| dc.description.abstract | How can LCT be used in a simple but practical way to improve your pedagogy? This tutorial explores the practical use of LCT Semantics to quickly and simply evaluate and improve lesson plans. LCT is a very conceptually abstract subject with dense terminology and as such can be difficult for novices to immediately see how to use in practice. However, beneath those terminological and conceptual barriers LCT is both very powerful and can be conceptually simple to use. The aim of this tutorial will be to demonstrate a very simple way LCT Semantics can be used (in particular, heuristic semantic profiles), presented using the fun and accessible setting of a magic show to teach STEM, and particularly computing, concepts. The session is based in part on a professional development workshop we have run for UK computing teachers to introduce LCT semantics, and particularly semantic profiles and semantic waves, as a practical tool they can easily use. The underlying magic activities are based on ‘Magic of Computer Science’ workshops that we regularly run for school children (primary and secondary) using conjuring to teach computation (and vice versa), and the related book ‘Conjuring with Computation’. We will give an introduction to LCT semantics. This will focus on how to create a coarse-grained semantic profile of a lesson plan, together with the heuristic method using a set of simple questions we use to evaluate and so improve such lesson plans. Participants will apply the heuristic method to activities we do with school children, drawing semantic profiles of those activities. As the focus of this semantic profiling, we will perform simple magic tricks as a way to introduce computing concepts. Participants will plot the profiles of these activities and discuss how the profiles might be improved, as well as the extent to which the method does help one to easily improve lesson plans. | en_US |
