

[2] Mishra, P. & Koehler, M.J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge. Teachers College Record Volume 108, Number 6, June 2006, pp. 1017–1054, Columbia University.