Sawyers Building
0845 196 3519
sue.sentance@anglia.ac.uk

Qualifications & Memberships

• PhD
• MA (Dist)
• MSc
• MA (Hons)
• PGCE

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Computing At School Working Member
• Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors
• British Educational Research Association member
• Information Technology in Teacher Education member

Courses

• Subject Leader PGCE ICT and Computer Science
• Seminar tutor - Specialist Key Issues
• CPD courses in teaching Computer Science

Career Outline

Sue is a working member of the Computing At School group and is enthusiastic about incorporating Computing into teaching at KS3 and KS4. She runs a number of CPD courses for ICT teachers who wish to be able to introduce Computing or Computer Science in their schools. This includes:

• Teaching Computer Science to KS4 with Python (10-week course)
• Teaching Computing to KS3 (8-week course)
• Advanced Python Schools Workshops (August, Oct, Dec and Feb) ? funded by Google Computer Science for High Schools.
• Python Summer School (5-day summer school)

All the materials for these courses are available on the Python School website and many teachers are also using these materials online.

Sue is also working for Microsoft Research two days a week on a project involving trialling the Gadgeteer tool in local secondary schools. This includes developing materials, evaluating the nature of students' engagement with .NET Gadgeteer and liaison with local schools. She is running a series of CPD courses for teachers which are being provided by AQA for any teachers at KS4/KS5 wishing to introduce .NET Gadgeteer into their curriculum.

Sue has recently been awarded two Learning and Teaching Project awards to develop mobile applications to support PGCE students with their academic work whilst on placement, and also a tracking system to monitor trainees progress. She has been involved with piloting e-portfolios in the PGCE ICT course, and was part of an Escalate-funded project with Debbie Holley and Claire Bradley on a project involving the use of SMS messages to enhance academic progress.

Sue co-runs the Essex Computing At School Hub which meets termly and also gives workshops and talks on the use of .NET Gadgeteer across the UK.

Sue took up her post at Anglia Ruskin University in September 2010. She has eleven years teaching experience teaching ICT and Computing in secondary schools and a sixth form college. Her most recent position prior to joining Anglia Ruskin was as Computing Course Team Leader at a sixth form college in Cambridge. During this time she obtained an MA in Educational Leadership and Innovation from the University of Warwick and a Postgraduate Certificate in Subject Learning Coaching from Oxford Brookes University. Her MA dissertation was entitled "Why some sixth form students struggle with Computing: an action research investigation".

Other posts Sue has held include being an e-tutor for LSN supporting other teachers training to be subject learning coaches and a Lead Diploma Practitioner and Trainer for SSAT, helping teachers and schools prepare for the new 14-19 Diploma in IT. She was involved in the authoring of materials for the Diploma and also electronic materials to support A-Level Computing. In addition, Sue examined Computing A-Level for 11 years for AQA.

Sue also holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh which she obtained in 1993. Prior to training as a teacher, she worked in several posts in teaching and research in the area of Computer-Based Learning at Heriot-Watt University, Huddersfield University and the University of Cambridge.

Research Interest

• Computer Science education in schools
• Models of CPD for Computer Science Education
• Gadget-building and .NET Gadgeteer

Selected Publications

Sentance, S. and Schwiderski-Grosche, S. (2012). Challenge and Creativity: Students' experiences of .NET Gadgeteer. Proceedings of the Workshop for Primary and Secondary Computing Education, Hamburg, November 8/9th

Sentance, S., Dorling,M., McNicol, A. and Crick, T( 2012). Grand challenges for the UK : Upskilling teachers to teach Computer Science within the Secondary curriculum. Proceedings of the Workshop for Primary and Secondary Computing Education, Hamburg, November 8/9th

Schulte, C.,Dagiene, V., Eckerdal, A., Hornung, M., Jevsikova, T., Peters, A., Sentance, S and Thota, N. (2012). Computer Science at School / CS Teacher Education - Koli Working-group report on CS at School. Proceedings of the 12th Koli Calling International Conference in Computing Education. November 15/18th Joensuu, Finland.

Schulte, C., Dagiene, V., Jevsikova, T., Sentance, S and Thota, N. (Submitted). A comparison of current trends in Computer Science education in school. ISSEP 2013. 6th international conference on Informatics in School, Oldenburg, Germany.

Hodges, S., Scott, S., Sentance, S., Johnston, S., and Schwiderski-Grosche, S. (Submitted).NET Gadgeteer: The design and experiences of a new platform for K-12 computer science education . SIGCSE 2013. Proceedings of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education)

Brown, N., Kolling, M, Crick, T,. Peyton-Jones, S., Humphreys, S. and Sentance, S. (Submitted) Bringing Computing Back Into Schools: Lessons from the UK. Submitted to SIGCSE 2013. Proceedings of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education

Sentance, S. (2011). Learning from students: issues in computing education for 16-18 year olds. Proceedings of the 11th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research, November 17 - 20, 2011 .

Crick, T and Sentance, S (2011). Computing At School: Stimulating Computing Education in the UK. Proceedings of the 11th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research, November 17 - 20, 2011. Available in ACM Digital Library.

Sentance, S. (2005) Encouraging girls to study Computing at A-Level, 6th International Women into Computing conference, 14 - 16 July 2005, Greenwich, UK.