The Rest Is Teaching: A Podcast for Computing Education Practitioners & Researchers

Science is a broad church, full of narrow minds, trained to know ever more about even less. That’s according to biologist Steve Jones, but in Computing Education Research (CER) are we being too narrow-minded about what counts (and what doesn’t count) as a contribution? We spoke to Steve Draper and Joseph Maguire at the University of Glasgow about their paper The different types of contributions to knowledge (in CER): All needed, but not all recognised published in the ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE). The overall aim of this paper is to stimulate discussion about the activities within CER, and to develop a more thoughtful and explicit perspective on the different types of research activity within CER, and their relationships with each other. While theories may be the most valuable outputs of research to those wishing to apply them, for researchers themselves there are other kinds of contribution important to progress in the field. This is what relates it to the immediate subject of this special journal issue on theory in CER. We adopt as our criterion for value “contribution to knowledge”. This paper’s main contributions are: A set of 12 categories of contribution which together indicate the extent of this terrain of contributions to research. Leading into that is a collection of ideas and misconceptions which are drawn on in defining and motivating “ground rules”, which are hints and guidance on the need for various often neglected categories. These are also helpful in justifying some additional categories which make the set as a whole more useful in combination. These are followed by some suggested uses for the categories, and a discussion assessing how the success of the paper might be judged. A full transcript and show notes can be found at uki-sigcse.acm.org/2025/09/08/episode-4

Join Suzanne Matthews, an associate professor at West Point, Tia Newhall, a computer science professor at Swarthmore, and Kevin C. Webb, a fellow instructor, as they dive into their groundbreaking open-access textbook, Dive into Systems. They discuss the motivations behind creating a free resource for computer systems education and the challenges of developing interactive tools and modular content. Highlights include using real-world security vulnerabilities to teach fundamental concepts and the growing impact of online resources in academia.

Computing is widely taught in schools in the UK and Ireland, but how does the subject vary across primary and secondary education in Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland? We spoke to Sue Sentance, at the University of Cambridge about her paper Computing in School in the UK & Ireland: A Comparative Study co-authored with Diana Kirby, Keith Quille, Elizabeth Cole, Tom Crick and Nicola Looker. This was published in the Proceedings of the UK Conference on United Kingdom & Ireland Computing Education UKICER. From the abstract: Many countries have increased their focus on computing in primary and secondary education in recent years and the UK and Ireland are no exception. The four nations of the UK have distinct and separate education systems, with England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland offering different national curricula, qualifications, and teacher education opportunities; this is the same for the Republic of Ireland. This paper describes computing education in these five jurisdictions and reports on the results of a survey conducted with computing teachers. A validated instrument was localised and used for this study, with 512 completed responses received from teachers across all five countries The results demonstrate distinct differences in the experiences of the computing teachers surveyed that align with the policy and provision for computing education in the UK and Ireland. This paper increases our understanding of the differences in computing education provision in schools across the UK and Ireland, and will be relevant to all those working to understand policy around computing education in school. Show notes and transcript for this podcast can be found at uki-sigcse.acm.org/2025/09/03/episode-1

Quintin Cutts, a professor at the University of Glasgow, dives into the complexities of code comprehension and learning in programming education. He discusses his research on modeling code as a powerful educational tool, citing a three-aspect framework: text surface, functional, and machine. Quintin shares practical teaching strategies, the challenges students face, and how generative AI tools shift the focus from writing to truly understanding code. His insights reveal the essential need for comprehension in the evolving landscape of programming education.

In this discussion, Rosanne English, a Senior Teaching Fellow in Computer and Information Sciences, delves into the essential transferable skills that computing graduates need. She shares insights from her research analyzing graduate attributes of Russell Group universities, revealing a significant gap in skills such as teamwork and critical thinking. Rosanne argues for embedding these skills into the curriculum and emphasizes the importance of global citizenship in modern education. She also highlights creative ways to teach these skills, including practical assessments and real-world examples.

Welcome to The Rest is Teaching, a podcast for computing education researchers and practitioners. In this podcast we'll meet people who are changing the way we teach Computer Science from school through to University and beyond. What is Computer Science anyway? Why should people learn it and how can we improve the way it is taught? My name is Duncan, I'm your host and we'll meet people who are tackling these important issues as they teach the next generation. What is their teaching practice and research? Why is it important and how can their insights be useful to other people teaching computing in any areas of education and at any level. Listen or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or go to https://uki-sigcse.acm.org. This podcast has been supported by funding from the Council of Professors and Heads of Computing. https://cphc.ac.uk