General Teaching Tips

How to support your learners

• There are many extra activities for the learners.  They are able to do any extra work at home, bring it to school and then I mark their programs.  There are more than enough time in class to assist learners individually.  While the rest of the class is busy with the next activity, I sit with the learner who brought extra work and explain concepts they do not understand.  Once you have marked the program at home the previous day, it only takes 5 minutes to give the learners feedback.

• Any learner who received below 50% for a test, need to redo the test, on their own, at home.  They bring it to school, print, I mark it and then I give them feedback.  This is the only way that I can determine what a learner is struggling with.

• Before a test I drill the concepts we have done that term, for a week or two by giving them lots of exercises and past papers.  They print their completed code which I mark that afternoon to give them feedback one-on-one the next day.

For the teacher

• Do every matric past paper that you can get your hands on. Link to Past Papers GDE.  This is really the only way that you will understand exactly what is required.

• Set new papers for every test and exam.  You will see how you grow by creating your own tests and exams.  If you do not use your previous year's tests and exams you are able to give them to the learners as revision.

• Install Notepad++ on the computers for the learners to print from.  Add the path to the header of the pages which makes it easier to hand out.  Code that are too long, does not print from Delphi and creates square blocks where the code was.  Notepad++ sorts out this issue. (Link to download available in Resources)

• Install the CNWizard on each computer.  It needs to be installed per user profile on each computer.

Below is an example of a reference found as an appendix at the end of my books.  I have the following categories:

• 1. Rounding

  2. Calculations

  3. Date and Time Functions

  4. String functions and procedures

The headings Arguments and Result helps grade 10's to get used to the terminology that is used when they create their own functions.

• Make sure you keep all learners occupied at all times.  My books contain more activities than there is time for in class to help you keep them busy and extend the strong learners.

• In the data files is a Revision activity that includes questions per section that grade 10 learners can do. The questions are inside the folder. Grade 11 and 12 learners can also benefit from this.

• There are also many questions in matric papers that grade 10 learners can do.  Below is an example of an analysis to indicate which questions learners are able to do in which grade.  It can be found as an appendix in the back of my books which I update every year.