Planning Computing learning and teaching - A Practical Guide to Teaching Computing and ICT in the Secondary School - page 49

have the work finished, as they had been on a school trip the previous
week. The pupils had included sound, but the stand-alone laptop linked
to the projector had insufficient volume for the class to hear. Some
pupils brought work from home on external storage devices, which
meant they needed extra time to load the file. Two pupils could not find
their files on the network. Time ran out, with not all pupils presenting.

4 Make further notes in response to these questions:

Which of Paul's problems did you anticipate?

How could each of these problems have been avoided?

The scenario in Task 2.1 has been devised to highlight the need for careful planning.
We do not expect your experience to be like this during your training, because of
the support for the planning process that you will receive.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY PLANNING?

Steve Wozniak, the cofounder of Apple, believes that 'you have to plan' (Livingston,
2007), but what does he mean by this. According to Cambridge Dictionaries Online,
'a plan' is 'a set of decisions about how to do something in the future' ( see Resources).
There has been much written about planning, but at its most basic it involves
knowing what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and who needs to do it. You also
need to know what 'instruments' you will use to measure the effectiveness of your
plans ( see Chapter 4 ) . It is an essential part of most undertakings in which we
engage, regardless of their scale. This is particularly true in activities associated
with learning and teaching, because the consequences of failure as a result of poor
planning can be life-altering.
When beginning to teach you will be tempted to focus only on short-term
planning; i.e. single-lesson plans. However, in order to put individual lesson plans
in context and promote effective pupil progress over time, you must first take
account of longer-term plans. In order to be able to decide what the next move is,
you need to understand the prior experiences of the pupils and the ultimate
objectives. Therefore, the next segment will focus firstly on long-, then medium-
and finally short-term planning.
There is a particular language associated with planning, which needs clarifying
before a more full discourse is undertaken. The terms 'aims' and 'objectives' are
regularly employed in an educational context, but are often confused with each
other. For the sake of clarity, we will adopt the following definitions, although they
may vary from those used on your course.
'Aims' should relate to the general skills, knowledge and understanding you
want the pupils to attain; for instance: understanding the use of computers as a
simulation tool, or the ability to use spreadsheets, or to model cash flow. Aims are
more frequently used in association with longer-term planning.
'Learning objectives' concern more specific knowledge, skills and understanding
that you intend pupils to acquire, in order to reach the aims; for instance:
demonstrate the ability to use formulas and absolute cell referencing; be able to
explain why a spreadsheet is an appropriate tool for modelling cash flow.
All lessons must have objectives, by which you can measure success. Objectives
are not the actual task, so that 'Complete Worksheet 3' is not an objective. We will