This week Sean and Kelly are joined by Dr. Becky Smethurst from Oxford to talk about code and science. Dr. Becky is an astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Each week, she publishes a video on her YouTube channel explaining a bit about space, Special Guest: Becky Smethurst.
This episode is all about working with the data we generate for students, whether it's in the classroom, your school, or your district. Special guest star Rusti Gregory joins us to talk about his transition from the classroom to the data manager role. Special Guest: Rusti Gregory.
Kelly and Sean revisit some of our favorite hardware that we use to teach Python. From the various versions of the BBC micro:bit to the ecosystem of CircuitPython boards, we talk about all the pros and cons! Whether you're just getting started with using Python in hardware or you're a seasoned teacher, this episode should have something for everyone. We use hardware to give tactile and tangible feedback for our students when they write code. Students learn to do everything from make lights blink...
Kelly and Sean interview Tom Lauwers, founder and CEO of BirdBrain Technologies (https://www.birdbraintechnologies.com) about the role of robotics in the computer science classroom. We've used the Finch 2.0 robot, which is designed to use the BBC micro:bit as a foundation for coding and computer science. Whether you're in a traditional classroom, teaching after school, or just trying to get people excited about the POWER OF CODING, robots can play a vital role in learning. About BirdBrain Techno...
Kelly and Sean discuss their latest experiments in the classroom, including student peer code reviews, testing code for correctness, and creating comfy environments for coding.
A lunchtime livestream with Kelly and Sean talking about setting up learning environments for students, coaching and setting high expectations for students, and the new tools we're using this year for teaching code. Replit Teams for Education Daily Challenges for formative assessment Physical classroom layouts Google Colab Choice Boards High expectations teaching Note: Kelly's audio track has a bit of echo that we can't eliminate. We'll get it fixed for next time.
With the new school year upon us, we're talking about CSTA standards and how they can be applied to the classroom environment. Join Kelly and Sean as they talk through ways to plan, deliver, and assess CS student standards. The Computer Science Teacher Association (CSTA) (https://www.csteachers.org/) provides student standards for learning as well as professional development standards for instructions. For example, there are 23 standards for grades 6-8 (https://www.csteachers.org/page/standards)...
The Teaching Python podcast speaks with Quinten Sheriff from Concordia University , an Instructional Designer, e-learning implementation specialist, and curriculum developer with global experience on four continents. A systems thinker who uses instructional models such as ADDIE, AGILE, SAM, ARCS. In this episode, we will explore topics such as designing curriculum for the next year, and what it means to design for instruction versus designing for content. In this we can also look at designing fo...
It's been a few weeks since we recorded, so this week's episode is all about catching up on listener questions and mail. Highlights include: * the new AWS machine learning course we're taking, * whether we'd rather be teachers or coders * the new Adafruit hardware we're trying * the Deep Composer keyboard * equity and equitable opportunity in and out of the classroom You can also check out the recording of the livestream on our YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL6GRe37eiY)
With summer finally here in the northern hemisphere, Kelly and Sean meet with John Mikton from the Principals Training Center to talk about professional development resources for teachers during these long summer days. From technical resources to pedagogical research to classroom layout ideas, we'll talk about some of the things we're excited to learn this summer. Special Guest: John Mikton.
Continuing our Education IDE series, Kelly and Sean meet with Brigit Murtaugh and Sana Ajani from the VS Code team for education. We'll talk about everything from remote teaching to accelerating the setup of a learning environment with VS Code and development containers. You may have used Visual Studio Code for your own projects or tinkered around with the vast number of settings and extensions. But have you thought about how to use it as a teaching tool? Thankfully, Brigit and Sana are here to ...
Continuing our Education IDE series, Kelly and Sean talk with Valentina Kiryushkina, a developer on the PyCharm Edu team to learn all about how JetBrains supports teaching and learning Python. With everything from online courses to creating classroom assignments, we're sure you'll find something to like about PyCharm Edu. Features Free for teachers and learners Online open courses available Create your own courses and assignments Marketplace coming soon Full features of PyCharm, but decluttered ...
This week, Kelly & Sean chat with Barbara Oakley, author of the upcoming books Uncommon Sense Teaching and Learn Like a Pro. Together, we talk about everything from learning Russian to the ways that the brain processes information and how teachers can best help students learn. Barbara Oakley is a professor of engineering, former Russian translater on Soviet fishing trawlers, Antarctic researcher (where she met her husband), author, MOOC creator, and so much more. Kelly and Sean talk to her about...
Kelly and Sean kick off part 1 of their Education IDE series with Nick Tollervey and the Mu Editor, a Python editor for beginners with modes for "pure Python," MicroPython, CircuitPython, PyGame, Flask web apps, and more. About the Education IDE Series The Teaching Python podcast is launching a monthly episode series dedicated to the different IDEs and editors available to teachers. Our goal is to give educators a more detailed view of each editor and the specific features that they can leverage...
In this episode, Sean and Kelly, share a brainstorming activity on designing projects with Python libraries. We have a special guest Mike Driscoll, author of several books and the blog "The Mouse vs The Python". In this episode we will use the Python Library Pillow to brainstorm some creative ways that Pillow can and has been used to teach students about Python Libraries. Coming up with project ideas that are creative, engaging, and allow students the flexibility to explore is one of the most im...
In this episode, Sean and Kelly discuss their top 5 favorite Python libraries, and how they use these libraries in the classroom to reinforce student learning. From the standard library to teaching how to use pip, learn more about our favorite libraries to share with our students. Our lists: Sean Datetime random Matplotlib bullet Kelly Pillow Math Turtle getpass Regex
That's right: we're digging deep into assessments using rubrics. We know what you're thinking, rubrics are BORING and teacher-y. But rubrics are POWERFUL for learning and you can use them outside of the classroom too! According to ASCD “The word rubric comes from the Latin word for red. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary lists the first meaning of rubric as "an authoritative rule" and the fourth meaning as "a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic papers, projects, or...
In this episode, Sean and Kelly speak with Leon Sandøy, one of the owners of Python Discord (https://www.pythondiscord.com) about making connections and community teaching. With the dynamics of teaching changing, how can Python Discord become a space to further educate the Python community? Also this week, we're excited to announce the launch of the new Teaching Python shop (https://shop.teachingpython.fm/), where you can get fun t-shirts, mugs, hoodie sweatshirts, and even some flip flops to sh...
Kelly and Sean take some time to reflect on what has worked well over the past year of teaching, what could be better, and what we hope stays with us once things go back to "The New Normal." Whether it's getting back collaborative whiteboarding, keeping screen sharing over Zoom, or appreciating how much better department meetings can be when we use breakout rooms, join us to talk more about how teaching and coding have jumped ahead during the time of COVID-19. As mentioned by Sean, the wordlist ...
Kelly and Sean try to figure out the role of object-oriented programming in teaching. From how much to focus on objects and methods, to whether it makes sense to teach classes, this is a journey through the opinionated topic of object-oriented thinking.
A grab bag of topics this week with Kelly and Sean. From using NLTK to summarize speeches by civil rights leader Martin Luther King to plotting Parler data from the Capitol incident on Jan 6 to WiFi-enabled washing machines. Kelly and Sean spend the afternoon discussing the things that we've been watching and learning about this week. No guests, no specific topic. Just hang out with us and talk about all things Python, teaching, and learning.
Kelly and Sean team up with Bob Belderbos and Julian Sequeira from @PyBites to answer questions about how our students learn Python using the PyBites platform with small code challenges. In this special crossover episode, we cover everything from how students learn to the way they learn Pytest reporting output to the mindset and chemistry of learning something new. Special Guests: Bob Belderbos and Julian Sequeira.
In this episode, Kelly and Sean dive into the topic of teaching kids to “Figure it out,” a phrase we love to use in class. This year, we seek specific skills that help us teach reluctant learners, techniques for figuring things out, and understanding how different teachers support this skill in their classrooms. In this episode, we ask some of our colleagues to share their experiences on how they as adults solve problems and how they teach their students this critical life long skill. Special Gu...
We get a lot of questions about what parents should buy for their children for the holidays. In this episode, Kelly and Sean list out some of their favorite gifts for the holidays. Episode highlights: Kelly & Sean celebrate two years of the Teaching Python and 183,000 downloads later. Kelly wins with a student that demonstrates year over year improvement in Computer Science. Sean builds a FastAPI and gets a steep learning curve. Kelly gets a birdbrained robot finch.
In this episode, Kelly and Sean talk with Dale Lane an IBM Event Streams Lead Developer. - IBM awarded Dale, the 2018 IBM Volunteer Excellence Award—the highest form of volunteer recognition given by the company—which also earned a USD 10,000 grant from IBM for Solent Youth Action. “Machine learning systems are all around us. We all use, interact with, or are affected by, machine learning systems every day. If our goal is to help children to understand how the world around them works, then under...
Kelly and Sean flip on the voice recording app and record a random Friday afternoon conversation about teaching approaches for computer science. What makes student learning the most effective?
Sean and Kelly invite Eric Matthes, teacher and author of Python Crash Course to discuss student projects in computer science. Eric was with us on Episode 33 (https://www.teachingpython.fm/33) and we ended the episode with discussions about completing projects and programming with purpose. In this episode we discuss finding a project, separating academic and project success criteria, helping student coders find a project, how to deal with failure, and some examples of great projects for learning...
This week's guest is Russell Keith-Magee from the Beeware project. Our conversation this week is about teaching students Python with native desktop applications, mobile, and the web. Plus, why do we have to use the command line? And do coding books from the early 80s hold up in Python? Django core developer and the founder and maintainer of the BeeWare project Former president of the Django Software Foundation BeeWare is a collection of tools and libraries for developing desktop and mobile appli...
Sean and Kelly invite Ali Spittel to talk about how teachers can go beyond their first programming language and help students learn to create more robust projects. If you’ve started with Python, how do you learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to make a front end for a project? Or vice versa? Ali is a Senior Developer Advocate at AWS, the co-host of the Ladybug Podcast, and a frequent tech writer and speaker. She has been employed in the tech industry since 2014, holding multiple software engineering ...
Sean and Kelly invite Jeff Olson (@jolson_codes) to the show. Let’s take a look at language in the Computer Science classroom and focus on how we can put our students first by engaging them in the “right language for their learning.” Special Guest: Jeff Olson.
