FEATURE: VIEW FROM THE CLASSROOM
studies at undergraduate level) and programming for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In light of this limitation, I approached our GDST Trust Office in central London to support my development and delivery of a computer science extension curriculum for A-level students, now offered remotely between our GDST schools.
How might you and your fellow teachers embrace evolution of the A-level Computer Science curriculum, to support new study trends at tertiary level?
As a GDST member school, I am availed the opportunity to collaborate and liaise with another 24 GDST schools. Between numerous senior computer science departments, we recognise that the current A-level computer science curriculum spec might be stretched beyond its current computer systems, algorithms and programming provision to also reach the scope of topical areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and recent innovations such as ChatGPT. I am currently undertaking a part-time summer course at the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education, for which the course curriculum has been revised just this year to incorporate use of tools such as ChatGPT. We have been encouraged to see ChatGPT as a powerful framework library rather than as a ‘chatbot’- a term which reflects only part of its use. In application development, the pre- programmed library has capability to be used to our advantage.
What is the computer science extension curriculum you are delivering remotely via GDST Trust Office and what motivated you to start the programme?
The A-level extension programme I deliver for advanced GDST computer science students is focused on the STEM theme of Space Technology. It takes the form of a pre-university diploma and is delivered across multiple GDST Sixth Form departments as the equivalent of an early undergraduate programming reinforcement module. I am delivering the extension
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www.education-today.co.uk July/August 2023
curriculum in collaboration with Cambridge University Space Flight, Warwick University Satellite Programme and USA initiatives NASA DEVELOP, NASA Earth Science Data Systems and NASA IMPACT, towards BCS accreditation. This year our uptake for the extension programme was 47 students, with ten supervising teachers.
The programme has benefitted eleven other GDST Sixth Form Departments since my efforts began in early 2021. GDST Computer Science teachers delivering the programme across the country form part of a core team, who receive CPD training prior to delivery of our programme’s ‘scaffolded’ project- based curriculum, formulated upon adaptable and
reducible working exemplar code sets. As a new initiative to upskill pre-university coders and their supervising teachers, its aim is to promote in-depth and hands-on use of Python Programming language to the extent of using a variety of pre- written scientific library installations. 2023 saw our extension programme receive a Royal Society STEM Partnership Grant partnering with Cambridge University Space Flight and Launch Access Ltd, to participate in two progressive field experiments building computer-automated payloads for high- altitude balloon (HAB) and research rocket (parachute descent) deployment, to collect local environmental aerial image and sensor data readings for historical correlation and predictive AI machine learning processing. Our students aim to pursue use of NASA Earth Science Data Systems data leveraging tools to correlate historical satellite data going back twenty years with their own locally collected data, in preparation for cloud computing machine learning processing. The machine learning models are facilitated via a new Proof of Concept (PoC) student platform investment we have been fortunate to secure, sponsored by Amazon Web Services (AWS). My motivation to start the programme grew from remote NASA outreach evaluator training I undertook during the pandemic, for the NASA STEM and Educator Professional Development Collaborative (EPDC) Digital Badges learning platform. My end goal has always been to encourage more girls to follow a STEM-focused career path, maximising on computer science skills. The European Space Agency has said it is aiming to employ women in 40%+ of STEM roles by 2025. Earlier this year, following an opportune discussion with Dr Paul Bate, CEO of the UK Space Agency at the UKSA Ignite Space conference, I was delighted to listen to him elaborate on his promotional announcement for the ‘Space to Learn’ scheme at the recent Space-Comm Expo event in Farnborough, which has just channelled £4.3 million into UK space education projects, offering a firm boost to upskilling initiatives inclusive of computer programming for the UK space industry. Delivered in relation to the several other STEM areas of space
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